The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood :: essays research papers fc

James Fils-Aime      The Handmaids Tale occurrence or Fiction     The Handmaids Tale is a dystopian novel in which Atwood creates a conception which seems absurd and near impossible. Women being kept in slavery only to create babies, cult like religious assure over the population, and the deportation of an entire race, these things all seem like fiction. tho Atwoods novel is closer to fact than fiction all the events which take stray in the story have a base in the genuinely world as well as a historical precedent. Atwood establishes the world of Gilead on historical events as well as the social and semipolitical trends which were taking place during her life time in the 1980s. Atwood shows her audience with political and historical reference that Gilead was and is closer than most people realize. Atwood well scrutinizes Colonial America, back in the 1700s it was a society founded on worship and ran as a theocratic order. Puritans wh o had just fled Europe for religions freedom colonised in the Americas where they could run their society in the way they saw fit. oddly in New England, religious freedom was not allowed, and people were penalise by the courts for failing to uphold the common religions requirements. Those who were not of a unique(predicate) type of Christianity were considered heathens. Men who controlled the society enforced rules on others based on their interpretations of the tidings. They believed that "as Gods elect, had the duty to direct national affairs according to Gods leave as revealed in the Bible." (3) Later on puritanical control diminished but in the South there was the enslavement and resulting racism toward blacks. once again so called male leaders of society promote injustice and burdensomeness in order to benefit themselves. Atwood likewise uses her novel to comment presently on the issues of race, those not of a specific type of Christianity or splutter color were sent away to the colonies, or killed. The "children of Ham", which in the bible represent the descendants of the black race, are relocated outside of Gilead. nevertheless the location in which she places Gilead is reminiscent of early American for Boston, Massachusetts was a puritan center. The world of Gilead which Atwood is a society controlled by power hungry(p) men who use religion as a means of control. Atwood also references the oppression of Jews during the holocaust in her novel. Under Hitlers rule 6 million Jews were killed, and many more sent to concentration camps where they were mistreated by their captors.