"The Handmaid's Tale"

Paper Summary:

In "The Handmaid's Tale", Margaret Atwood gives a masterful treatment of the subject of women's reproductive freedom and, in doing so, proposes a complex model of womanhood that avoids fanaticism and strives to define itself between polar extremes. The paper examines how the central character, whose real name is never revealed, but who is called Offred (a handmaid of Fred), lives in a society that restricts most of her basic human rights. She is kidnapped and brought into this society for one purpose: The exploitation of her reproductive potential. The paper shows how two women from her former life contrast this model of woman-as-birth-machine: Offred's friend, Moira and Offred's mother. In her new life, which is lonely and strained, these women provide her with a source of inspiration. Yet her recapitulations of them reveal certain points of tension. The paper explains that they were more politically feminist than Offred, and despite her current oppression, she does not altogether accept their particular philosophy of what it means to be female.

From the Paper:

"Slowly, Offred becomes his mistress. "It's my job to provide what is otherwise lacking," she writes. In this world of minimal comforts, the Commander provides her with an energizing companionship. He is powerful, in charge of her fate, capable of exploiting her but generally unwilling to do so. He is kind, in his way, "positively daddyish." [184] His world is so free compared to her own, and he shares this with her - taking her out, giving her items she's forbidden to have, even though he's not entirely aware of her conditions outside of his office. He functions as both sugar daddy and friend, and Offred compares this odd communion with a story she'd heard of a Jewish war prisoner who fell in love with her Nazi captor: "He was not a monster, she said. People say he was a monster, but he was not one." [145] In this same way, Offred justifies her feelings for the Commander. "But even so...I'm happier than before....To him I'm no longer merely a usable body." [163]"

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