“How are the two female protagonists Offred from “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Magaret Atwood and Celie from “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker oppressed by men, in what ways are their situations similar and how do they deal with the pressure and abuse?” Abstract The purpose of this essay is to look at how the two protagonist women, Offred from “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Celie from “The Color Purple” are treated in literature. This essay aims to answer the question: “How are the two protagonist women Offred from “The handmaid’s tale” and Celie from “The Color Purple” oppressed by the circumstances, the society they live in and the men in their lives and in what ways are their situations are similar?”, focusing on the similarities between their …show more content…
She is subservient and dependent to men, Celie must obey her husband and take care of his children and do the housework. There are numerous scenes of violence throughout the first half of the novel, Celie is sexually abused by her father and Mr. ____. In one of her letters to God, Celie writes about her children. She writes that they were conceived through incest by her stepfather and killed thereafter. Nettie who is Celie’s sister comforts Celie and takes care of her by not judging her and offering her understanding. Because Celie is not allowed to go to school but has to work at home, Nettie teaches her what she is learning at school. In return, Celie agrees to take care of her. Throughout the novel, Alice Walker takes the young girl on a journey of self-discovery, “ I feels like shit but I felt like shit before in my life (…) The first two months was hell though, I tell the world (…) And I try to teach my heart not to want nothing it cant have.” Celie also talks about her stepfather and how even though she had children from him, she does not hate him, “I don’t hate him (…) Look like he trying to make something out of himself. (…) When you talk to him now he really listen.” Celie realizes that people can change and she believes even her stepfather has changed and has become a better person, regardless of what he has done to her. Celie escapes from her oppressive husband when she
Celie practically struggled for happiness her whole existence. Her father sold her to a man who had no intent of loving or caring for her. Celies’ husband whom she refers to as Mr. physically and verbally abused her. Mr. felt that the only way to keep a woman in check was to beat her and he did just that throughout the movie. Like any woman would though the abuse Celie lost herself and respect for herself. Living with Mr. was a life full of darkness and hatred. Life with her husband was no better life than life with her stepfather. It took years for Celie to become brave enough to fight back for what she accept as true and gain understanding of how to convey amusement and have little outlook on life. After years of abuse, Celie no longer was afraid of Mr. She no longer cared for her husband or the
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is being compared and contrasted to William Shakespeare's Hamlet. The female characters are oppressed and kept under the control of the men in their lives. In both stories, one being a play and the other a novel, the characters are quite similar in both stories. Both literary works also have similar themes such as improsinment in their place of dwelling corruption of their surroundings and the theme of power. The three main factors that can be compared are the role of women, the characters, and the themes of both literary works.
Even though the women who can bear children are “cherished”, the babies are not which can be seen when babies are referred to as “shredders” and “unbabies.” Furthermore, it is interesting that the babies are not “cherished”, but the women who can bear children are because it is illegal to have an abortion and can lead to the doctor being killed who performed it. If the handmaids do not get pregnant within three months then they move down in the hierarchy. It is argued who has it worst in the society, however they all share something in common, being oppressed. The handmaids are not allowed to read, go out into public on their own and even have access to everyday things such as lotion. It is seen as vain and people say, “who are they trying to impress?” when they use such items. Offred steals butter to use as a substitute for lotion because she does not have access to it. Lastly, their names perfectly symbolize their oppression: Offred is Fred’s handmaid; she is “of Fred.” Everyday liberties people take for granted and this dystopia shows what it would be like to live under these harsh laws that can lead to execution.
Women in the past were perceived as insignificant because of the society’s inability to embrace and acknowledge women as of equal importance as men and of those who are wealthy. In Margret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, the character by the name of Offred, is a handmaid and tells her perspective of the dystopian life in the community of Gilead. The women of 1985 serve the males and the rich if they are not a wealthy maiden themselves. However, regardless of class, women are always discerned as of lesser significance than men. This is manifested through Offred’s observation that although the women who are a Commander’s wife are entitled of higher authority than the handmaids, they are still seen as insignificant. In order to give them
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood describes the story of Offred, a Handmaid, that is a woman ascribed a breeding function by society, and who is placed with a husband and wife higher up the social ladder who need a child. Through Offred's eyes we explore the rigidity of the theocracy in which she lives, the contradictions in the society they have created, and her attempts to find solace through otherwise trivial things. The heroine is never identified except as Offred, the property of her current Commander, she was a modern woman: college-educated, a wife and a mother when she lost all that due to the change in her society. The novel can be viewed from one perspective as being a feminist depiction of the suppression of a woman, from another
By exploring settings societies governed by political and social patriarchies, both Arthur Miller’s the Crucible and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale provide commentary on women’s role in society. Both texts are set against a backdrop in which women are seen as a ‘second class’ and are subject to male dominance. The similarities in the two texts lie within their separate discussions of gender roles in society, but they differ on the intricacies of this. From a theocratic standpoint, the play and the novel dissect the faults in an oppressive society, with Miller making it abundantly clear that it can in fact be challenged instead of conformed to. Atwood also somewhat entertains this concept, but both writers have different perceptions on identity and individuality in worlds that don’t seem much unlike our own.
Celie's transformation from Mr. ____'s slave into an independent women is successful thanks to two strong women that become role models for Celie in her everyday life; Shug Avery and Sofia. Sofia is a role model in a more unconscious way for Celie then Shug is. Sofia's whole appearance and behaviour is proud, she lets no one sit on her and Celie is, at first, jealous of Sofia's self-confidence and tries to destroy it by giving her husband Harpo the advice to beat her to make her obedient; "I think about this when Harpo ast me what he ought to do to make her mind. [---] I think bout how every time I jump when Mr. _____ call me, she [Sofia] look surprise. And like she pity me. Beat her. I say"2. When this does not work, Celie realises that Sofia is someone to become more alike, not someone to destroy.
The Color Purple (1982) and The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) were published nearly close in time which makes the comparison between them interesting. In fact, they have many common features e.g. gender oppression and the dominance of patriarchal society. Thus, the researcher focuses on the two female protagonists who are both marginalized, treated as submissive objects and how they are oppressed by patriarchal society. With regard to Corpus pre-processing, the researcher uses Adobe Acrobat Reader DC to convert the first novel The Color Purple from PDF to word file to be download easily on the Sketch Engine while the researcher downloads the second novel The Handmaid’s Tale from
Margaret Atwood’s harrowing novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, follows the story of a woman marginalized by the theocratic oligarchy she lives in; in the Republic of Gilead, this woman has been reduced to a reproductive object who has her body used to bear children to the upper class. From the perspective of the modern reader, the act of blatant mistreatment of women is obvious and disturbing; however, current life is not without its own shocking abuses. Just as the Gileadian handmaid was subject to varied kinds of abuse, many modern women too face varied kinds of abuses that include psychological, sexual, and financial abuse.
In the society that we reside in today our voice is a source of power and our words allow us to have a say in our lives especially for the female population. Many years ago a woman 's voice was to be kept at a whisper if even heard at all. We had no opinion on who we wanted to be or on how the world saw us. We were simply women who took care of the children, cooked, cleaned, and catered to the men of our home. But we broke out of that silence and women created a name for themselves, Independent. We could do anything a man could do and maybe even better and we have now lived in that freedom for many years. But author of the novel, “The Handmaid 's Tale,”Margaret Atwood pulled her readers attention showing them a world in which the woman 's voice was again taken away. Atwood revealed how powerful the voice is. In this novel women no longer have a say in what happens to them or their bodies. They were forced to bare the children of the men they are assigned to and were stripped away from their past lives. The only key to a small piece of freedom was through their language, through their use of words to paint a different picture than the one in front of them. That is what main character Offred did to survive the world she was living in. She paints pictures with her words and even though she did not have power over her circumstance her words gave her an escape from everything. It gave an escape for all the
Motherhood and its implications have been the subject of serious discourse in the thought school of feminism. During the second wave of feminism, motherhood was looked at critically by many, including authors. Gender roles and female oppression were challenged. Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker are both notable authors in the realm of feminism during the second wave. In both Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale and Alice Walker’s novel
In her novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood addresses the concept of different expression of romantic love through the eyes of Offred, a woman who has lost almost all her freedom to a repressive, dystopic society. Throughout her struggle against oppression and guilt, Offred's view evolves, and it is through this process that Atwood demonstrates the nature of love as it develops under the most austere of circumstances.
In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood explores the role that women play in society and the consequences of a countryís value system. She reveals that values held in the United States are a threat to the livelihood and status of women. As one critic writes, “the author has concluded that present social trends are dangerous to individual welfare” (Prescott 151).
For this essay, we focused strictly on critics' reactions to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. For the most part, we found two separate opinions about The Handmaid's Tale, concerning feminism. One opinion is that it is a feminist novel, and the opposing opinion that it is not. Feminism: A doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men as recorded in Webster's Dictionary. This topic is prevalent in the novel The Handmaid's Tale. Margaret Atwood, a Canadian writer, spends most of her time featuring women in her books, novels, and poetry that examine their relationships in society. In the book Atwood centers her novel on a girl whom
Walker introduces the reader to the protagonist, Celie, through a series of letters. In these letters the reader finds Celie amidst her mother’s death. The author chooses to address her letters to God, giving Celie a greater willpower to survive. Celie’s upbringing gave her maternal authority; as seen through the multiple maternal roles she played through the novel. Her mother’s death forces her to step up and fill a, painful role revealing her inner strength and ability to remain optimistic.The full