The Handmaid's Tale By Margret Atwood

Name Professor Course Date The Handmaid’s Tale The handmaid’s tale by Margret Atwood is a tale of a handmaid and a theoretic state called Gilead. The book was published for the first time in 1985. Although the book focuses on the life of a handmaid offered, it also gives a clear picture and narration of the country's way of life. Gilead is a state that has experiences poisoning that leads to reduced levels of fertility. The state undergoes a coup and the ones who take power are religion theorists who lead the country into a state of total patriarchal leadership and extreme religion. Due to infertility and low populations, women are turned into childbearing objects. The tale portrays women as belittled objects with no freedom and with barely any rights. The book also puts forward the crude and extreme laws and methods of punishment in the state. Margret Atwood book portrays Gilead as one that is very patriarchal and mainly guided by extreme religious theonomies laws that are crude and wrong. For instance, the women from the lower class or those who are found with mistakes like homosexuality are turned into some form of sexual slaves whose purpose was just childbearing. The handmaid lost their names and was given very little supervised freedom (Gilchris, 2013). They also performed ceremonies similar to those in the old testament. For instance, when the handmaids were giving birth, the legal wives of the fathers would lie side by side with the handmaid and pretend to give birth also. This was in relation to the Rachel and Leah biblical stories. This rheonomic way of life is very similar to that of the U.S before the modification of religion, although Atwood it is clear that the concept was inspired by that. The U.S history, mainly compromised of movements that were religiously based. The people also practiced in a similar theonomy like civic punishments for people who broke religious laws. In Salem, a well-known massacre of women and girls who were enslaved and later hanged with witchcraft charges (Gilchris, 2013). The state was faced with rebels in a similar way who came to form the Protestants. Handmaid`s tale portrays a state where women have very little rights. Feminism in this state is absent and its totally patriarchal Men are considered to be way better than men in every means. There are several categories of women, but none of them is really treated...