The Handmaids Tale As A Feminist Novel Essay - 1536 Words

Governments can rise and fall overnight and change can happen in the blink of an eye, nothing lasts forever. Margaret Atwood learned this from living through WWII and the Cold War. When writing her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, she used real events and laws that had previously occurred in history. The Republic of Gilead is a dystopian society where contraceptives, syphilis, AIDS, pollution, nuclear plant accidents, chemical and biological warfare, and poor toxic waste disposal caused infertility which lead to a shrinkage in population. Gilead is based on seventeenth century puritan roots and is run by conservative religious extremists, who believe men should be the ones in power and woman should be oppressed and enslaved, and are only of†¦show more content†¦The handmaids are only there to help the commanders and their wives as said by Offred, â€Å"We are for breeding purposes: we aren’t concubines, geisha girls, courtesans. On the contrary: everything possible has been done to remove us from that category. There is supposed to be nothing entertaining about us, no room is to be permitted for the flowering of secret lusts; no special favors are to be wheedled, by them or us, there are to be no toeholds for love. We are two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices† (Atwood 136). Marthas are the ones who do the house hold chores and are helped sometimes by the handmaids. The Aunts are true believers and are responsible for the teachings and brainwashing of the recently captured women brought to Gilead. They are charged with molding women and forcing them to conform to their ways through mental and physical abuse so they do not rebel or run away. They make women think so poorly of themselves that they resign themselves to their fate as a handmaid, and even make them believe that the situation they are in is their own fault. One of the Aunts states this to the women in the Red Center, â€Å"This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary† (Atwood 33). They are willing to go to extremes in Gilead to make sure their ways are followed. Next, the narrator in any story is very important as it is in their point of view thatShow MoreRelatedEssay on Feminist Ideas in Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale1199 Words   |  5 PagesFeminist Ideas in Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale For this essay, we focused strictly on critics reactions to Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale. For the most part, we found two separate opinions about The Handmaids Tale, concerning feminism. One opinion is that it is a feminist novel, and the opposing opinion that it is not. Feminism: A doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men as recorded in Websters Dictionary. 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