A gender-equal society would be one where the word 'gender' does not exist: where everyone can be themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Professor Stephanie Al-Kasspoles and it is my pleasure to be speaking to you today at the Sydney Literature Festival about the notion of gender and the universal significance it holds to each and every individual. Gender is a social construct which permeates society, and can be mirrored through various texts which encompass such values from their social milieu
There are many different forms that the regimes of dystopian literature take in order to suppress individuality from suppression by force in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Margaret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to a kind of silent suppression in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 or even just a suppression by the circumstance of nature in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. There are many different ways in which the suppression is manifested and many would argue that
Intro- The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood is a fictitious novel that describes a misogynistic and dysfunctional society, The Republic of Gilead, which was once the United States. Gilead leadership stripped women of their freedom and their rights claiming low fertility rates as a justifiable reason for women to stay in the home and to bear children. The political agenda of Gilead leadership resembles religious conservative ideals of women as homemakers and the bearers of children as their
Female sexuality is a theme prevalent to many novels, particularly, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood, ‘Goblin Market’ by Christina Rossetti, and ‘The Clerk’s Tale’ by Geoffrey Chaucer. The restriction of this sexuality can be seen in the societal values of each era, and significantly, the role of religion in containing this. However, it is valid to say that sexuality can never be fully repressed, and this is explored in the imagery and language of the literatures. The definition of women
dystopian fiction examines the cultural construction of female identity, language and historical memory. She does this through her creation of strong yet vulnerable female characters, producing a vivid set of possibilities for the women in The Handmaid’s Tale. Women are treated as political and societal instruments; they were both necessary to create a totalitarian society, but are also just there to be materials and have no real purpose. Despite all of Gilead’s pro-women rhetoric, such subjugation
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
community has never exhibited an interest in expanding opportunities for women beyond the gender role such as baring children and sacrificing their bodies for men. These communities have refused to allow girls to be educated, and repress women in all linguistic abilities. Reflecting the attitudes and methods of such fundamentalist groups can be seen in the strict rules imposed in the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margret Atwood, in which Offred witnesses the power if language that is strictly
More recently, the awarded Canadian writer Margaret Atwood has also focused mainly on women’s issues and has been regarded as a feminist writer. In “The Handmaid’s Tale”, published in 1985 Margaret Atwood portrays a strongly feminist view of a dystopian society, in which women have been deprived of all their rights. Both of these writers are representatives of the female feminist writers who have let their footprint
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a recount of Offred’s service as a national resource within the dystopian theocracy of Gilead; a fundamentalist Christian society where every intricate social structure is a counter-revolution to the now-defunct United States. Offred is a handmaid at the disposal of her assigned Commander and must spend hours waiting in isolation, considering the past, present and future. From Atwood’s developing descriptions of life before the coup, the reader begins to fully
written by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, is thought of a novel about the oppression of women and governing of women by men. This new society was built on the foundation of a Christian government extremist, where men are dominant in society and the women are the powerless subgroup. In the Republic of Gilead, both genders are greatly oppressed; however it is shown that women are being more pressured and oppressed Gilead than men. Evidently, women’s sole role of life is helplessly controlled