Yes, “The Handmaid’s Tale” is Feminist

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Updated: Mar 28, 2022
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Category:Feminism
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2021/05/31
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In this dystopian book “The Handmaid’s Tale”, the writer, Margaret Atwood looks for the outcome of the situation in which females have no absolute rights whatsoever All women’s rights in this book are taken away from the women. The ladies in The book “Handmaid’s Tale” are abused in every manageable form, most particularly through getting rape many times and the informal capture of their rights being taken away from them. The women in the Gilead are also not allowed to read or write.

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And another sense of women not having any kind of power in the book is that the wives in the handmaid’s tale have identification on their name to know which commander they are owned by. The handmaids didn’t even have sufficient privilege to keep the actual name they use to own. The handmaids were obligated to acquire a current name that removes the handmaid’s old name completely. The handmaids in the book were the females who had not listened to the rules in Gilead, and the handmaids were demanded to have intercourse for a better. The handmaids had no power and were observed regularly so this made an extremely edgy atmosphere in the Gilead

For these reasons, the Handmaids are also marked, a tattoo near her ankle containing an eye and having 4 numbers next to her ankle. Each of the Handmaids has a separate numeral arrangement to recognize each handmaid and to stop the handmaids from being able to escape and be able to disguise themselves and go to a different place. In the book, it mentions “I cannot avoid seeing, now the small tattoo on my ankle. Four digits and my an eye, a passport in reverse. It is supposed to guarantee that I will never be able to fade, finally, into another landscape.” (Atwood 65). This quote shows that the women in the Gilead have no power and like treated like dogs because when your dog gets lost it’s going have a tag so where it lives to return it to its house and it’s vice-versa to the women in the Gilead because they got tattoos in there ankle like a tag so if they were to escape they would know where to locate them because of the tattoo they have. The handmaid’s outfit in the Gilead showed their tasks within the Gilead. The different colors of uniforms of the handmaids symbolize the rank of the handmaids putting them on. The outfits of the handmaids can not be changed to a different one. In the book, it mentions “There are several umbrellas in it: for the commander, blue for the commanders, and the wife, and the one assigned to me, which is red.”(Atwood 9). This quote shows that each handmaid has a different type of outfit to show who their commander is. The different case of dominant control of power is the guardian in the Gilead they would treat the women there with no respect whatsoever because they harass the handmaids without giving them no respect. And the handmaids are not allowed to be alone without their commander being there. In the story, it mentions “My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher, below it the commander is fucking.”(Atwood 94). This quote shows that the commanders just don’t have any respect towards women and he would have sex with them while they were in the Gilead.

In addition to the Gilead, women are forced to wear clothes that are not supposed to show any type of skin whatsoever. In the story, it mentions “my nakedness is strange to me already, my body seems outdated. Did I 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.”(Atwood 63). This quote surely connects to the society we occupy in today’s world. Women are always being clarified by their body shape, just like they are in Gilead. In Gilead the ladies were obligated to put on hefty substances of clothes to cover their skin, just, for example, the many females all over the planet are obligated to hide their recognizable face sometimes.

The relationship again they should toward the handmaids was terrible because sometimes they would hang the handmaids in the rope so they could kill themselves. In the story, it mentions “The three bodies hang there, even with the white sacks over their heads looking curiously stretched”(277 Atwood). This quote shows again shows that the handmaids didn’t like the Gilead so they often think of suicide or they would try to run away if they did they would often get killed.

In the story, The Handmaid’s Tale, many people in the book have faced alienation from different situations in the handmaid’s existence as an of the ownership by the people in the Republic of Gilead and the fulfillment of its strict existing Laws. One example of this is the isolation that Handmaid’s encounter is the next childbirth they have. Rather than being authorized to correctly take care of their newborn as a mom should normally do, they are obligated to give their children up to the custody of an unknown lady they don’t know. They don’t even have the right to name their baby when it’s born.

All this talking about the imprisonment in the Gilead into thought, it is simple to notice that the Gilead society is truly a dreamland disaster. From the viewpoint of religion, cultural feminism, and mental brainwashing in dictating to control its women population. Females in the Gilead are not the average people they are different people instead, they are painful sores. All that occurs in the story the “Handmaid’s Tale” as an example in the current history or it has started to appear as a tendency in the individual current human history, so this book should help as a caution and as an urgent message to the jeopardy to which our civilization could fall into in latter in the time in the future.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor Books, 1998.

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Yes, “The Handmaid's Tale” Is Feminist. (2021, May 31). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/yes-the-handmaids-tale-is-feminist/