The Power of Manipulation The Handmaid's Tale

 The book I read was The Handmaid's Tale by Marget Atwood . The Handmaid's Tale has a total of 311 pages. The genre of the novel is science fiction. The vocabulary in the book is easy / moderate . Some of the words that I struggled with are prestige, descending, conspiratorial, blotchy, salvagings, prayvaganzas , sacrilege, facades ,econowives , riddance . Prestige is widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality. Descending is moving or sloping downward. Conspiratorial is relating to or suggestive of a secret plan made by a group of people to do something unlawful or harmful. Blotchy is covered with blotches or patchy. Salvaging is the term used to refer to executions in the Republic of Gilead. Prayvaganzas are mass prayer meetings occasionally held in the Republic of Gilead. Sacrilege is violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred. Facades are the face of a building, the front that looks onto a street or open space. Econowives are a class of women in the Republic of Gilead. Riddance is the action of getting rid of a troublesome or unwanted person or thing. I think Margaret Atwood named the book The Handmaid's Tale because the novel shows a work that imagines a future that could conceivably happen without any advances in technology from the present.

The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, originally published in 1985. It is set in New England. The novel focuses on the journey of the handmaid Offred. The Handmaid's Tale takes place in a city in what used to be in the United States, but is now called the Republic of Gilead. In this alternative state, the democratic government has been overthrown and replaced by a totalitarian one , Gilead. Totalitarian is relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state. The Handmaid's Tale takes place around the year 2005 , most of the action takes place in the home and school .

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to have children for elite couples that have trouble having kids. Offred serves the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy . Serena Joy is a former gospel singer and advocate for “traditional values.” Offred is not the narrator’s real name. Handmaids names consist of the word “of” & the name of the Handmaid’s Commander.

Every month, when Offred is at the right point in her menstrual cycle, she must have impersonal, wordless sex with the Commander while Serena sits behind her, holding her hands. Offred’s freedom, like the freedom of all women, is completely restricted. She can leave the house only on shopping trips, the door to her room cannot be completely shut, and the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police force, watch her every public move.As Offred tells the story of her daily life, she sometimes slips into flashbacks, from before the world changed . In the old world, before Gilead, Offred had an affair with Luke, a married man. He divorced his wife and married Offred, and they had a child together. Offred’s mother was a single mother and feminist activist. Offred’s best friend, Moira, was fiercely independent. The architects of Gilead began their rise to power in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against women—when pollution and chemical spills led to declining fertility rates. Using the military, they assassinated the president and members of Congress and launched a coup, claiming that they were taking power temporarily. They cracked down on women’s rights, forbidding women to hold property or jobs. Offred and Luke took their daughter and attempted to flee across the border into Canada, but they were caught and separated from one another, and Offred has seen neither her husband nor her daughter since.

After her capture, Offred’s marriage was voided because Luke had been divorced and she was sent to the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center. At the center, women were indoctrinated into Gilead’s idea in preparation for becoming Handmaids. Aunt Lydia supervised the women, giving speeches about Gilead’s beliefs that women should be loving to men and always careful with having children. Aunt Lydia also argued that such a social order ultimately offers women more respect and safety than the old, pre-Gilead society offered them. Moira is brought to the Red Center, but she escapes, and Offred does not know what to do anymore she feels alone .

The most difficult to write would be every month, when Offred is at the right point in her menstrual cycle, she must have impersonal, wordless sex with the Commander while Serena sits behind her, holding her hands. This would be the hardest part because this is unsatisfying sex & it’s unwanted just because they want kids . An experience I had like offred is when they tried to change the way she thought about the world . In this generation people judge you by the way you act and if they don’t like it they try to change the way you think and act . I would like Moria to be my friend . I would want Moria to be my friend because she tries her best to keep Offred on track to focus on seeing her daughter again . If this book was made into a movie, I would have offered , Moria , The Commander & his wife , and the eyes . I pick them because they’re the most important people in the book , the book is mostly surrounded around them . If it were my novel I wouldn't change the main characters gender because with the female it gives more power to the story .

The main conflict in the story is The Republic of Gilead has subjugated women and reduced Handmaids like Offred to sexual slavery. Offred desires happiness and freedom, and finds herself struggling against the totalitarian restrictions of her society. The exposition of the story is the commander's wife sent her 'third posting,' a position as Handmaid to the powerful Commander. Offred when to the new location while explaining her position in society and how she got to it. The rising action is the commander's wife wants a baby so she tells the Offred to start sleeping with Nick. The climax is when Offered starts to fall in love with Nick and thinks she might be pregnant. She and her friend Ofglen have to go watch an execution. There, both women behave slightly abnormally and, as a result, put themselves in jeopardy. Offred finds out that Ofglen has compromised herself and vanished. The Commander's Wife finds out about Offred's secret meetings with the Commander, and the narrator is forced to wait for some unknown punishment. Men dressed as Eyes come to arrest Offred . They don't know if they're really Eyes taking her away to be punished/killed or if they're resistance fighters there to rescue her. The resolution is At an academic conference several hundred years in the future, a professor provides historical context for the narrator's story and tries to explain what it all means.

The theme of The Handmaid's Tale is the power of manipulation . I think the novel is to affect you mentally & emotionally . The way the world has changed so fast in the story could make you look at the world differently , it could make you want to live differently . It could affect you emotionally because of how much the world in the story relies on sex to be happy & a lot of people don’t like that .