Women s Oppression By Margaret Atwood s Handmaid s Tale

Women’s oppression in the USA Themes in the literature refer to universal ideas that an author explores in their literary work to communicate a message. In Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, the author addresses diverse themes in the novel, focusing mainly on the oppression of women by the government, society, and men through sexual abuse, male chauvinism and according to women limited rights (Hammer, 47). In the book, Atwood tells the reader how women were used as political instruments. The state in the story is rigid politically, and its structure is based on controlling reproduction as the birth rates were too few in the state. The women’s’ duties were to reproduce. The state or government here oppresses women by controlling their rights to own property, be employed; voting rights and all other rights that would liberate them from subjectivity were banned. They were not supposed to be independent as it would make them look down on the government or their husbands. The women were thus not treated as human as they were only perceived as owners of a womb and ovaries. Offred, the main character reflects on it and comments that before the state of Gilead she had seen her body as her instrument of desires but now she felt as a mound of flesh that surrounds a womb whose use would make her worthy(Atwood and Martin, 15). The state of Gilead also makes it illegal for women to be employed and further demeans them by giving men titles associated with their military rank and womenShow MoreRelatedThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1249 Words   |  5 PagesDystopian Research Essay: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood In the words of Erika Gottlieb With control of the past comes domination of the future. A dystopia reflects and discusses major tendencies in contemporary society. The Handmaid s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. 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