How Does The Author Use Propaganda In The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, both portray a dystopian society in the extreme end. A Dystopian society is a form of totalitarian dictatorship as its prototype, a society that puts its whole population continuously on trial, a society, that is, in disenfranchising and enslaving entire classes of its own citizens, a society that, by glorifying and justifying violence by law, preys upon itself. A Dystopian society is what we today would call dysfunctional.

(Ebsco-Points of View). In this type of society, the regime uses propaganda to gain control over the society. Similarly, in The Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale, the leading political regimes use propaganda in the form of cultural references,
Language is a powerful form of rebellion, which can break through the strongest influences. By eliminating or altering words that can lead to rebellion, the regime can ensure stability and power over the state. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the political regime forbids handmaids from reading, writing or conversing with other maids. By doing so, they isolate the handmaids within the walls of Gilead. They create a barrier between ideas and possible actions. When Offred first walks into the commander’s room, she is amazed by what she sees, “But all around the walls there are bookcases. They’re filled with books. Books and books and books, right out in plain view, no locks, no boxes. No wonder we can’t come in here. It’s an oasis of the forbidden” (Atwood 172). By oasis of the forbidden, Offred means, a place preserved from the laws of Gilead. Offred’s reaction is sudden due to the strict laws of that society that are engraved through the means of force. By forbidding reading or writing, the regime is indirectly preventing the formation of ideas leading to rebellion. Similarly, in The Brave New World, the leading regime eliminates commonly used phrases that can trigger questions