Modern Literature Paper

The Handmaid's Tale

The novel The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, portrays a new governing society called the Republic of Gilead. Using the military, the leaders of the Gilead, assassinated the president and members of Congress and launched a rebellion, claiming that they were taking power temporarily. They cracked down on women’s rights, forbidding women to hold property or jobs. Within this society, women are treated with very little respect, and are viewed as an inferior gender to that of man. Atwood’s novel raises the question of the position of women in our modern day society.
Within the Gilead, there many different social groups and they all have their own different role in society. The members of the top social groups, the commanders and the Eyes, basically all consisted of men except for the few members of the Eyes that were women. Within the Gilead’s social system, there was a commander in each household, and he pretty much ran everything that went on within his property. Living with the commander, there was the commander’s wife, the Marthas who were household servants, and the Handmaid’s, who were the source of reproduction throughout the entire Gilead. As a result of low reproduction rates within the Gilead, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for selected couples that have trouble conceiving. Each handmaid is given the name of their commander, with “of,” placed in front of it. The main character of this story is Offred, a handmaid who was captured from her previous life outside of the Gilead, and forced to live a new life within it. By entering the Gilead, Offred lost all of her previous freedoms and she was separated from her family, a husband and daughter. Throughout the novel, Offred is continuously questioning the methods and restrictions of the Gilead.
Atwood shows her views of the position of women in society. Atwood created this society to show the readers how unappreciated women are within our won society.In certain aspects, Atwood does this by comparing the leaders of the Gilead to radical feminists that were around before the Gilead society was created, in that both of them are trying to prevent women form being sexually abused, or being open to violence, and both try to accomplish this goal by restricting women of free speech. This is also similar to that of our own society, in that there are many women’s rights groups throughout the nation that have these same beliefs, in order for women to gain greater privileges within the economic and political world. Although, the method’s in which these goals are accomplished are extremely different each other. Within the Gilead, women’s rights are completely taken away. Women cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them gain independence and try to escape from their commanders of the republic. The radical feminists, which are associated with those of our modern society tried to accomplish these goals by eliminating the factors that contribute to the demise of women discrimination. In the novel, these methods are portrayed when Offred discuses how she remembers seeing her mother, who was a major radical feminist burn pornographic magazines because the displayed women in a vulgar, unflattering way. “They must have poured gasoline, because the flames shot high, and they began dumping the magazines, from boxes, not too many at a time.” “You want to throw one in honey? My mother said. The women handed me a magazine. It had a pretty lady on it with no clothes on, hanging from the ceiling by a chain.”(Pg. 38) Women in our modern society that are members of women’s rights groups try to accomplish these goals by making political protests, such as marches and sometimes even violent attacks on discriminatory organizations.
Within the Gilead society, women are treated with very little respect, and are viewed as an inferior gender to that of man. Atwood’s novel raises the question of the position of women in our modern day society. Atwood shows her views of women in society by comparing her characters of the leader of the Gilead, to radical feminists within the novel, and actual women’s rights characters within our modern society. Atwood discusses how women are greatly unappreciated, and does this by writing about an extreme portrayal of women being treated without any freedoms or privileges. Atwood’s view of women in society is that they do not receive the respect that they deserve, and after reading this novel I can agree with her opinion.

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