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Symbols In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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Symbols In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood
How would you feel if you were forced into a control society, everything stripped from you and forced to have sex in order to survive. In many countries women are penalized just for being women. Women are often treated as objects instead of being treated as human being. In the novel handmaids tale Margaret Atwood depicts the inequality and disrespect that women are forced to suffer through, through the use of symbols. In the handmaids tale by Margaret Atwood the citizens of the totalitarians regime project their traumatic experiences onto symbols
Feminine symbols are shown through food and items. The females in the book, especially Offred, use the symbols to associate themselves with them. Eggs are usually collected by the handmaids “I think …show more content…
The moon symbolize the monthly cycle that women undergo “every month there is a moon, gigantic, round, heavy, an omen. It transits, pauses, continues on and passes out of sight and I see despair coming towards me like famine” (84/70) she talks about how the moon describes her female cycle, that every month the moon mirrors a females menstrual cycle and she has time to see if she is pregnant or not within this waiting time she is scared that she will not have a baby and will be killed. The stress that she goes through this time is crazy as she knows that it is a very slim chance that the commanders will get her pregnant as they are the infertile ones. “I tell time by the moon. Lunar, not solar” (209.193) she lose track of real time but uses darkness to tell the time, the moon also represents darkness and for her that is what she lives in all she needs is some light like the sun as in a male to help her have the baby. If we never had the moon life would be lost and darker. Females are a huge factor in life and without them we couldn’t reproduce. Women are treated unfairly and are not giving rights but they deserve equal rights.
In conclusion within the book The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood feminism is strongly displayed throughout the novel and it is reflected on symbols such as the eggs, baskets, mirrors, and the moon. These items are very powerful feminine stereotypes as they are looked at not only in the book but real life, as there are still many counties that dehumanizes women and take away their rights around the world. Women will soon get treated equally. “Life is beautiful. To live is to love. One day we will
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