The+Handmaid's+Tale

=**Title:**= The Handmaid's Tale

=Author:= Margaret Atwood

=Nationality/Ethnic Background:= The Republic of Gilead

=Genre and Sub-genres:= Science Fiction Feminist novel

=Pertinent Biographical Information:= Margaret Atwood was born in Ottowa, Canada, on November 18, 1939 to parents Margaret and Carl Atwood. She began writing professionally at the age of 16 and went on to study at Victoria University in Canada. She was a feminist writer who often pointed out important issues by showing what would happen to women if nothing were done. She wrote science fiction or "speculative fiction" which is obvious in __The Handmaid's Tale__ as she writes about the future through fiction.​

=Literary Historical Period/Movement and Pertinent Background= __The Handmaid's Tale__ was written by Margaret Atwood during the time that Ronald Reagan was elected as US President. Atwood had a feminist view of dystopia. Because of the religious revivals were so present in the US at this time, many feminists were scared that the progress women had made recently would be reversed by these revivals. In __The Handmaid's Tale__, Atwood presents the possible outcome of reversing the progress made by women. Thus making aware what will happen if these revivals do not stop. Also under Reagon's aminstration the AIDS epidemic broke out. Majority of the book discuss how sexual disease made a lot of the women infertile.

=Major Characters, Their Relationships, Their Conflicts​:= **Offred**- is the narrator and protaganist of the __The Handmaid's Tale__. Offred is a handmaid which are fertile women forced to bare children for couples who can not have children. She is the property of the Commander and is forced to sleep with him in an attempt have children. She wants to be freed from the life that she is living, be able to make her own choices, and see her own child again. She no longer has family and friends and through-out the entire novel she is having flashbacks of her previous life. **Commander**- Has many women who he has had sex in an attempt to make babies. He has a wife who is no longer useful to him and she is jealous of every female living within their home. His name is Fred and each handmaid, for instance, "Offred" is named according to his title. **Commander's Wife, Serena Joy**- The wife of the commander is no longer useful to the Commander because her ovaries are no longer viable. She must sit back and watch her husband engage in sexual activity with other handmaids and shows her jealousy by being rude to the handmaids. **Ofglen**-Offred's neighbor, and fellow partner handmaid goes with Offred shopping and they try their best to communicate so that their lives won't be as isolated. Ofglen is daring and she atttemps to introduce Offred to a secret society trying to end the age of the Republic of Gilead. But, after many tries, her attempts lead her to commit suicide before the government had the chance to capture her. **Nick**-Nick is the commander's handy man. Him and Offred have a sexual type of relationship that Serena Joy has intentionally set up so that Offred can possibly be removed from her home. Offred enjoys the attention because her hopes of becoming pregnant with Nick are greater than becoming pregnant by the Commander. At the end of the novel Nick helps Offred escape. **Moira**-Moira and Offred have been best friends since college. She shares homosexual beliefs, and she openly expresses her escape plans with Offred who declines the invitation. She was once a handmaid but after many failed escape attempts. She was labeled a Jezebel and has sexual relationships with high powered men. **Luke**- Luke is the husband of Offred prior to the formation of the Republic. Since Offred and Luke had a daughter, readers learn that the family tried to escape to Canada and they became captured. So as she constantly observes the dead people on her way from the market, she believes that she will see him hanging there one day.

=Brief Plot Summary: = Published in 1986, The Handmaid's Tale tells a journey about a woman name Offred who lives her life as a handmaid, as she hopelessly provides her body to her Commander. She lies on her back once a month and prays that she becomes pregnant because according to her position in society, that is all she is worth. All handmaids are valued according to their ovaries, but with Offred things are different. Offred had a family, a husband and a little girl, who she doesn't even know if they are alive. She lives in a world where nothing means anything to her and she must learn to appreciate her life as a blessing for she could be dead if if wasn't for her being able to produce.

=Motifs (Recurring Images, Ideas, Figures of Speech, Symbols, Colors) & Their Thematic Significance:= ** Sexual Violence ** -In __The Handmaid’s Tale__ the occurrence of rape and pornography in the pre-Gilead world justified the need for the Republic of Gilead. The Commander and others claim that women are better protected in Gilead. The official penalty for rape is terrible. Yet, in one scene, the Handmaids tear apart with their bare hands a supposed rapist. But, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebel’s, the club that provides the Commanders with a ready stable of prostitutes to service the male elite. Sexual violence is apparent in the central institution of the novel, the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. ** Religious Terms- ** Gilead is a government in which there is no separation between state and religion—and its official vocabulary incorporates religious terminology and biblical references. Domestic servants are called “Martha’s” a reference to a domestic character in the New Testament; the local police are “Guardians of the Faith”; soldiers are “Angels”; and the Commanders are officially “Commanders of the Faithful.” All the stores have biblical names: Loaves and Fishes, All Flesh, Milk and Honey. Using religious terminology provides a reminder that the founders of Gilead insist they act on the authority of the Bible itself. ** Cambridge, Massachusetts- ** The center of Gilead’s power, where Offred lives, is never explicitly identified, but a number of clues mark it as the town of Cambridge. Cambridge, is the neighboring city of Boston, and Massachusetts as a whole were centers for America’s first religious and intolerant society. Atwood reminds us of this history with the ancient Puritan church which Gilead has turned into a museum. The choice of Cambridge as a setting symbolizes the Puritans and Gilead’s spiritual beliefs and how both groups dealt harshly with religious, sexual, or political deviation. ** Red- ** The red color of the costumes worn by the Handmaids symbolizes fertility, which is the caste’s primary function. Red suggests the blood of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the same time, however, red is also a traditional marker of sexual sin. The wives’ often call the Handmaids sluts, because of the feeling of pain from the sanctioned adultery. The Handmaids’ red garments symbolize the unclear sinfulness of the Handmaids’ position in Gilead.

=Other Significant Thematic Elements (Significant Character's Names, Significant Quotations, Significant Actions/Events):= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**"I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better change. If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This quotation from Offred is thematic because it explains her feelings about being an object to the Commander. In this fictional society, women do not have the right to control their own lives and fates. In this quotation, Offred is explaining how she believes her life is a story in which she controls the ending. She feels that this is a story that she will one day tell her family once she gets out of the unreal situation that she is in. It is a quotation of hope and control because she, unlike the other handmaid's, refuses to live like she doesn't have a soul. She wants control over her life and she is willing to do anything even contemplate suicide to obtain this control.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“The problem wasn’t only with the women, he says. The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore. . . I’m not talking about sex, he says. That was part of it, the sex was too easy. . . You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even. They were turning off on marriage. Do they feel now? I say. Yes, he says, looking at me. They do.” ** <span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 15.6pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In the above quotation the Commander’s attempts to explain to Offred the reasons behind the foundation of Gilead society. He suggests that feminism and the sexual revolution left men without a purpose in life. With their former roles as women’s protectors taken away, and with women suddenly behaving as equals, men were set adrift. At the same time sex became so easy to obtain that it lost meaning. By making themselves caretakers of society again, men have meaning restored to their lives. This sounds almost gracious, except that in order to give meaning to men’s lives, everyone has lost their freedom. The benefits of the new world was at the expense misery.

=Major Themes:= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**No sexual pleasure:** The Handmaids are not supposed to enjoy the relationship they share with the Commanders. Sexual intercourse in this novel is degrades the women and uses them as a objects needed only to produce children. Men are not sexual attracted to the handmaid's. So, they have the Jezebels, prostitutes, to keep them sastified. Everyone is openly obessed with it sex and views it as a sin. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">Women as Political Instruments- **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; font-size: 9.5pt;">Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically decreased birthrates. The state’s entire structure is built around a single goal control of reproduction. Despite all of Gilead’s pro-women rhetoric creates a society in which women are treated as subhuman. They are reduced to their fertility, treated as nothing more than a set of ovaries and a womb. Gilead seeks to deprive women of their individuality in order to make them submissive carriers of the next generation. **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Problems with self-satisfaction **<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">- <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">In a totalitarian state, Atwood suggests, people will endure oppression willingly as long as they receive some slight amount of power. Offred’s contentment after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the truth of this insight. Her situation restricts her compared to the freedom her former life allowed, but her relationship with Nick allows her to reclaim the tiniest fragment of her former existence. Atwood’s message is depressing. At the same time as she condemns Offred, Serena Joy, the Aunts, and even Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if those women mustered strength and stopped complying, they would likely fail to make a difference. In Gilead the tiny rebellions of resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of luck rather than resistance.