The_Handmaid’s_Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale Depicting The Male Objectification And Sexual Control Of Women, The Handmaid’s Tale Exposes The Horror Of Woman’s Consent To Femininity. Discuss. The woman They did not kill Instead they sewed her face Shut, closed her mouth To a hole the size of a straw And put her on the streets A mute symbol- Notes, Margaret Atwood 1939 Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, depicts a patriarchal world where women are passive entities. Their function in society is defined by their marital history, ability to procreate and ultimately, their willingness to accept their fall from freedom. Those who do not comply with this definition are deemed undesirable and banished from society. In the novel, Offred remembers her life prior to Gilead and poignant figures within it such as her mother an active feminist. Once Gilead had begun to form Offred chose to escape her responsibility to family tradition and became an observer. Instead of joining the fight against what was to be, she waited to see the outcome and “lived as usual by ignoring”. Yet the fact that she admits “ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it” (1) suggests Offred knowingly consented, along with others to become “falling women” (2). As a result women, offred, gilead, men, sexual, tale, society, handmaid’s, commander, being, male, handmaids, control, time, own, novel, longer, life, body, woman, wife, something, objectification, merely, herself, desires, commander’s, woman’s, way, ultimate, themselves, situation, serena, offred’s, objects, nothing