ipl-logo

Theocratic Dictatorship In Margret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale

1096 Words5 Pages

Theocratic Dictatorship in Gilead Republic Dictatorship is a governmental system in which a person or a group of people use power to make decisions without considering others’ views and believes. Margret Atwood, the writer of The Handmaids Tale expresses some obvious issues that women are going through around the world in her novels. One of her fictional creation is the Gilead Republic. She wants us imagine that Gilead replaces US in future. Additionally, women suffer from the lack of equality in this community. Gilead uses Christianity as a way to convince women that this republic is formed to protect women from rape and violence that existed before. What makes this dystopian society different from the others is that it supposes men are fertile and some women are not due to the pollution and radiation sickness. Furthermore, a class of hierarchy comes to existence in this republic. Main classes that the story covers are the Handmaids, Aunts, Commanders, and the Wives. Moreover, Handmaids are supposed to have emotionless sex with the Commanders. This is only for providing children for the society. Offred is a main character and a Handmaid in the novel. She is telling her story and demonstrating how Gilead is using a horrific way of ruling and enforcing state laws. Therefore, Gilead Republic is a dictatorship society due to the lack of freedom and education that it provides for its community. Also, the government is using execution as a way to scare the citizens so as not to

Show More
Related

  • Symbolism In How To Read Literature Like A Professor

    643 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protected in Gilead, where they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence. However, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it. An example is Jezebel’s, the club that provides the Commanders with prostitutes to service the male elite. Another example is the Ceremony that compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. Foster suggests, “...sex can be pleasure, sacrifice, submission, rebellion, resignation, supplication, domination, enlightenment, the whole works” (158).

    Read More

  • Control In The Handmaids Tale

    971 Words  | 4 Pages

    In The Handmaid’s Tale, the effects of suspicion on a society, on handmaid’s, are clearly visible; it can also be seen that the government’s method of control leads to the creation of a dystopia. The Handmaid’s Tale proves that a society built on fear and shaped by suspicion achieves near total control of the population by the ruling class, the government of Gilead in this case. In chapter 42, Aunt Lydia describes how they will no longer announce the crimes that the prisoners have committed at the Salvagings. Once Offred learns this she states, “Now we are left to our own devices, speculation” (Atwood 275). Therefore, through Offered, the reader is able to see how the handmaid 's will now have suspicions of what the prisoners did to get hanged, since they are no longer being told.

    Read More

  • The Hunger Games Vs Handmaid's Tale Essay

    480 Words  | 2 Pages

    However, Atwood depicts the Republic of Gilead in “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Both “The Hunger Games” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” are dystopian novels that have many similarities, however they have some differences. Collins’ and Atwood’s novels hold similarities in their ideas of societal categories, identification of these sections, constant surveillance, and public punishments. In both societies, the citizens are split into groups. In Panem, there were 13 districts and in Gilead, there were many categories of men and women.

    Read More

  • Femininity In The Handmaid's Tale

    1008 Words  | 5 Pages

    According to Alanna A. Callaway, Gilead’s entire power structure relies on the disunity of women. Although Gilead’s system oppresses women, it is the few women in power that make the caste system dangerous for Handmaids. The patriarchal power structure of Gilead needs women to regulate each other, suggesting that gynocentric misogyny, or women hating women, is far more dangerous than traditional misogyny (Callaway 2008). This being said, the genuine threat in Gilead is not from the men in power, but the

    Read More

  • Examples Of Satire In The Handmaid's Tale

    1472 Words  | 6 Pages

    Atwood connects the political events to show how Gilead gained control and keeps their control by establishing fear into the women. Gilead stays in control by limiting speech to religious references, keeping the women from talking about the oppression they are suffering. Additionally, women are blamed for the social issues that were present in a pre-Gilead society such as rape, abortion and adultery. Women get the blame for the issues and men do not suffer consequences since it is in their nature to cheat. Atwood uses allusions to the Old Testament and historical events to satirize the oppression of women in political, religious and social

    Read More

  • Theme Of Conformity In The Handmaid's Tale

    856 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the factors used by the characters in the two novels for their survival is conformity. An example of conformity that plays an important role in the two novels is clothing. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the classifications of each individual are conformed by different clothing. The Handmaids wear red dresses, Marthas wear green, Wives wear blue, Ecowives wear stripes dresses of the three colours, and Commanders and the Angels wear black clothing. According to Offred from The Handmaid's Tale, “The wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen” (Atwood 9).

    Read More

  • Power And Power In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    1587 Words  | 7 Pages

    “Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.”- William Gaddis. People take advantage of power when it is entrusted to them because of their own greed, which as a result lead to societal deterioration. In the story, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, the higher-ups from Gilead abuse the power that is given to them, ruining the life of the citizens in the society. This was the cause for the need of higher birth rates and fixing conflicts in the world, but this was handled immorally.

    Read More

  • Role Of Religion In The Handmaid's Tale

    1837 Words  | 8 Pages

    The most important, is the state itself. In the Old Testament, Gilead is a very fertile and therefore very desirable region in ancient Palestine. Atwood’s Gilead is the opposite of fertile but instead is an attempt to show how the government is clean and pure. (https://prezi.com/tmthv7awuphd/religion-as-social-control-in-the-handmaids-tale) Men are called ‘commanders of the faithful’ and are also referred to as the ‘eyes of the lord’(Atwood)

    Read More

  • Theme Of Marxism In The Handmaid's Tale

    2035 Words  | 9 Pages

    Works of literature often portray ideas relating to Marxist theory, this is why in a dystopian society, class distinctions dominate the social climate, using Marxist ideologies as a tool to define the lives of the narrator and those around her. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, ideologies from Marxist theory dominate the society in which Offred, the narrator, lives in, evidenced by the strict class systems and limited interaction between them. In writing the novel, Atwood makes a point to create a world that could exist using technology and ideas already accessible in today’s society, meaning the events that take place in The Handmaid’s Tale could happen in present day. Offred lives in a reality where class distinctions dominate society, and women, especially fertile women. These women are displaced downwards, although there are those women who attempt to resist the grip of society.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale

    1035 Words  | 5 Pages

    This year is the 30th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Atwood 's dystopian classic, The Handmaid 's Tale. The novel is told from a first person account of a young woman, Offred. In an age of declining births, she is forced to become a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, the imagined future in the United States. The Handmaids are to provide children by the substitution of infertile women of a higher social status. 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.

    Read More

  • Rebellion In The Handmaid's Tale

    801 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are two ways people will react to when their freedom is taken away. They will either accept it or rebel against it, which is what a lot of the female characters in Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale accomplished. Shown through Offred’s repetition of certain events, Moira’s tone of being a fighter, and Serena Joy’s desperation, the reader can see that lack of freedom leads to rebellion. Offred, the novel’s narrator, now lives in a world where women are powerless. She has had her freedom taken away, and at times follows the rules, but ends up rebelling in many powerful ways.

    Read More

  • Oppression Of Women In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    996 Words  | 4 Pages

    Handmaid’s whom are the fertile women in the Gilead society, are stripped from all freedom and rights, banned from knowing any form of literature and have to be submissive to men, allowing their bodies to be sexually used to produce children. In contrast, women who are not fertile such as Wives have their freedom taken away too as they are confined to doing assigned jobs around the house. In contrast, the Aunts and the Commanders are shown to have the highest rankings in the Gileadean society. They are powerful figures, with privileges such as the Aunts being allowed to read and write and the Commanders being permitted to get married and have a handmaid's assigned to

    Read More

  • Totalitarianism In The Handmaid's Tale

    1251 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Handmaid 's Tale is one of Margaret Atwood most famous novels written during the spring of 1984, when the Berlin wall was still standing. Atwood creates a dystopia, which mostly consists of gender gap and oppression. The Handmaid 's Tale effectively portrays the United States as the modern-day totalitarian society of Gilead, which was illustrated as perfect by using the book of Genesis. Although the authors ideas are inherently and completely fictional, several concepts throughout his book have common links to the past and present society which the author herself calls a speculative fiction. The author uses a totalitarian system which includes aspects of Soviet system, to describe, deprivation, repression and terror with the use of

    Read More

  • Comparison Of Feminism In The Handmaid's Tale By Virginia Woolf

    1141 Words  | 5 Pages

    In this frightening society, women are not allowed to speak freely, therefore, the handmaids learn how to lip-read, and to whisper at one another while they are at the Red Center (where handmaids are trained for their mission), as their only way to communicate with another person, and to maintain even a minimum of human contact in a society that has amputated their ability to feel as a normal human being. Even though this is pure fiction, sadly some common threads between Gilead and our society can be found. For instance, in some South Asian countries, women’s rights are non-existent, they are treated

    Read More

  • Handmaid's Tale Literary Analysis

    857 Words  | 4 Pages

    These texts demonstrate the societal issues involving oppression of women, women’s sexual role and their status. The Handmaid’s Tale depicts the rigid societal structure whereby women are forced to serve in various aspects and functions in the society. The boundaries of the context set are in Gilead, a totalitarian state dominated by Christian fundamentalists, indicating that Gilead enforces conformity among its citizens. In a simply put manner, one’s social position is fixed. The permanent social statuses are clearly evident from the colour-coding of the women wherein “some [are] in red, some in dull green of

    Read More

More about Theocratic Dictatorship In Margret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale

Open Document