Handmaid Tale
This is a novel that was done by Margaret Atwood as an explorative masterpiece of men’s dominance over the feminine gender. This is fueled by the numerous cases where the women’s rights are infringed and the male uplifted in the social order of the society. Feminism is perceived by some as an adoration for women but when asked if they would live in a society that do not recognize women rights whether their perception of feminism would change they detest to answer. In the novel “Handmaid Tale” women are despised and are considered as ordinary creations; “natural creatures” that are in existence reasonably because they are able to bear children. From this angle it can be seen that in such a society one decision to advocate for feminism can not be a bad idea at all.
Since the time immemorial, before the Gilead community came into being, the people who were advocating for the woman’s right were seen and stereotyped as “people who led the matches in the streets and flung the banners high” (McCarthy 89). They are the ones who were bold to speak of the feminine gender and who sought to bridge the escalating gap between them and their masculine counterparts.
Women were restricted even the basic right of vocalizations their minds during the era of Gileadean and this is one of the reasons that inspired Margaret Atwood into the writing of the novel that was themed at advocating and showcasing the efforts that women activists had for the gender equality and fairness to be precise.
Offred as a character in the novel has flashbacks of the past days when she had the freedom and she ignored the mother’s stance for feminism (Atwood 29). These are resentments on the part of Offred reasonably because her mother had a determination towards feminism but she was a demoralizing player in the game. Little did she know the giving birth of the Gileadean society would oppress her through limitations of rights. Despite all these hurtful resentments, she is forced to remain silence or rather she was a “silent feminist in her new society” and this is because she has a life to protect and women were not given the go ahead to learn, socialize or even the least of selecting a husband (Kauffman 112).
Gilead community considered women to have either choice of giving in to the rules in an easier manner or in a hidden individual way a women could try to up rise herself. According to Offred, playing the scrabble with the commanders and the hiding of a match below her bed to assist her escape as well as the sneak to sleep with Nick is what was meant by mounting up (Atwood 45). From this, she was making infinitesimal steps towards the nurturing of revolt which makes her a feminist in the Gilead era.
Gilead restrictions as shown in the novel did make changes to the true and realistic definitions of a feminist into a person who was able to advocate for the simple women’s right. Offred is one character in the novel who explicitly advocates for equality by her great anticipation of freedom and liberty. She is a silent feminist in the Gileadean society.
Women in this book are downgraded and are shoved by the males as they do their own things without including them simply because they are said to be the bearers of children. It is no justifiable to have one gender favored at the expenses of the other and it tends to kill the morals of the other. It is demeaning to the women to be regarded as child bearers who are present by the virtues of its origin from the God. It is servitude and inhuman for the activists advocating for the women’s considerations as human being to be shoved and stereotyped to just the carriers of the banners in the streets. Women were tired of being underrated and mistreated by the men and they needed to be reinvented from it. According to the moral principles and communal codes of ethics, segregation of one gender at the favoritism of the other is not right and should not be left to be practiced (Alexander 12).
However, it is in this case notable the crimes against humanity were rampart and they shook social order when the women went to the streets to demand for a fair share of the resources and power. All the feminism movements are left to waste their energies in the street as they advocate for recognition only to be met by deaf ears and blind leadership of the Gilead’s.
Morality is broken and the social models are spoilt in the bigger perspective from the acts that are rampart in the captivating though somber novel by Margaret Atwood “Handmaid Tale”. It has successfully and in a hilarious manner managed to show the feminist efforts and the way they are destroyed while advocating the adherence to fairness and justice for all as stipulated by the code o communal ethics.
Works cited.
Alexander, Lynn. The Handmaid’s Tale: Working Bibliography. ND: The University of Tennessee at Martin.2009.print.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale.NY: Anchor.1998.print.
Atwood, Margaret. Aliens Have Taken the Place of Angels.UK: Guardian Media.2005.print.
Kauffman, Linda. Special Delivery: Twenty-First Century Epistolarity in The Handmaid’s Tale. Boston: Northeastern.1989.print.
McCarthy, Mary. No Headline: The Handmaid’s Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.2009.print.
