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¶ … Handmaid's Tale
To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." [Genesis 3:16] -- (Chapter 19)
The above verse was revealed after Eve was deceived by the serpent and she ate the forbidden fruit and made Adam eat is as well. Then God cursed Eve stating that she will have to go through pain during labor. The Republic of Gilead interprets and follows this verse in a way that God wants woman to give birth through the pain and if they try to use methods to ease the pain, then they are defying God's plan. Being extremist Christians, they prohibited the use of any pain killers. As Aunt Lydia is seen to explain that women are not allowed to use such pain killers because God wanted women to suffer and it is beneficial for the child...
Of course God never intended it to be like this forever and the Republic of Gilead is misinterpreting the verses of God. This leads on to the fact that women do not wish to have children. They do not want to undergo severe torture when technology did give them a way to reduce the pain. What is seen then, is the decline in the birthrate even below the "line of replacement" as explained by Aunt Lydia. Such women who wish not to undergo such pain took the step of getting their tubes tied or they simply poisoned their bodies. God did not intend women to undergo such needless pain and there is no Biblical rule that women are forbidden to use any method to ease the pain. Jesus came to earth so that the original sin is forgiven through his blood. Then what law can make women suffer for a sin that was forgiven with the blood of Jesus? Hence it…
How different it was to be from the loose ungoverned part I had acted before, and how much happier a life of virtue and sobriety is, than that which we call a life of pleasure."(moll Flander, Chapter 38). By this choice of words, Defoe contrasts sobriety and pleasure and the conclusion could be that there is no pleasure for the virtuous. By "life of pleasure," he means, of course,
" (Atwood, 4) the seamless convergence of the warm familial title 'aunt' with the image of this corporal mode of enforcement helps to underscore a society that is violently hostile toward independence, particularly contextualized by its treatment of women. There is an element of forcible control over these women that smacks of government imposition, a key element of the society and the primary mode through which the rights of women
Not only do the handmaids have no privacy; they sleep with their masters under the watchful eye of the wives. Their days are segmented and scheduled. Women lack autonomy and their bodies belong not to them but to the oppressors. One of the most poignant reminders of the low position of women in Gilead society is the invasive and coercive medical examination required for all handmaids. "When I'm naked
Now she is forced to accept her demeaning role as a handmaid and forget that she ever had a family, a voice to speak out, or any rights at all. Offred's past is ultimately what makes her present so unbearable. If she had never known any other way to live, then it would be easier for her to accept her lot in life as a handmaid. However the fact that
Handmaid's Tale Atwood Creation of Alternate World About the Book The book Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood is the tale of a woman named Offred who belonged to the Republic of Gilead. Some particular details were published at the time the novel that recommended Gilead's time frame to be in the current since the State of Gilead is now appears as the new form of a northeastern American State. The story is a
The narrative becomes key eyewitness testimony in the suffering of others. Memories of a more personal nature, such as of Offred's ex-husband and child, also permeate the present and affect identity construction. Although neither Morrison nor Atwood create novels of nostalgia, memory and nostalgia do go hand-in-hand. "Nostalgia," notes Greene, "is a powerful impulse that is by no means gender specific," (295). Nostalgia provides the emotionally uplifting links between past