Feminism In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood
‘What Feminist Critics Do’ raises “thoe question of weather men and women are essentially different because of biology, or are socially constructed as different,” which is, arguably the premise for Margaret Atwood’s novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and Atwood applies this method of thought through her novel, and particularly to the ending.
When ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was published in 1985 feminism was becoming more widespread and successful movement, with the ‘Married Women’s Property Acts’ being passed in the UK only three years beforehand and different strands of feminism evolving throughout the world, some of which Margaret Atwood includes within her text: Such as hints to Lesbian and Eco-feminism throughout. However, socialist feminism is possibly the key theme “Socialist feminist writers in the 1970s and early 1980s tended to concentrate on issues such as employment, domestic labour and state policy.’ (http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~le1810/femin.htm) And Atwood explores all of these issues through her expositional ‘flashbacks’ of the rise of Gilead. This reference to what would have been very relevant and modern issues in 1985 combined with Atwood’s creation of a dystopian future, which questions the movement …show more content…
This male looks back on the events of the novel as historical fact yet spends a good deal of this time claiming they are false because the Offred herself is an unreliable source. The “presenting professor is more concerned with the authenticity of the document, and in at least identifying Offred's commander” (http://www.thesatirist.com/books/HANDMAID.html) and Atwood uses this almost satirical outlook on academic objectivity to show that, even after the fall of Gilead, sexist view points are
When ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was published in 1985 feminism was becoming more widespread and successful movement, with the ‘Married Women’s Property Acts’ being passed in the UK only three years beforehand and different strands of feminism evolving throughout the world, some of which Margaret Atwood includes within her text: Such as hints to Lesbian and Eco-feminism throughout. However, socialist feminism is possibly the key theme “Socialist feminist writers in the 1970s and early 1980s tended to concentrate on issues such as employment, domestic labour and state policy.’ (http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~le1810/femin.htm) And Atwood explores all of these issues through her expositional ‘flashbacks’ of the rise of Gilead. This reference to what would have been very relevant and modern issues in 1985 combined with Atwood’s creation of a dystopian future, which questions the movement …show more content…
This male looks back on the events of the novel as historical fact yet spends a good deal of this time claiming they are false because the Offred herself is an unreliable source. The “presenting professor is more concerned with the authenticity of the document, and in at least identifying Offred's commander” (http://www.thesatirist.com/books/HANDMAID.html) and Atwood uses this almost satirical outlook on academic objectivity to show that, even after the fall of Gilead, sexist view points are