The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is a frighteningly credible, if somewhat tongue-in-cheek, novel of a possible future America. Replete with biblical references and peppered with traumatic glimpses of the underlying cruelty of the despotic regime of Gilead, the novel presents the effect of the utter subjugation of women on one victim, known only to the reader as Offred (indicating that she is the Handmaid of "Fred," whom she calls the Commander). While Atwood's style and her choice of setting place the novel in the genre of science fiction, The Handmaid's Tale is more effective as a satirical and pseudo-prophetic novel of dystopia, in the vein of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Like the authors of those novels, who, like Atwood, chose a potential future centered around an omnipresent and repressive government, Atwood incorporates grim derivations of some of the more disturbing governmental trends of this century with the personal experiences of those caught in the grasp of dehumanized autocracy. Examples which come to mind include the increasing pressure to abolish the Constitutional barrier between church and state, the recent failure of the women's movement to establish legally mand
It is easily conceivable that Ofglen was arrested and either sent to the Colonies or executed. The long hours of boredom, the loathsome ritual of coupling with her master, the lack of social interaction with others save for a shopping partner, and the justified paranoia of being caught or framed for some illegal activity, all persistently threaten her individuality. Luke's fate is particularly ironic because during the initial stages of the Gilead government, when women were forced out of their jobs and cut off from their access to currency, his attitude was on the border of being smug; he certainly seemed amenable to the idea of being the breadwinner, the "man of the house" taking care of his woman and child. Her greatest challenge throughout the novel is to maintain a sense of self-identity. My reaction to this novel is one of trepidation. Her ability to convince Offred of her status as dissident could as easily be a ruse as it could be the truth. Throughout the novel, Offred is able to make choices for individuality in spite of the tremendous risks she faces. Offred's husband Luke, the father of her child before Gilead's assumption of power, is either shot dead or arrested during their attempted escape into Canada several years earlier. While the misuse of women certainly takes center stage, the callous and self-righteous movement behind the rise of Gilead clearly brutalizes both sexes. Stripped of her increasingly limited autonomy by the fact that she married a divorcee, bore a child with him, and then attempted to escape Gilead illegally, Offred is consigned to the role of a Handmaiden, the concept of which is taken from the biblical myth of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel. Gilead employs a great variety of means to keep track of possible dissidents within the population. The convict's pleas of innocence are immediately drowned out by the angry fervor of the women, for whom the Salvaging has come to mean a purgative outlet from the realization of their subjugation as breeders. These are the obstacles Offred must face, in addition to the jealousy and envy of other women (Handmaids have access to plenty of food to keep them reproductively viable; the wives resent the necessity for Handmaids because they are either barren or past childbearing years. Offred and Ofglen several times see the executed bodies of "criminals" displayed on the wall as a warning to the population. When Offred later questions her, Ofglen quickly quiets her with a warning about who might be listening, but tells her that the man was a member of the underground resistance movement and was innocent of the rape charges.
Common topics in this essay:
Women's Salvagings,
Blacks Jews,
Brave World,
Handmaid's Tale,
Eyes Gilead,
Granted Tale,
Nor Offred,
Offred Ofglen,
Aunt Lydia,
Ofglen Offred's,
handmaid's tale,
eventually escapes freedom,
unable conceive,
eventually escapes,
sent colonies,
attempted escape,
escapes freedom,
setting novel,
throughout novel,
risk punishment,
aunt lydia,
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Acceptance Essays
