Analysis Of The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood
Author Margaret Atwood’s writing has been shaped by one particular movement- the push for women’s rights in the 1960s and 1970s. When Atwood was a college student, “a woman was expected to follow one path: to marry in her early 20s, start a family quickly, and devote her life to homemaking” (“The 1960s-70s”). Employers assumed that the females who did work would soon become pregnant, so ladies were unlikely to advance in their careers. What money they did earn was controlled by their husbands, or their male wardens, as females are legally subject to them. With the development of the birth control pill a few years later, women could now chase professional careers and “the double standard that allowed premarital sex for men but prohibited
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This was due to the fact that a law had been passed that transferred a woman’s property and money into the control of a male relative. Also, women were not allowed to pursue an education or a career because they are no longer permitted to read or write. The narrator’s husband, Luke, now owns everything she once did and she thinks, “We are not each other’s, any more. Instead, I am his” (Atwood 182). The lack of identity intensifies when her marriage to Luke is invalidated, so she is separated from him and their daughter, and becomes a handmaid. As a handmaid, she is forced to take on a new name as handmaids are “made the property of their masters: Ofglen, Ofwarren, Offred” (“Gender significance”). These women are no longer people, but possessions. There is no place for a career nor an identity. The feelings of the ladies in Gilead is parallel to the emotions of the females in the 1960s and ‘70s. Both report to a male “guardian” who have no legal right to property or money. Also, in each society, it is difficult or forbidden for women to hold an occupation. By creating a realm of female suffrage in The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood was able to criticize the social issues of anti-feminist viewpoints that she witnessed growing up. Although women have more liberties today, the message of The Handmaid’s Tale should not be forgotten- no gender alone can run the
This was due to the fact that a law had been passed that transferred a woman’s property and money into the control of a male relative. Also, women were not allowed to pursue an education or a career because they are no longer permitted to read or write. The narrator’s husband, Luke, now owns everything she once did and she thinks, “We are not each other’s, any more. Instead, I am his” (Atwood 182). The lack of identity intensifies when her marriage to Luke is invalidated, so she is separated from him and their daughter, and becomes a handmaid. As a handmaid, she is forced to take on a new name as handmaids are “made the property of their masters: Ofglen, Ofwarren, Offred” (“Gender significance”). These women are no longer people, but possessions. There is no place for a career nor an identity. The feelings of the ladies in Gilead is parallel to the emotions of the females in the 1960s and ‘70s. Both report to a male “guardian” who have no legal right to property or money. Also, in each society, it is difficult or forbidden for women to hold an occupation. By creating a realm of female suffrage in The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood was able to criticize the social issues of anti-feminist viewpoints that she witnessed growing up. Although women have more liberties today, the message of The Handmaid’s Tale should not be forgotten- no gender alone can run the