The Subjugation of Women

Paper Summary:

The paper describes the setting of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel "A Handmaid's Tale" where women are prevented from voting in elections and even from reading or writing. The paper shows how within Gilead itself, Atwood's fictional setting, both language and its repression are continually and deliberately used to maintain power over the women. Atwood's Gilead has its own new vocabulary, inflected with words, phrases and word-usages designed to reinforce the skewed attitudes and values of the established order. The paper's analysis illustrates how a loss of linguistic freedoms leads easily to the repression and loss of other freedoms as well.

From the Paper:

"In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood describes the nightmarish potential of a complete reversal of all of the progress in women's rights made during the 1960's and 1970's women's rights movement. Within Atwood's fictional setting, Gilead, right-wing religious extremists seize power, and then based their new leadership on a "return to traditional values", e.g., male hegemony over women by men. Abortion is now illegal again; as is birth control."
"Women are prevented from voting in elections, and even from either reading or writing anymore. Women are instead, again, quite simply, now present for the subjugation by, and the pleasure of men."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. New York: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books Edition. March 16, 1998.

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