Essay On The Handmaid's Tale

Through the creation of different characteristics of female characters – ones who are submissive yet rebellious, and like to take advantage of their power - Margaret Atwood portray themes of love, theocracy, rebellion, and gender roles. To begin with, the Handmaids are unfortunate women whose existence depends on their fertility. They lose all of their personal possessions, families, memories, and finally identities. They are renamed according to their relation to men and they must wear the same uniform, as they are objects

In the end all the methods used to protect women only reinforced the discrimination, and Handmaids are depicted as baby machines. All this class struggle leads to one answer, in this society freedom is all about what you are forced to achieve to serve the nation. Individuals do not settle their objectives, but the government that force them to accomplish them because they are morally correct. Women are expected to do their job, their “uses”, since it is for the wealth of the

How hard does a woman’s life have to be that she wouldn’t even want to look at her body. Not because she doesn’t like it, but because it makes her lose her identity and value because the environment in which she lives classified her as something she doesn’t want to be just because of her body. In the book “The Handmaid’s Tale” the author, Margaret Atwood portrays women in a futuristic society that in a way revolves around women. Not the feminist way that women would want however, but these women are told and obligated to be happy for what they have. The society the book is written in see women as property even though they have an important role in this book.

A Definition of Justice Equality is the well-known problem faced by women. It is the issue of how women have been treated differently from men who act as if they have a higher social position. Besides the equality issue, there is another problem faced by many women: mental abuse at home. The husbands are not literally abuse their wife, but how they act have made their wives live in agony. Subsequently, when the women as the oppressed party who have been treated unequally cannot demand such abuse to be punished since it is not written in man’s law, they will seek their own justice.

It is narrated by the protagonist, Offred who is a handmaid forced into sexual servitude. Facing a plunging birth rate, the fundamentalist regime treats women as property of the state. Handmaids are the few of the remaining fertile women and their sole purpose is to help the government into re-populating their society, where a lot of people are left sterile. The Handmaid’s Tale deals with the theme of women in subjugation to misogyny in a patriarchal society, primarily. It shows the struggle that women have to go through in that society, as a Handmaid or as not being able to be one.

In “Pushing Back the Boundaries,” we saw how Dori, a victim of domestic violence seeking protection, experience three different layers that prevented her from filing a report and handling her abuser. The language barrier caused the officer to give his own version of Dori’s case. The fact that Dori was indigenous also played a big role. She was seen down upon from her male officer. Because the officer was of a higher status, literate and male, he was “mestizised” and had more power over here and used it to her disadvantage.

“Consider the alternatives, said Aunt Lydia. You see what things used to be like? That was what they thought of women, then. Her voice trembled with indignation” (Atwood 118). The Aunts tried to scare the Handmaids into believing that because there were no rules to set women straight and no barriers with men, women were treated like gum under a shoe.

In both novels the double standards in society are notable, as women always take the blame and were punished for the same actions that men partook in regularly. Both authors cleverly expose the hypocrisy and double standards in society through the portrayal of their female protagonists. In Hardy’s novel, the double standards of society greatly affect Tess’s life experience. Tess was expected to work, marry, and support her family as she was the eldest daughter. When she was a young virgin girl, she is seen as desirable by men and society.

However, it is not healthy and happy when they try to change their actual body. Women liked to compare with others, so they really concern about the comment of other people (J.A. McMullin, J. Cairney, 2004). Women self-efficacy is related to the others feelings. They are more passive on their role.

This aligns with McClintock’s reading. It confirms the idea that they do not believe women back in the day had the ability to control their own body. People with more power or control would make women labor slaves and use the women’s sexuality to benefit them. However, Sangers reading also talks about motherhood and choosing to become pregnant or getting pregnant against their will. This shows that some women had power over their own sexuality and got to express it freely.