Role Of Religion In The Handmaid's Tale

The novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a story about a society set in a future world where women’s rights have been revoked. Many values change with this new regime of controlled women and strict laws. Despite the changes in the world it maintains many conservative, religious beliefs while also containing liberal, feminist beliefs simultaneously. Society in the futuristic world of Gilead is structured heavily off of readings from the Bible and traditional views of gender that have been in place for a long time. An example of the Bible being an important part of society is the idea of the Handmaids came from a passage in the Bible about two women, Rachel and Leah.

To begin, the foundation of every government’s power has always been fear. Governments depend on public fear to secure societal position. Tracing back to thousands of years ago, governments relied primarily on conquests. The research author Robert Higgs argues, “Losers who were not slain in the conquest itself had to endure the consequent rape and pillage and in the long term to acquiesce in the continuing payment of tribute to the insistent rulers.” In other words, Higgs’s point emphasizes that the government violently conquested lands and hence attacked people living there in the old times.

From the website, I found some recommended community that talk about the "fertilization ritual" to eye-catching ways, and almost they excited to let people see what is “the uterus with two legs” in The Handmaid’s Tale. Also, my attention for author’s claim that this fictional society is not an invention, but a theocracy society and a totalitarian that was there and is still there in the world (Atwood 316). Even, the uterus is against the Margaret Atwood’s original intension, the reader wants to discover how female explores her power through their body, and restructure of her body by narration. But, the female body such as an inescapable theme still existed, through some biologically and physically reasons, the female was deprived of some

Ultimately, Atwood uses vision as a way to display power through Gilead’s manipulation on what the Handmaids can and cannot see as well as how Offred and the other Handmaids sees themselves. Through manifestation with the Salvaging, Particicution, the Wall and the Eyes, Gilead has supervision over every move the Handmaids make. Atwood uses these ceremonies to show the significance of public events in Gilead. The consistency between these events back up Atwood’s argument that the Handmaids can not hide from change and the disastrous manners of Gilead. Within this oppressive system, Offred is unable to have an individual identity.

In the Handmaid 's Tale power is used to control the women and sort them into certain gender roles. Each women in the society of Gilead is assigned a certain job that is stereotypical of a woman 's job such as cooking, sex, and reproduction. These women are the lowest class in Gilead and have no control. The men have superior power of the women but the women such as Ofgeln and Offred gain control in power in their lives. Men have an upper hand in the control of these women.

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).

Paragraph 1: In Gilead the hierarchy of society is divided according to the roles laid upon them by the commanders. The commanders wear black as they are the ones that are associated with the highest authority and the ones that are supposed to be feared in the society. Implementing their power they categorized the rest of the society into Wives that the second respected in the society, followed by the rest of the society that include wives, aunts, etc. Paragraph 2:

Regina Carla L. Silva 2015-01293 The Handmaid’s Tale The novel is set in the Republic of Gilead which is formerly the United States of America. The name comes from a place from the Bible. It is a totalitarian, theocratic government.

It projects a patriarchy of elite white men who repress the majority of the population through sexist and racist policies. In this puritanical state, Commanders are political leaders and lawmakers who support and contribute to the rise of Gilead. Each Commander possesses a big house, a Wife, Marthas, a driver, and a Handmaid, epitomizing wealth and power. The Gilead society uses Biblical allusions to justify the role of the Commanders. During the Women’s Prayvaganzas, the Commander expresses, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (221) where Eve was made as a helper and to complement Adam as a servant rather than function as an equal.

There were limits but my body was nevertheless lithe, single, solid, one with me. Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.” (Atwood 91). This makes the reader believe that Offred has given into the social injustice at Gilead being the oppression of women.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates a quizzical protagonist, Offred, in a dystopian, totalitarian society where fertile women are only a mere vessel for child birth. Every month during Offred’s menstrual cycle her Commander, Fred, and his wife Serena Joy perform detached intercourse while Serena holds Offred’s hands. The handmaids of the Republic of Gilead are not allowed to use their mind for knowledge nor take part in formal society. They are but the vacuous-minded property to their Commanders and their infertile wives. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred discloses the day to day moments and her commicalOffred had once lived in a world where she was her own person with a job and a home with a family of her own but now she lives under unfortunate circumstances that disable her from being a true, soulful human.

Symbolism can be defined as the use of symbols that an author uses to suggest more than the literal meaning of the object .Symbolism often allows the reader to understand the text better and connect with the story on a different level. In The Handmaid’s Tale, symbolism can be seen in various parts of the novel. One of the most common type of symbolism that can be identified in the text is through the use of colours. One of the most obvious symbols in the novel is the uniform that every Handmaid is supposed to wear.

The novel has created a society in which the only two important beliefs in a society are the ability to procreate and a strict belief in God. As mentioned above, Gilead was depicted as perfect by using the book of Genesis. The Handmaid 's tale holds several biblical references , some are obvious than others but most of them have been altered. The most important in a state of opinion would be. “It’s the usual story, the usual stories.

Margaret Atwood has seamlessly woven a tapestry of feminist elements - mainly regarding gender oppression - within her works. With that, using two of Atwood’s texts, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Year of The Flood, as the foundation for our literary research, we will be focusing on the commodification of the female flesh in both similar dystopian contexts. Commodification refers to the action or process of treating an object, or a person, as a raw material or product that can be bought and sold, or even treated as an object of which sovereignty can be held over by one. In both works, women are victimized and treated as sexual beings whose bodies and physical expressions can be freely used by the men who have power over them against their will. The two texts illustrate how society brings about the oppression of women and this exacerbates the commodification of women.

Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, argues that women are instruments of the patriarchy, that women know this, and that women allow the system of oppression to live on. Her fictions ask, “What stories do women tell about themselves? What happens when their stories run counter to literary conventions or society’s expectations?” (Lecker 1). The Handmaid’s Tale is told through the protagonist, Offred, and allows readers to follow through her life as a handmaid while looking back on how life used to be prior to the societal changes.