Gilaedean Patriarchy and Nazi Totalitarianism

Paper Summary:

The paper examines Margaret Atwood's groundbreaking 1985 satire, "The Handmaid's Tale" that contends that considerable forces have levied their authority in order to detain, and in some ways reverse, the progress of the female gender and the dismantling of obsolete gender roles. The paper attempts to show how Atwood's novel is a social critique which remains current and disturbingly connected to the past. The paper also highlights the pressing concern that the persistence of inequality and oppression of individualism may ultimately lead to internal societal destruction as occurred in Nazi Germany.

From the Paper:

"The feminist era, which began in earnest at the tail end of the protest age, entered American society into a period of mounting awareness of the imbalances which had inherently persisted in the home, in the workplace and in the images presented by the media. Gradual shifts began to take place, both in the way that women communicated for the first time as a collective their individual hopes and dreams and in the way that women fought for access to the same social opportunities which awaited American men. These changes, still quite certainly observable today by the presence of women at every level of government, professional occupation and social strata, have been nonetheless diminished by what we may suggest through the lens of Margaret Atwood's groundbreaking 1985 satire, The Handmaid's Tale."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Atwood, M. (1985). The Handmaid's Tale. McClelland and Stewart.
• Atwood, M. (2002). Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer On Writing. Cambridge University Press.
• Armstrong, K. (2002). Social Commentary in Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale. Grade Saver LLC.
• Johnson, T. J. (2004). The Aunts as an Analysis of Feminine Power in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Nebula, Vol. 1, No. 2
• Malak, A. (1987). Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' and the Dystopian Tradition. Canadian Literature, 112. 9-16.

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