Handmaid's_Tale

The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's tale a book written by Margaret Atwood shows an dark,bleak society named Gilead where women hold no real power in the modern day society. The society makes women have no sense of individuality,"So now that we don't have different clothes," I say, "you merely have different women." (p.221) and that makes the women completely detached away from the this new society of men, "I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't want to see it. I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely."(p.58). This society having strip women of their individuality and their own bodies, makes women hold no real power in Gilead. Women powers of individuality and personality are strip away. By stripping away ones individuality as a woman, they took away the rights and responsible they had before creating a society where women are sorted into these categories "There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas, some in the striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimp, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they're called. These women are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can.." (p.23). Thus creating a society where women only having the role of what colour dress they wear. Although throughout this power still exist among women such as the aunts,they have a higher measure of freedom and have the ability to read,write and carry weapons but these "Powers" are not considered real power as that reading and writing are all allowed for men in this society. With their mind gone they lost the power of their bodies soon after. The power of woman body was a powerful thing in the old society but once they took your own privilege to touch and feel your body. The women of Gilead felt like they have no power in the body to be used "My nakedness is strange to me already. [...] Did I really wear bathing suits, at the beach' I did, without thought, among men, without caring that my legs, my arms, my thighs and back were on display, could be seen. Shameful, immodest. I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't want to see it. I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely."(p.58) The bodies of the women was the real power they had left but the new society in Gilead now controls the people so the bodies of woman are also be controlled, taking away the one real power the women had left in this society. Gilead society has been a place of extreme power struggles between themselves and genders but in the end women do not hold the real power. Women are completely rob of their bodies and free will though the use of force and violence causing them even to lose the insight of their own individuality,personally and self freedom. Thus creating only one power overcome in the society that comes out in this cold and dark human interaction faced in this society. Women do not hold the real power in Gilead. Quotes Quote #2 There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas, some in the striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimp, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they're called. These women are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can.(p.23) | Here the narrator describes the roles of women in this society. All but the Econowives are "divided into functions," as shown by their dress. The women are basically color-coded: blue Wives, red Handmaids, green Marthas. Their individuality is completely stripped away. Quote #8 "Yes," I say. What I feel is not one simple thing. Certainly I am not dismayed by these women, not shocked by them. I recognize them as truants. The official creed denies them, denies their very existence, yet here they are. That is at least something. (p.221) | Here are women doing something they should not, existing, even though they should not. Are they any more or less womanly or feminine than the Handmaids' It seems they're better off in some ways and worse off in others. They're reduced to their sexuality just as Handmaids are reduced to their fertility. Quote #9 "So now that we don't have different clothes," I say, "you merely have different women." This is irony, but he doesn't acknowledge it. (p.222) | In brief, Gilead happened, at least indirectly, as a way of controlling women who had too many choices. Men took them all away, but then they got bored because the women didn't seem individually interesting any more. Now they treat women like they're interchangeable. In a weird way, this is representative of the narrator's observation about casual dating, when "men and women tried each other on, casually, like suits, rejecting whatever did not fit" (9.7-8).