Feminist And Government Control Issues In Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s Novel thoroughly depicts feminist and government control issues. Atwood’s intent is to warn society about the dangers surrounding such issues in order to prevent a world like Gilead. Gilead is an anti-feminist society in which women have been oppressed for the sole reason of reproduction necessities and for the infertile women, they also have been deprived from any vocal expression or any textual knowledge in order to maintain power within the males and the regime; women are deprived from many other basic freedoms. The women who are not able to conceive a child are forced to chose a caste either Wives, Marthas, and or Aunts which serve as servants or Aunts who condition handmaids to believe conceiving is crucial to Gilead.
Birzer reveals the how vital language can become to be as language can manipulate thoughts. The ability to resist the regime lies in language and the ability to acquire knowledge prohibited. Offred states, “It pleases me to know that her taboo message made it through, to at least one person, washed itself up on the wall of my cupboard, was opened and read by me. Sometimes I repeat the words to myself. They give me a small joy" (Atwood 69). Offred resist the regime through a phrase that has inspired her to hope others like her will eventually read it. Handmaids are reeducated in training centers by Aunts indeed are one of the castes women are placed into. In the reeducation centres they are forced to witness men reading a religious sayings but are denied the opportunity to object these beliefs. Atwood reveals the deprivation of language claiming, “In the Red Center, for example, the Aunts play a tape of a man reading the Beatitudes during the Handmaids' lunch. Of one of the Beatitudes, Offred comments, “I knew they made that up, I knew it was wrong, and they left things out, too, but there was no way of checking” (Atwood