The main character’s Handmaid name is Offred, meaning that she is property of Fred. This is how Handmaids are referred to in the Gileadean society. Their original names are not used, and through this manner, the Handmaids are stripped of their identities due to the regulations of their society. Handmaids must successfully produce a baby with their Commander and will be promised that they will be allowed to serve until their term is over. However, if the Handmaid has not had a child after three Commander reassignments, she is sent to the Colonies or given a death sentence.
They wake her up early and help her stretch her legs in hope that they will one day be straight/normal. They showed the compassion that her birth mother would never give to her child. Linda later recalls, “I must have been held so much that the sensation became a part of me”(65). Fifty years later when Linda and her mother Nancy finally meet for dinner, they don’t hug or even shake hands. The mother may be the birth mother and be related by blood but she sure doesn’t show any love toward her handicapped daughter that she abandoned.
Orual never feels that she is loved by anyone, that is, until Psyche enters her life after Psyche’s mother dies giving birth to her. Orual takes it upon herself to become Psyche's guardian and to raise her. Orual loves Psyche more than anything, but her love is selfish and very possessive. Orual is tormented by the thought of having to ever give Psyche from her possession and she does everything in her power to prevent it. After first being separated from Psyche then becoming bitter from not seeing the same things as Psyche once reunited, I realized the tragedy was that not only did Orual never found the “love of the Gods,” she also never learned to love her life and accept herself as the person she was.
The United States was in a crisis due to the extreme decline in birth rates so in desperation to do something about this the Republic of Gilead formed. The goal of this State was based strictly on reproduction and they would take control of woman’s bodies, not allowing them to, read, write, vote, hold property, or even think for themselves. Handmaid’s would be assigned to married couples and there only job was to lie on their back once a month and hope that their owners, the commanders, would make them pregnant. Ever since Gilead began woman were forced to live with this way of life and for some of the younger Handmaid’s it was the only way they knew. “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to.
How does the writer engage the reader? The Handmaid’s Tale, written in 1983 by Margaret Atwood, is a Novel set in an imaginary place in which a group of women - named the ‘handmaids’ - are oppressed and forced to live the remainder of the life in discomfort: Their only purpose is to breed for infertile wives. Producing offspring for the husband and wife, who are unable to conceive, is the main function of a handmaid - refuse and they risk being hanged, before their corpses are displayed on The Wall. This dystopian setting known as Gilead, has substituted the United States of America and replaced the former ‘westernized’ rules and clothing for a more severe, restrained lifestyle. Set in the Future, the Republic of Gilead controls the lives of the handmaids, having them admit to extreme alterations both physical and mental.
In Gilead being a handmaid means that Offred is stripped of her former normality, she is no longer able to do the simplest of things, such as reading, due to the oppressive policies of the Republic. Through Offred’s role as a handmaid Atwood shows us that she can no longer express who she truly is, or was, before the takeover of the regime even her name is taken from her and changed to that of her 'owner' - the Commander. Gilead tries to indoctrinate all the women who are to become handmaids, that being a handmaid is their only use and their only form of identity is their bodies, which they must use to the benefit of the regime or suffer the consequences. Atwood shows us how Offred, reconstructs her physical and psychological identity including how her identity is effected by how she is perceived by other characters involved in the regime. Being reduced to the role of a handmaid has meant Offred's physical identity has been severely altered from how it was in her past life, Atwood presents her attempts reconstruct her physical identity under the supervision of the regime throughout the novel.
Short Story Analysis Have we ever read a story that just didn’t make sense at all when first read? That the descriptions in the paper just create vivid pictures in our mind that are kind of disturbing. That is exactly how this short story was constructed. In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author uses symbolism, imagery, irony, and theme to show the subordination and trapped role of women in domestic life. Gilman uses symbols to explain the how women are trapped in domestic life.
Essay: Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda deals with a country where sons are favored over daughters, a woman named Kavita conceives her first child, a baby girl, and is brutally forbidden to keep that child, who is then sentenced to death. In the meantime, while many women struggle to conceive, across the ocean, a woman named Somer attempts to conceive a child and was unsuccessful in doing so. Later on, Kavita is blessed by God and delivered a second child, who is again a girl, but this time she is faced with the heartbreaking choice of having to give up her baby for adoption in order to save the baby’s life. Somer later adopts Kavita’s daughter, Asha, giving herself the opportunity to be a mother and giving Asha the opportunity to have a family. Kavita, Somer, and Asha, all struggle psychologically with the reality of the brutality they face as women.
One conflict in the text is that of equal rights women don’t have in society. In the beginning of second chapter, the character Firdaus’ goes through female genital modification or mutilation at the hands of her mother and another elder woman in her community. This was due in part of her inquiring about her father, “,,,I asked my mother about him. How was it that she given birth to me without a father? First she beat me.
(i) I find the way the poet describe how her daughter has owned her instead of her owning her daughter powerful. Normally, we have the idea that when a mother gives birth to a child, the child belongs to the mother and of course, the father. However, in this poem the poet feels the exact opposite. The sentence ‘I think I’m going to have it’ tells me that the poet thought she was going to finally have this baby of hers, this baby that truly belongs to her because she is going to deliver to it. Another sentence ‘certainly I never had you as you still have me, Caroline.’ proved that the poet was conveying the message that her daughter never belonged to her instead, she belonged to her daughter.