The Handmaid's Tale

Dystopia is a bleak way of writing about our possible future. Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a cultural forewarning of our actions. Gilead, being a religious based government, controls their followers with fear which makes the government even more powerful. When someone believes that they are being watched by their God, they are on their…

The use of psychoanalytic theory and destruction can act as a lens with which to dissect a work of literature. Psychoanalysis can help to determine how a character in a novel is affected by their unconscious. Using Freudian theory as a launching point in which to determine the effect of coercion managed effectively through the…

Gender inequality is a continuously occurring problem in our society. Margaret Atwood, a famous American writer, describes what she feels our country will turn into through her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. Every time there is a step forward for equality it seems we end up taking two steps back. In Gilead, the fictionalized setting of…

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood creates an extremely marginalized society. Atwood’s different writing techniques and different styles (switching back and forth between Offred’s current life as a Handmaid and her life before she was transported to Gilead) help the reader define the marginalization in each of the characters. The internal thoughts of Offred also…