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Perceptions In The Handmaids Tale

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Perceptions of Society Living in a society filled with standards, restrictions and ideals, yet we pertain this idea that our world is worthy. Worthy of the sacrifices women make. Worthy of the limits homosexuals follow. Worthy of the lives being controlled. Our world has experienced these perceptions through the past and the present, but will it advance through the future? In the novel The Handmaid 's Tale by Margaret Atwood, an idea of the future is shown through a dystopian society in which women are solely used for their ability to procreate as they are to please men. Men, needless to say, also have some restrictions they have to comply with, but in this dystopian society, as one would expect, women have it the worst. Yet people are …show more content…

Restrictions are left in the lives of those who decide to follow them. Offred made a choice and it was to accept the Gilead Society. But that does not mean she does not have hopes and dreams of what could be. Offred as she is with Nick, a Guardian, contemplates about Luke, her ex, “I ought to have done that with Luke, paid more attention, to the details, the moles and scars, the singular creases; I didn 't and he 's fading. Day by day, night by night he recedes, and I become more faithless” (269). The role of belonging to another man is what is keeping Offred from ever having an opportunity to pursue a life by the side of who she loves. And not being able to, is what is holding her back as her memories consume her. For instance, the first time Offred and Nick were intimate, she felt guilty and ashamed because of Luke. The narrator says, “And I thought afterwards: this is a betrayal. Not the thing itself but my own response. If I knew for certain he 's dead, would that make a difference?... I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was” (263). Every decision she makes when she has the opportunity to make, end up being relied extremely in those who were part of her life. And in doing so, Offred ultimately always will have a weight in her shoulders, a weight she put upon herself that she

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He even thinks while in the golden country with Julia “There was a direct, intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy.” (133). His newfound identity, gained from his relationship with Julia is clearly expressed and senses of this is also found in Offred's situation with Nick. Since Offred's past husband, Luke, is presumed to be dead or gone in some form, Offred has no emotional connections towards anyone actively in her life.

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