Women in "The Handmaid's Tale" Comparison Essay by Top Papers

The paper discusses how in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", all of the characters are living in an extremely repressive society. However, the paper asserts that the oppression is greatest for women, as the society is unequivocally patriarchal. The paper provides a comparison of three of the female characters - Offred, Moira and the Commander's wife, Serena - that reveals that the novel presents three different ways in which women may react to the all too common experience of living in a society that represses women. The paper argues that these three characters epitomize three kinds of responses.