Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - Book Report/Review Example

?Handmaid's Tale In her book A Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood presents the fictional story of a woman trapped in a post-modern world of strict social structure. This society has been based upon a very religious ideology and patriarchal worldview. The main character is Offred, who has been assigned the social and vocational role of a Handmaid. This is a woman who, because of her background as a fertile woman (she had a daughter) previously married to a divorcee (making her marriage null and void in this society and herself a close-cousin to a prostitute because she had broken her original vows), has been reassigned in the new world order to provide an elite couple with a child. Each month, when she’s at the right point in her reproductive cycle, Offred must have uninvolved sex with her commander, while the commander’s wife sits behind her and holds her hands. ‘Uninvolved’ sex means there is no emotion or physical enjoyment permitted in the act. Offred has very little choice in the matter and is not permitted to speak with either the commander or his wife during the act. She has not seen her daughter or her husband since her arrest trying to flee across the former Canadian/U.S. border and is forced to live in this stifling environment or risk being taken away by the Eyes. No one knows what happens when the Eyes take you away, but no one ever comes back and so it is assumed it is something terrible. As she narrates her story, in which women’s rights have been completely removed, Offred illustrates the depth of the cruelty of such control in the way she takes pleasure in such simple things like butter, reading and conversation that the Commander gives her access to in order to get her to break the rules with him, but when she is found out, she is whisked away by the Eye. The last chapter tells about how the story is a voice record from an unidentified woman who escaped from Gilead, but no one knows what happened to her or even if she ever managed to get fully free. Handmaid's Tale (2) The subjugation of her gender experienced by Offred in the Gilead system goes much further than simply taking away her rights to property and family or even movement. Offred is preserved for a single function only, and her every movement or activity is structured with that purpose in mind regardless of her own opinions. “I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping” (Atwood, Ch. 13). Although she is aware of how things were when she lived in a country called the United States, this quote demonstrates how Offred no longer even considers herself an individual. She remembers how things used to be, but she cannot imagine thinking of herself now as anything more than a walking womb, one of the state’s greatest national resources and not an individual at all. Reflecting on this and thinking about the many new laws and proposed legislation regarding women's reproductive rights makes me wonder if we aren't heading in the direction Atwood foresaw. Women who are pregnant have to be very careful of what they say and do especially around their doctors or they are being arrested on charges of indirect abortion even when they want to keep their babies. The world Atwood describes is very scary for women no matter what role they are assigned. The housemaids and cooks seem to have it best, but even they are not given any sense of freedom as they go about their duties. The lady of the house obviously doesn't have any choice in the matter either - what woman would want to take part in a ritual as passionless and pointless as the sex scene included in the book? When women's reproductive rights are taken away from them, society has very little good to look forward to. Handmaid's Tale (3) Atwood allows her character to speak which seems to reduce the fear of a society in which women are given no voice, but it is revealed at the end of the book that this narrative was a taped voice recording found in an old cellar after the country of Gilead had fallen. In this last section, the fate of the woman recording the narrative is mentioned as being still a mystery. No one knows if she actually survived, if she made it successfully out of Gilead or if she ever managed to find her missing husband and daughter. In effect, then, Offred’s voice was preserved only through an accident of fate that allowed this one echo to remain of the person she had been. Her description of her life, indicating such simple joys as playing a game of Scrabble or browsing through old magazines illustrate not only that women were not permitted these luxuries, but that the loss of these simple activities equated to a loss of person (Ch 23). While she remembers herself as a person early in the novel, “I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off” (Ch. 7), she begins to lose this sense of individualism further in. When the doctor offers her a way out during her weekly exam, she finds she is actually frightened of attaining freedom. That is the danger of such a society. The women have lost their power of speech which means the men have also lost much of their power of dissent from the established order. As people slowly become conditioned to this way of life, their ability to resist becomes weaker and weaker until, eventually, they truly feel as if there's nothing they can do in their personal lives to alleviate any of the misery or despair they're experiencing. In the end, the only reason the nation fell was because it was not able to adapt to outside forces. Epic of Gilgamesh At the beginning of his story, Gilgamesh is the strongest and best of all God-kings who ever lived. He has looks, wealth, great deeds, strength and courage. However, the things that prove his greatness are accomplished as a result of his cruelty to the people of his domain, forcing them to continue working on his building projects instead of building up their own comforts or helping others. He even goes so far as to rape women regardless of age, marital affiliation, social class or presence of others: “Gilgamesh does not leave a girl to her mother / The daughter of the warrior, the bride of the young man” (Tablet 1). So, the goddess Aruru creates Gilgameshe's opposite in the form of Enkidu. Where Gilgamesh is civilized, Enkidu is wild; where Gilgamesh is cruel and selfish, Enkidu is caring and giving. Although the two of them meet in a battle of wills, they soon become friends and plan adventures together. Gilgamesh’s decides their great adventure should be to steal trees from the sacred Cedar Forest which ends with the death of Enkidu as punishment and Gilgamesh is forced to go on a journey of self-definition. He can't face the idea of death and he goes on a search to find a way of overcoming death, learning at every step along the way how to be more human by considering others, thinking ahead and leaving behind possessions. As he finally achieves his goal and gains the answer to death, he has finally learned how to appreciate the more esoteric aspects of lived experience and decides to take the plants back to share with the elder men of his village. The plants are destroyed on his way home, so he is unable to prove his story, but he has been so transformed that he is now worthy of the kind of praise he sought at the beginning even though it is no longer so important to him that he be praised. This transformation takes place precisely because of Gilgamesh's friendship and loss of Enkidu. Plato's Crito In his deliberate acceptance of the death penalty, Socrates appears much more concerned about the welfare of men like Crito who will be left living in Athens without an example of how to properly examine whether what they know as truth is actually truthful or merely the platitudes of a dominant leadership. These ideas are expressed as Socrates talks with his old friend, the title character, about why he will not accept any attempts at rescue. To Crito’s horror, Socrates refuses to be rescued arguing that he cannot escape because citizens must always obey the law. He tells Crito, “What we ought to consider is not so much what people in general will say about us but how we stand with the expert in right and wrong, the one authority, who represents the actual truth” (Crito). Rather than being worried about what is expected, common or ‘understood,’ Socrates suggests one should act in accordance with the higher authority of individual understanding and the system under which one opts to associate. He argues that citizens who expect to enjoy the benefits of society must expect to work within the bounds of the laws of that society. If he were to simply escape and thus break the law, he would be unable to live anywhere else because he has already proven that he is unable to abide by the social contract established between the individual citizen and the state. After following the laws of his higher truth, Socrates must follow the laws of the land. Socrates seeks to prove to history, that he has consistently acted in ways that he deems to be in the right, in support of the laws and in the best interests of the people. His logical argument suggests a mind attempting to discover higher truths even when it goes against his society’s customs and beliefs, but his calm acceptance of the death penalty expresses a deeper concern for the welfare of men living without an example of moral and just action. Plato's Apology In this text, Plato records the defense Socrates presents during his trial in which Socrates refers to himself several times as being the wisest man alive. His authority for this claim is the words of the Oracle at Delphi which is known to never speak falsely. The defense he presents to the court suggests Socrates actually did understand something more than normal men. His argument in the end is not that he didn’t break the law of Athens, but that he was acting in a necessary capacity for the development of the free and democratic society he understood Athens to be. The first charge brought against Socrates was that he was spreading sacrilegious ideas because he challenges other people’s beliefs. Socrates acknowledges these charges, but he argues that the statement of the Oracle which once pronounced him the wisest man alive caused him to take up a series of inquiries looking ‘into the heavens and earth’ to discover why that might be so. The second charge brought against Socrates was that he was associated with the Sophists who were known for intentionally creating chaos and confusion. Socrates attempts to show that he was simply engaging in a process of inquiry in response to the Oracle, not attempting to sow discontent. He logically went to the public and began questioning individuals he considered wiser than himself. From his narrative, it becomes possible to conclude that Socrates’ definition of wisdom entails not only knowledge, but also the awareness of what one does not know. Thus, his defense against this charge is that he was learning rather than instructing. The third charge Socrates faced was that he was corrupting the young. He argues that he could not keep from questioning if he were to discover the reason behind the Oracle’s announcement and he could not prevent others from participating in conversations or listening in on conversations he was having. In addition, he argues that it is only by constantly questioning what we think we know that society can grow into the future. Freud Drawing upon earlier ideas of internal indestructible energy as the properties of the soul, Sigmund Freud formulated a dynamic psychology, one of whose key points is that whenever a psychic drive or urge is suppressed, repressed or driven below (or out of) consciousness, its energy inevitably appears elsewhere such as in the form of guilt or latent anger. This idea sets up our understanding of the internal conflict between the instinctual and basic desires of the individual and the restrictions placed upon individual actions by the rules and expectations of society. The base element is the id and the social element is the super-ego while the effects of the battle become imprinted on the individual consciousness, the ego. As the id becomes excited about doing something, the super-ego informs it as to the suitability of its action as well as the suitability of the thought of the action. Not only can it make the person feel guilty about doing something it shouldn't have, such as stealing a package of gum, but it can also make the individual feel guilty for thinking about stealing the gum even if they didn't actually do it. Working under this theory, Freud suggests that guilt is a form of aggressive energy. It is created by thwarted desire when the id is not allowed to get its way. This thwarted desire must then discover an alternate expressive outlet because it cannot simply be destroyed by the controlling force. It was the idea that the controlling force could exist within the same sphere that generated the inappropriate desire as well as within the same entity that is capable of feeling the resulting guilt from the thwarted desire that contributed to Freud’s three-part model of the human mind in the form of the id, the ego and the superego. Freud insisted that dreams are the primary bridge connecting the conscious to the unconscious mind. Understood from this perspective, dreams were revealed to be representations of an individual’s unfulfilled conscious aspirations which remained unfulfilled in actuality and a means of understanding the connections occurring within. Elie Wiesel's Night (1) The narrator of this book is a teenager who starts the novel as a very devout Orthodox Jew in Hungary. He studies all the time and becomes engaged in numerous philosophical discussions with the synagogue's caretaker Moshe until a new law causes Moshe to be deported to Poland because he cannot prove his citizenship. Although he manages to escape and rushed back to the village to warn everyone, no one believes things are as bad as he says and the first soul of the book begins to die. The living conditions for the Jews of Sighet continued to deteriorate and the increasing sense of injustice continues to nag at Eliezer in spite of the reprieve of the illusory safety of the Jewish ghettos. In the ghettos, it was possible to forget the essentially captive status within the nation of their birth based on their ethnic status, but within a year or two, Eliezer starts to learn hate and the humiliation of broken spirits while he watches the Hungarian police rounding up his friends and neighbors using truncheons and rifles. His separation from his mother and his sisters represents another piece of his soul destroyed. The remainder of the book continues to descend into increasing darkness as Eliezer witnesses all the once strong men he had known be systematically broken down into helplessness. This is especially the case as Eliezer finds it necessary to take on the role of caregiver for his father instead of the other way around. The increasing resentment he feels at the necessity of defending and caring for his father shames him more and he begins to lose more of his sense of humanity. The energy spent caring for this weaker person is energy not spent in helping the self survive. As the task of surviving becomes more challenging, the compassion of the self is reduced until, finally, Eliezer remains huddled on his bunk while he listens to his father being beaten nearly to death above him and refuses to answer his father's summons as the older man expires. Elie Wiesel's Night (2) Although it is written as a fiction novel, this book has been called a deposition by its author, indicating his intention to share his actual experiences surviving the Nazi concentration camps. With this piece of information in hand, it is difficult to understand how difficult it must have been to retain a sense of self. As the story traces through the various ways in which Eliezer begins to lose his faith, it is hard to see how he could have done anything other than claim God had died. Every one of the values he'd held as a child were destroyed during his time within the Nazi concentration camps and while under their control. Although he believed himself to be a very spiritual person highly interested in the philosophy of his time, the constant need to survive and the energy that required in already harsh conditions forced him to gradually come face to face with his base instincts and conclude God had died. The gruesome first night at the camp, as Eliezer and his father stand in line as living sacrifice to the firepit, is enough to completely break his father's spirit and becomes something that Eliezer concentrates on more than what the effect was on his own. He writes of watching a wagon pull up with a load of children who are thrown into the pit ahead of them and he reflects on whether anyone other than his father has ever recited the prayer for the dead for themselves, but he doesn't seem to realize the detachment of spirit he is experiencing in these moments, the way in which he is already attempting to separate himself from the others in some way. It would be easy to argue that this is because it is easier to preserve one person than many, but Eliezer does this while also thinking about throwing himself on the electric fence rather than passively go into the firepit indicating survival is not currently on his mind as much as a need to assert his own individuality. The guilt of these emotions continues to build along with the resentment he feels toward his weakened father until he is finally no longer able to truly feel anything other than a cunning instinct for survival within the camp. Read More