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One evening, she finds he has
brought her sexually revealing clothing with makeup and he takes her to a
speakeasy, staffed by prostitutes. It is there she meets Moira again, who
is working there. Moira tells Offred that she saw Offred's mother in a
movie where she had been sent to one of the radioactive colonies. Offred's
mother would have been considered an "Unwoman" for two reasons - she had
been a radical feminist before the revolution and she was beyond
childbearing age.
The Commander's wife - a former gospel singer known as Serena Joy -
suspects that Offred is not conceiving because of the Commander not being
able to impregnate her, but this cannot be mentioned. Serena then
arranges that Offred go to meet with Nick, the chauffeur, to attempt
conception. Serena Joy does not care how she gets her baby.
Eventually, Serena Joy finds out about the late night meetings Offred has
been having with the Commander and accuses her of trying to steal her
husband. The options for Offred are suicide, an attempt to run away or
staying and possibly being executed. She is rescued by Nick, who says he
is a member of the secret underground society, Mayday, and Offred's part of
the book ends with her being hustled into a van by two agents. We hope
they are actually double agents for Mayday as Nick has hinted.
The last chapter of the...
The last
chapter is meant to be the speech of a professor who has found Offred's
memoir and believes she did escape to either Canada or England. We do not
know if she returned to her family.
The theocratic symbolism in "The Handmaid's Tale" is strong. Women's
identities are taken away from them in that they no longer have their own
names, and definitely not their own lives. Offred chooses not to share her
name with almost anyone, since she reserves this part of herself as a
remnant of who she used to be,
Color is of particular import in "The Handmaid's Tale". Offred wears red,
a color which suggests menstruation. Each class of woman -the wives, the
Martha's, the Aunts - all wear a certain color associated with their
station as if they can be classified solely due to the position assigned to
them in life rather than as separate people.
It is probably noteworthy to state that the government does not appear to
be successful in Gilead. The entire set-up is based on fallacy, as
evidenced by the Commander's nighttime meetings with Offred or by Serena
Joy sending Offred to sleep with Nick.
The Handmaid's Tale is ambiguous, since we are never sure if Offred
actually gets away, is reunited with her husband or her child. It is,
however, a well written and very interesting book.
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
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,
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
As Canada has become less wild, many of these obstacles have been recognized by writers to exist internally, as Atwood says: "no longer obstacles to physical survival but obstacles to what we may call spiritual survival, to life as anything more than a minimally human being." Grim survival is that sort of survival which overcomes a specific threat which destroys everything else about one, such as a hurricane or plane
" (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
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