Preview

Social Injustice In The Handmaid's Tale

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
449 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Social Injustice In The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, fixates on the social injustices against women, the use of an overpowering rigid social caste system and the inescapable rise of a dominating Puritan right wing, the idea of social justice is skewed to the point of inequality. Atwood takes real world examples and exaggerates them by taking every aspect of right wing and left wing ideals to the extreme. She inherently provides a satirical view on the state of society by magnifying what is supposedly sinful and intensifying its consequences. As such, much of Atwood’s experiences with both the right and left wing are reflected in the novel.
Atwood published the book in 1985 in Canada. Around this period, there was a surge of right-wing idealists

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Offred lived a normal, American life when all of the sudden, her family was taken from her so she could go have somebody else’s baby. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a woman’s tale of her life, her story, and her struggles in a new society and how she got there. This story by Margaret Atwood tells the life of Offred, a handmaid for a wealthy couple and her daily struggles trying to adapt to her new world. Offred tells how she makes deals with her Commander and his Wife with hope of getting out and how that changes her life. The progress in this book is not as one would probably describe progress, but it is as follows: the government and society had to make major changes in order to bring about the new system and laws, Gilead is thinking of and executing ways to raise the birthrate in their country, and handmaids and women in general are protected at all costs.…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The feelings of the ladies in Gilead is parallel to the emotions of the females in the 1960s and ‘70s. Both report to a male “guardian” who have no legal right to property or money. Also, in each society, it is difficult or forbidden for women to hold an occupation. By creating a realm of female suffrage in The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood was able to criticize the social issues of anti-feminist viewpoints that she witnessed growing up. Although women have more liberties today, the message of The Handmaid’s Tale should not be forgotten- no gender alone can run the…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The issue that has been persistent for as long as one can remember is Misogyny in the society. The belief that women are inferior to men has been contaminating the human mind. The issue can be commonly seen in the society in form of domestic abuse, violence, objectification in name of advertisements, and especially in the music industry where the lyrics are filled with hateful messages towards women. Even though the governing laws consider men and women as equal, but the mistreatment of women continues to be the headline of every newspaper.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood are two significant pieces of literature that, when read together, have many identifiable similarities. One similarity between the two novels is the motif of the suppression of power among women. Throughout Pride and Prejudice and The Handmaid’s Tale, the men within these novels suppress the power of women through the abolition of a woman's ability to possess anything physical or to move upward in class.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Despite Congress representation being increased to an all-time high in the 2012 election, women represent only 18.5 percent of Congress. While feminism has brought forward more power than imaginable for women, men still have more power over the daily lives of women than possible. Although women’s rights laws have dramatically increased in the past few decades, especially in third-world countries, generally men still possess nearly all of the political and governing power. While the Wives of the Commanders have power over the household and all its residents, excluding the Commander, in The Handmaid’s Tale, offering women remnants of power do not conceal the real deal: Men have dominion over women.…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fertile women are the key for a thriving country. In the book, Handmaid’s Tale there is a country named Gilead that was born after the destruction of the United States. Within the Gilead, there is a strong totalitarian government where the people do not have the freedom to think their own thoughts. Gilead is a biblical term for “hill of testimony”. Religion plays a big part on how Gilead controls their government. The women of Gilead no longer have control over themselves, as the government dictates their thoughts, beliefs, and actions, despite the fact that the government claims to do it for their benefit.…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “It would appear brother that we will not be able to give Charles a proper funeral,” Cynthia sadly said. “That doesn't matter Cynthia we will keep his memory alive once we kill that horrid family we will build an army and take over this world,” Richard said. With their home gone Cynthia and Richard start making their way to a nearby village that they know would offer them shelter for at least the night.…

    • 74 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The wall used to be a university that the Gilead has turned into a prison.Inside the prison, secret police or as they are ranked, the Eyes of God, run the facility. For the first time, we see the true violence of the Gilead government.In the form of this wall, the government eliminates life and the hope for which to create another one. The wall is set in place to be as a reminder to anyone who thinks of rebelling. On the wall there are men who “hang by their necks” to set as an example for others (Atwood 32). These men or dissidents have been executed to show the punishment for heresy.The purpose of them hanging on the wall is for everyone to see “We're supposed to look” (Atwood 32). Doctor’s had “human fetus” drawing place on them to tell…

    • 184 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    People with younger siblings or kids will understand the above statement because they are curious and energetic beings who want to explore and know everything. This can also be seen in various individuals as well. It is important to teach a person, what is good and what is bad, at an early age as this would help in shaping the person’s future. In Margaret Atwood’s “the Handmaids Tale”, certain individuals in a dystopian society go against the government’s rules. The government of Gilead is a theocratic government that removes the rights from the women and creates a strict caste system. The residents in Gilead are supposed to follow the rules or else they would…

    • 1920 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To begin, the author of this influential novel, The Handmaid's Tale, is Margaret Atwood, who was born in Ottawa, Ontario on November 18, 1939. Throughout her years of being a writer, she has published many important pieces of literatures such as her first book of poetry in 1961, The Edible Woman (1969), and The Handmaid's Tale (1986). Also, she has attended and received degrees at University of Toronto, as well as Harvard University. Moving on, The Handmaid's novel was written in West Berlin an Alabama during the mid-1980 and was published in 1986, as mentioned before. With this in mind, this story takes place in Cambridge, specifically the Harvard area, outside Boston. Since, this dystopian novel is based on the idea of a corrupt world, the…

    • 193 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Handmaids Tale

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a post Cold War society plagued by infertility. Atwood presents the reader with “The Republic of Gilead”, the Christian theocracy that overthrew the United States government. Narrated by a woman renamed Offred, the reader gets an idea of a future in which women are no longer women, but are solely needed for reproduction. Atwood uses a system of vocabulary established under the Republic of Gilead in order to manipulate and dehumanize women and men throughout the text.…

    • 1103 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Atwood combines the use of literary techniques and form in her novel The Handmaid's Tale to effectively display two main thematic concerns - rebellion and the place of an individual. Offred's first evening with the Commander is one in which these two thematic concerns are exceptionally prevalent.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Imagine a world where it is no longer possible to procreate, in which citizens are forced to come to terms with the demise of humanity. This horrifying possibility becomes a reality in the dystopian worlds of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and the film, Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuaron. A decline in birth rates in the Republic of Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale and the infertility crisis in the United Kingdom in Children of Men lead the two nations to become xenophobic. Additionally, the infertility prompts a war for resources resulting in the nations development of an extreme hierarchy. Furthermore, the states resort to totalitarianism to maintain some facade of control in their lives, which was lost with the ability of reproduction. Despite the outward…

    • 2056 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert Langdon had awoken to a start. This was better than the previous two days of sleep he had avoided. He had dreamt for the first time in days. Confused, he sat up looking at the light trying to make its way through the blinds, Was it dusk or dawn? he thought.…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, is an eerie example of a “dystopian” novel. A dystopian novel portrays a terrifying picture of a world which makes the reader say, “what if?” Atwood wrote the novel in the 1980’s following the free-spirited, fun-loving period of the 60’s and 70’s. The plot, characters, themes, symbolism and setting of the novel display a picture of what the future world could be like if women’s rights were completely removed.…

    • 1585 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays