Comparing The Handmaid's Tale And Th Brave New World
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Since the literary birth of biblical versions of utopian and dystopian societies, there has always been a gender dynamic presented in the text between men and women and what constitutes a perfect or imperfect relationship between the two. An analysis of multiple books through a period of the 20th century were the best sources in which to compare the most recent forms of social constructions of gender and how that influences fictional writing. For this reason, the historical context in which each author is writing is also important. The books used are, Herland written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1915, followed by the dystopian fiction Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley in 1932, and the final novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood in 1986. These books allowed for an accurate analysis and representation of how power relations and social constructions of gender based on the historical context of the novel influence the author and content.…show more content… In the case of analyzing this particular novel there a multiple things that need to be taken into account. The fact that the author is male, as well as the time period that this novel was written. Huxley was writing in 1932, not only was this between two World Wars and during the Great Depression but it was also during a time of technological and political changes. In this dystopian society placed in London six hundred years in the future, free will and individuality have been sacrificed. More importantly women no longer give birth to children, instead they are created in a laboratory and raised and conditioned to live and work in this society. Monogamous relationships, love, and the idea of a nuclear family are all considered to be repulsive concepts that just do not exist anymore. This loss of values and setting with new roles for men and women provides a great novel to examine and assess the influences and representations of