Sample Ioc Essay

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IOP - Sample IOP Transcript Women’s freedom (or lack thereof) in Margaret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. ~*~ In Gilead, women have no real identity and women belong to men. They are labeled by their roles as Wives, Handmaids, Marthas. The Wives naturally are “property” of their husbands, as one of the marriage vows are to honour and to obey their husband. We might know the Marthas’ names but the Handmaids’ real names are never used. They are labeled Of-someone which shows how they belong to their Commanders and have no real identity of their own. This labeling itself is a method of control on women as the women are constantly reminded that they are not identified by names but by labels and that they have no identity of their own. Gilead is a society where on the surface, it promotes solidarity between women. The Aunts teach the Handmaids at the Red Centre about how women are now protected and respected. In reality, Gilead is turning women against women. The girls at the Red Centre are supposed to testify about their past lives, and when Janine confessed she was raped, the other Handmaids didn’t sympathise with her at all but were forced to condemn her that the rape was Janine’s fault because she led them on. And Offred admitted that “We meant it, which was the bad thing”. The condemnation might have started out because they were forced to but eventually the Handmaids enjoy comdemning each other. The Red Centre therefore turns women against each other until the women don’t know who they could trust anymore. This puts the women in constant fear and they are then forced to do what is expected of them to survive. Gilead uses women to control women. At the Red Centre, it is the Aunts that drills Gilead’s messages into the Handmaids’ heads. The idea of women controlling women is very frightening as we would think the Aunts (as women) would understand
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