The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is an epistolary fiction whose 300 pages allow the reader to induce the structure of an entire apocalyptic society through the story of one character. The novel explores the author’s speculation on how...

In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Offred, the main character lives in Gilead, a dystopia where fertile women are solely used to reproduce children. Known as handmaids, these women are confined into prison-like centers and forced to...

Whilst identity in the modern day setting is seen as a fundamental right, in the seemingly dystopian society of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, identity is robbed by the government to create a subservient society. As is common with...

“Better for some never means better for all.”

In everyday life we encounter people who can be nice, moderate, or are just monsters. Those monsters are corrupt, inconsiderate, or badly-behaved people. In literature this person is called the...

In all societies exists some sense of spirituality. This may be religion or simply a sense of mindfulness and connection. While this aspect may be beneficial for communities, it may oppositely corrupt depending on in which ways it is enacted and...

Even though it is not as frowned upon anymore, single women are still deemed spinsters, as if something must be wrong with them because they are not married. Despite the progress we have made for women’s rights in America, marriage is still an...

Throughout history and literature, utopias usually materialize as attempts to fashion a more perfect society, typically catalyzed by a disagreeable quality of the current civilization. Having an understanding of the purpose for the creation of...

Atwood and Orwell’s differing assessments of masculinity are largely due to their differing narrative voices. Through the eyes of Offred, Atwood constructs a pointed feminist critique of masculinity as a nymphomaniacal and tyrannical animal that...

The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood in 1985, is a complex novel, where it is clear that countless other texts have influenced its writing, creating a rich multi-layered narrative. Atwood borrows from or alludes to a wide range of...

In a society of declining birth rates and morals, the people of Gilead turn to religion as a solution to their turmoil. They seek rescue in the biblical story of Rachel and Leah, and are inspired to create a society of patriarchal hierarchies to...

Margaret Atwood uses language to help the reader understand the oppression and power relationships within Gilead. The new vocabulary used within Gilead, is both used to instill religious indoctrination into citizens and also establish hierarchy...

“There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth” (Twain, 3). When a novel is told in first person perspective, as evident in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Handmaid’s Tale, the knowledge of the reader is restricted...

Dystopian novels often focus on expanding certain fears of society to the extreme. Many times, at the top of these fears, is religion and the exploitation of it. It is often the case that dystopian writers will represent religion as a being that...

In literature, a foil character is utilized by authors to, through contrast of the characters, highlight the characteristics of the protagonist. In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale, Moira is the college friend of Offred and represents Offred’...

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, is a nineteen-eighty-five novel depicting the struggles of a young woman unwillingly designated to serve as a surrogate mother for a high ranking official in the totalitarian, theocratic state of Gilead,...

Atwood writes from the perspective of Offred, the protagonist in the novel. This narrative perspective makes all the horrific things that occur in Gilead so much more visceral to the reader as we develop a personal relationship with Offred....

Manipulation of Language in A Handmaid’s Tale and A Clockwork Orange

Subject: English Category 1

Research Question: How do Anthony Burgess and Margaret Atwood’s manipulate language in order to communicate the respective messages of A Clockwork...

One of the issues that society has always been focused on is fertility. Nowadays, this topic is multidimensional and covers such problems as overpopulation in some countries (such as India) and rising infertility rates in others, such as in South...

Within both The Handmaid’s Tale and Feminine Gospels, the concept of loss is proven to be prevalent, as a determining role amongst the two pieces of literature. Duffy and Atwood present this idea particularly in regard to the loss of voice,...

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood, and ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley use different voices within their novels to achieve greater success in delivering the messages of their texts. Shelley, through her novel, is warning readers about the...

Both ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood, and ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley portray a sense of threat and the impact this has on individuals with reduced power. In Atwood’s novel, this threat is caused by the theocratic regime, Gilead,...

In the novel Frankenstein, Victor’s single-minded pursuit for knowledge drives him further into loneliness and solitude, leaving behind his family and the ones that love him like his adopted sister Elizabeth and his father. But in the Handmaid’s...

Every day and every year, science and knowledge are progressing. As scientists work to craft new technology, society relies more and more on these products. In Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood projects her thoughts on the potential of science...

Oryx & Crake is a novel that touches upon many themes and elements including technology, human relationships, and the environment. The theme that sticks out most to me is the tampering with nature element because with global warming and...