"The Handmaid's Tale"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale". The paper specifically discusses the novel's portrayal and theme of the right's of women. It describes scenes from the novel and discusses use of language and plot, to illustrate the plight of the women that it portrays. The paper suggests that the novel reveals scenarios chillingly similar to contemporary life.

From the Paper:

"Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale reveals a remarkably realistic dystopia in which sexism reaches a deplorable height. Narrator Offred recalls the past as days of anarchy and tension, in which women's roles were not ideal but still substantially better than life in Gilead. The fall of the United States and the rise of Gilead signify a major turning point for women in which they become nothing more than machines for bearing children and in which their rights and freedoms are totally curtailed. After the close of Offred's narrative, historians in Nunavit discuss the handmaid's tale with scholastic intensity, revealing a potentially hope-filled future. Women's rights and freedoms change only little throughout Atwood's novel but reach a definite down point during the ascension of Gilead."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Toronto: O.W. Toad, 1985.

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