To What Extent Can “the Handmaid’s Tale” and “the Scarlet Letter” Be Described as Works of Dystopian Fiction?
To What Extent Can “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Scarlet Letter” be Described as Works of Dystopian Fiction?
The definition of Dystopia is an imaginary place where the inhabitants are exploited and control is maintained through oppression. Both “The Scarlet Letter” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” reflect characteristics of a dystopian novel. A dystopian novel is usually fictional and futuristic to the time in which it was written. The characters are made to worship a concept or figure as a way of control. Characters are subject to an irrational fear of what is outside their environment and the issues raised in the novel are commentaries on contemporary society at the time.
Dystopian fiction depicts characters that live in a dystopian society, where often propaganda is used as a way of control. In both novels strict religious rules are used to manipulate inhabitants, revealing the hypocrisy of people in power. In “The Handmaids Tale”, the Gileadian society claims to be Christian, yet religion has become a commodity, “Soul scrolls, It’s a franchise... it must make a lot of profit.” The inhabitants are aware that the church has become an article of trade. Not only does this reveal the corruption of the society but it also reveals the hypocrisy of the people in power; the rules that the people are forced to abide by do not reflect the values of a Christian society at all. Similarly, in “The Scarlet Letter” people appear to be very religious; however elements of hypocrisy in the puritan way of life are exemplified. There is a strict hierarchy in a society that advocates equality, at the top are men like Governor Bellingham, who himself is very materialistic. “Hester Prynne went, one day, to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves, which she had fringed and embroidered to his order.” Because “she hath good skill at her needle” he orders her to make them for him, to show “he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy.” The
The definition of Dystopia is an imaginary place where the inhabitants are exploited and control is maintained through oppression. Both “The Scarlet Letter” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” reflect characteristics of a dystopian novel. A dystopian novel is usually fictional and futuristic to the time in which it was written. The characters are made to worship a concept or figure as a way of control. Characters are subject to an irrational fear of what is outside their environment and the issues raised in the novel are commentaries on contemporary society at the time.
Dystopian fiction depicts characters that live in a dystopian society, where often propaganda is used as a way of control. In both novels strict religious rules are used to manipulate inhabitants, revealing the hypocrisy of people in power. In “The Handmaids Tale”, the Gileadian society claims to be Christian, yet religion has become a commodity, “Soul scrolls, It’s a franchise... it must make a lot of profit.” The inhabitants are aware that the church has become an article of trade. Not only does this reveal the corruption of the society but it also reveals the hypocrisy of the people in power; the rules that the people are forced to abide by do not reflect the values of a Christian society at all. Similarly, in “The Scarlet Letter” people appear to be very religious; however elements of hypocrisy in the puritan way of life are exemplified. There is a strict hierarchy in a society that advocates equality, at the top are men like Governor Bellingham, who himself is very materialistic. “Hester Prynne went, one day, to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves, which she had fringed and embroidered to his order.” Because “she hath good skill at her needle” he orders her to make them for him, to show “he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy.” The