The Handmaid s Tale Manipulation Of Power - 1516 Words

GenderLitUtopiaDystopia Wiki On the Wiki Wiki Activity Random page Videos Photos Popular pages Community Contribute Watchlist Random page Recent changes Manipulation of Power in The Handmaid s Tale 116PAGES ON THIS WIKI View source Comments0 Anna Krainc Prof. Richards Gender in Literature 29 January 2013 Manipulation of Power in The Handmaid’s Tale The Handmaid’s Tale tells the story of a future dystopia where individuals use power from their position in society to manipulate others. The Commander, a high-up in Gilead’s hierarchy, initiates a forbidden, though at first non-sexual, affair with his Handmaid and uses his power to direct the relationship to sex. While Handmaid Offred expresses her surprise at the affair’s seeming lack of sexuality, author Margaret Atwood uses nuanced figurative language to reveal the underlying sexual and manipulative nature of the Commander’s desires. Atwood compares positional and coercive power to warfare and animal confrontations and emphasizes reward power with sexualized language. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood uses figurative language to argue that in a society without sex, individuals will manipulate power they have to obtain it. Atwood’s use of warfare language shows how the Commander uses his power over Offred to intimidate her before initiating the affair. He lurks around Offred’s room, as if scouting out the territory. Offred deliberates, â€Å"Something has been shown to me, but what is it? Like the flag of anShow MoreRelatedIs Today s Society Becoming A Dystopian World?1313 Words   |  6 Pagesa dystopian world? Both the novels 1984 by George Orwell and The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood provide warnings of how each author sees certain problems in society leading to dystopian states. 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It comes as no surprise as to why in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, we are introduced to a patriarchic theocracy, this society heavily subjugated women, and one of the means to install these methods of subjugation of women was to ban the literacy of womenRead MoreRepresentation of Different Social and Cultural Forces in The Handmaids Tale by Atweeon and Hard Times by Dickens2490 Words   |  10 PagesForces in The Handmaids Tale by Atweeon and Hard Times by Dickens â€Å"Masses of labourers, organised like soldiers, are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker and above all by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself†, Karl Marx in his Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848 here highlights the state portrayed through Charles Dickens’s ‘Hard Times’. 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All of these themes play an essential role in displaying the dehumanizing impacts of patriarchy on women and address the way in which society may be in the future. Fertility is believed to be vital for the future in Gilead because nobody is able to give birth to babies and it is the only source of power of the Handmaids. â€Å"There isRead MoreHope in the Totalitarian Realm Essay33595 Words   |  135 PagesTotalitarian Realm Religion and the manipulation of history are the most important steps in creating a totalitarian state. In the novels discussed the reader comes to understand true oppression results when hope and power are removed in their totality. Katherine Burdekin’s novel, Swastika Night, portrays women who are degraded and removed, stripped of identity, femininity, and important self-efficacy as societal role-players. However, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale presents a more inclusive and