Margaret Atwood s The Handmaid s Tale Essay - 1309 Words

â€Å"Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some† (Atwood 211). Almost all attempts at a utopia eventually evolve into a dystopia because of the class that ends up being oppressed. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, this is exactly the case, and the oppressed caste is the handmaids. The United States has been transformed into The Republic of Gilead. This change was stimulated by the increase in rape and violence against women, as well as the dropping fertility rates. The story begins with a handmaid named Offred. She has been assigned the job of a handmaid because she is one of the few women who are still fertile. Offred works in the house of the Commander and every month, when she is most fertile, she, the Commander, and his wife take part in the ceremony. If the ceremony is not successful, meaning Offred is not pregnant, within two years she will be transferred to another household. Besides her role in the ceremony , Offred goes on walks with her assigned partner, Ofglen, every day to stay in shape, and get the groceries. Later in the novel the Commander takes Offred to Jezebels, a place for men to find prostitutes and conduct trade with other countries. Serena Joy, the commander’s wife, also encourages Offred to be intimate with Nick, who is a Guardian in the Commander’s household. These two indiscretions make it very dangerous for Offred, and she is sent away with Mayday. This group aims towards protecting women against theShow MoreRelatedThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1357 Words   |  6 PagesOxford definition: â€Å"the advocacy of women s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes† (Oxford dictionary). In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood explores feminism through the themes of women’s bodies as political tools, the dynamics of rape culture and the society of complacency. Margaret Atwood was born in 1939, at the beginning of WWII, growing up in a time of fear. In the autumn of 1984, when she began writing The Handmaid’s Tale, she was living in West Berlin. The BerlinRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1249 Words   |  5 PagesDystopian Research Essay: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood In the words of Erika Gottlieb With control of the past comes domination of the future. A dystopia reflects and discusses major tendencies in contemporary society. The Handmaid s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. The novel follows its protagonist Offred as she lives in a society focused on physical and spiritual oppression of the female identity. Within The Handmaid s Tale it is evident that through the explorationRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1060 Words   |  5 Pagesideologies that select groups of people are to be subjugated. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood plays on this idea dramatically: the novel describes the oppression of women in a totalitarian theocracy. Stripped of rights, fertile women become sex objects for the politically elite. These women, called the Handmaids, are forced to cover themselves and exist for the sole purpose of providing children. The Handmaid’s Tale highlights the issue of sexism while also providing a cruel insight into theRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1659 Words   |  7 Pagesbook The Handmaid s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the foremost theme is identity, due to the fact that the city where the entire novel takes place in, the city known as the Republic of Gilead, often shortened to Gilead, strips fertile women of their identities. Gilead is a society that demands the women who are able to have offspring be stripped of all the identity and rights. By demeaning these women, they no longer view themselves as an individual, but rather as a group- the group of Handmaids. It isRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1237 Words   |  5 Pages The display of a dystopian society is distinctively shown in The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Featuring the Republic of Gilead, women are categorized by their differing statuses and readers get an insight into this twisted society through the lenses of the narrator; Offred. Categorized as a handmaid, Offred’s sole purpose in living is to simply and continuously play the role of a child-bearing vessel. That being the case, there is a persistent notion that is relatively brought up by thoseRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1548 Words   |  7 PagesIn Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, The theme of gender, sexuality, and desire reigns throughout the novel as it follows the life of Offred and other characters. Attwood begins the novel with Offred, a first person narrator who feels as if she is misplaced when she is describing her sleeping scenery at the decaying school gymnasium. The narrator, Offred, explains how for her job she is assigned to a married Commander’s house where she is obligated to have sex with him on a daily basis, so thatRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale, By Margaret Atwood1629 Words   |  7 Pages Atwood s novel, The Handmaid s Tale depicts a not too futuristic society of Gilead, a society that overthrows the U.S. Government and institutes a totalitarian regime that seems to persecute women specifically. Told from the main character s point of view, Offred, explains the Gilead regime and its patriarchal views on some women, known as the handmaids, to a purely procreational function. The story is set the present tense in Gilead but frequently shifts to flashbacks in her time at the RedRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1540 Words   |  7 Pages Name: Nicole. Zeng Assignment: Summative written essay Date:11 May, 2015. Teacher: Dr. Strong. Handmaid’s Tale The literary masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is a story not unlike a cold fire; hope peeking through the miserable and meaningless world in which the protagonist gets trapped. The society depicts the discrimination towards femininity, blaming women for their low birth rate and taking away the right from the females to be educated ,forbidding them from readingRead MoreThe Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1256 Words   |  6 Pageshappened to Jews in Germany, slaves during Christopher Columbus’s days, slaves in the early 1900s in America, etc. When people systematically oppress one another, it leads to internal oppression of the oppressed. This is evident in Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale. This dystopian fiction book is about a young girl, Offred, who lives in Gilead, a dystopian society. Radical feminists complained about their old lifestyles, so in Gilead laws and rules are much different. For example, men cannotRead More The Handmaid s Tale By Margaret Atwood1667 Words   |  7 Pagesrhetorical devices and figurative language, that he or she is using. The Handmaid’s Tale, which is written by Margaret Atwood, is the novel that the author uses several different devices and techniques to convey her attitude and her points of view by running the story with a narrator Offred, whose social status in the Republic of Gilead is Handmaid and who is belongings of the Commander. Atwood creates her novel The Handmaid’s Tale to be more powerful tones by using imagery to make a visibleness, hyperbole

Theories of Intersectionality and Oppression - 1238 Words

The concept that all oppressions are inherently linked underlies the theory of intersectionality that implies interactions of multiple systems of oppression, discrimination, and exclusion. Although we have been exposed to an extraordinarily wide variety of literature throughout the semester, with various standpoints, from very different regions of the world– the one unique concept in which they share is this underlying theme of intersectionality. In their own way, each author points out that we must recognize race, class, and gender as interlocking categories of analysis that together create profound differences in personal identity. The implications of this study provide a new and innovative and effective way in analyzing and understanding the intricacies and power dynamics that play out in not only the United States but on an increasingly global scale. This theory also lends itself to understanding the continual and perpetuating marginalization of women around the world, and how complex and interconnected their experience of oppression is, and why as critical thinkers we cannot discuss gender as stagnant or one-dimensional or merely continental. Stacyann Chin, very eloquently suggests through this statement that all oppression is inherently connected, which is evident through various literatures in which we’ve read this semester. Most evidentially, Dorothy Allison essay, â€Å"A Question of Class,† reveals that there are common elements of oppression and that we cannot viewShow MoreRelatedFeminist Theory And Feminist Theory901 Words   |  4 Pagesfrom the past readings. Feminist theory and intersectionality. I have taken some Women’s studies courses before so I am familiar with feminist theory. Intersectionality is trickier for me as I am a white, female, privilege Canadian woman who has not faced any oppressions for what I look like. The only oppressions I face are for being a woman and there is no intersectionality with having only one oppression. I will explore both feminist theory and intersectionality and finish off with battered womensRead MoreFeminism And The Feminist Movement1006 Words   |  5 PagesIt was not until Kimberlà © Crenshaw introduced the term â€Å"intersectionality† in 1989 that feminism started to look at oppressed group’s needs (Nash, 2008, 2). Intersectionality is a way of thinking that acknowledges that when a person has identities that belong to more than one oppressed group, it impacts their quality of life more negatively. In this paper, I will argue that intersectionality is important in the discussion of feminist theories and activism because it ensures that feminism is for allRead MoreCritical Analysis Of Olivia Popes Scandal1158 Words   |  5 PagesIntroduction Intersectionality can be referred to as a sociological theory that describes multiple threats of discrimination when a person’s identity overlaps with a number of minority classes in terms of gender, age, race, health, ethnicity, and many other features (Vardeman-Winter Tindall, 2010). In essence, intersectionality is a framework employed in conceptualizing an individual, group of people, or social problem as affected by a myriad of discriminations and disadvantages. The intersectionalityRead MoreIntersectionality Essay853 Words   |  4 PagesBerlyn Valdez WGS 150 October 16, 2017 Midterm Essay Intersectionality The term intersectionality is a very complex word with room for an open range for multiple definitions. Intersectionality is used to understand numerous types of oppressions and discriminations against people. Although, intersectionality wasnt used as a term until the 1980’s by Kimberle Crenshaw, an american civil rights activist and feminist, as a label for the types of oppressions women of color experienced. This is crucial forRead MoreRace, Racial, And The Individual s Self Concept1729 Words   |  7 Pagesideology, captures an individual’s thoughts and attitudes regarding how they think other Blacks should act. There are four types of ideology: nationalist (emphasizes the uniqueness of Black individuals), oppressed minority (focuses on the shared oppression among minority groups), assimilationist (highlights similarities between Blacks and American society), and humanist (acknowledges the commonalities among all humans). The dimensions of racial identity are postulated to interact with one anotherRead MoreThe Intersection Of Race And Sex1329 Words   |  6 PagesIntersectionality is defined by social categories, such as race and gender that have interconnected to apply to individuals and groups, causing an overlap, which has consequently created a system of discrimination and disadvantages (English Oxford Living Dictionary, 2016). Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term in her article ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Anti-racist Politics’ (1889) whereby her main focusRead MoreUnspeakable Conversations By Harriet Mcbryde Johnson1184 Words   |  5 Pagesunderstand the world and help others, and attempts to directly address oppression by arguing against Professor Singer’s theory and assemble a group of diverse and like-minded people for social change. Oppression is the â€Å"systematically related pressures† that set barriers for certain people (Frye 7). It is the exploitation and the marginalization of subordinate groups. According to Iris Young s Five Faces of Oppression, oppression is also the disdain and powerlessness of these groups. Cultural imperialismRead MorePrivilege And Oppression : Concepts That Provides Clarification On People s Experience1739 Words   |  7 PagesPrivilege and oppression are concepts that provides clarification on people’s experience. They both contribute to intersectionality which explain notion that people’s perspectives and experiences differ in term of the categories of identity. Each person may experience privilege and/ or oppression from institutional structures depending on their situations. It mean that systems of privilege and oppression can intersect and a person could experience privilege and oppression simultaneously. These systemsRead MoreIntersectionality715 Words   |  3 PagesIntersectionality of Gender Inequality Name: Institution: Intersectionality of Gender Inequality For many decades, women have experienced all forms of oppression and constant violence that threatened their existence in the male-dominated society. Various forms of discrimination and oppression have been directed to women for decades. Violence directed at women such as rape and battery were seen and treated as isolatedRead MoreEthnic Identity And Cultural Identity1204 Words   |  5 Pagesenvironments should accommodate aspects of difference among students and to balance the diverse cultural norms through their programs, so as to enhance a positive and productive experience to all students. Queer Theory and Students Identity Development The foundational tenets of queer theory are based on the ideas of French poststructuralist theorists (Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard) who posit that â€Å"knowledge and truth are social constructions that reflect the prevailing interests of those who hold the

TTR Period Free Essays

They took control of the production of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and mace. Due to this, the Dutch profits skyrocketed and they had a strong centralized control over the Indonesian islands, and were also strategically laced near China for trade purport nineties. Jamestown, Virginia being est. We will write a custom essay sample on TTR Period or any similar topic only for you Order Now . In America; Thirty Years War used starting in late 16th century when slaves were Of use in the Atlantic region plantation complex The social set up of the way slaves were treated in society is known as the plantation complex. The complex was the agricultural system based in Brazil, North America, and the Caribbean. The system had slaves working under their masters, usually to harvest crops and bring in more profits for their master at free labor. Conflict between Ottoman and Safaris Empires; McHugh empire under Kafka Politically) 6181648 Thirty Years War This war between Rise of Catholic and Protestantism protestant states completely split Europe apart, as well as it being one of the most devastating European conflicts in history. 6005 Outage unites Japan The once feudal State Of Japan was united by Outage around this time. Some people say that this saved Japan from being taken over as other small island states had been. China got screwed over by silver trade 1500516005 Colonization of the Americas Americas lead to a mass dying out of peoples and paved the way for European do menace Atlantic slave trade in the continent. More Political(Ally) 16801760 King unification of China The unification during the King dynasty was an eighty year military effort to solidify China into an empire. The reason for this was largely security precautions to prevent another Mongol cone guest of China. Second Ottoman Empire siege of Vienna; High point of Slave Trade: European enlightenment; Wars of Islamic Renewal in West Africa 1 598 The Edict of Antes Henry IV issued the Edict of Antes to alleviate some of the tension between the Catholics and the Protestants. The purpose of this was to stop the brutal massacres and battles. It offered mom leniency for the French Protestants in hope that they would return to the Catholic Church and end this religious â€Å"war’. Jamestown is established as the first English settlement in North America; French colony in Quebec established; missionaries expelled from Japan Map: represents fur trade Interaction w/ the Environment(Ally) ca 1500 1600 Fur Trade The â€Å"World Hunt† was an economical and ecological turning point in the Americas. How to cite TTR Period, Papers

Satire Essay Example For Students

Satire Essay SatireJoseph Heller who is perhaps one of the most famous writers of the 20th century writes on some emotional issues such as war. He does not deal with these issues in the normal fashion instead he criticizes them and the institutions that help carry these things out. Heller in fact goes beyond criticizing he satirizes. Throughout his two major novels Catch-22 and Good as Gold he satirizes almost all of Americas respectful institutions. To truly understand these novels you must recognize that they are satires and why they are. Catch-22 is a satire on World War II. This novel takes place on the small island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean sea late in the war when Germany is no longer a threat. It is the struggle of one man, Yossarian, to survive the war. Throughout this novel Yossarian is trying to escape the war, and in order to do so he does many improper things. Good as Gold is about a Jewish man named Gold. It is about Golds experiences with the government while being employed in the White House. It also deals in detail with Golds family problems and Golds struggle to write a book on the contemporary Jewish society. Throughout these two novels, Catch-22 and Good as Gold, Heller criticizes many institutions. In Good as Gold it is the White House and government as a whole, and in Catch-22 it is the military and medical institutions. In Catch-22 the military is heavily satirized. Heller does this by criticizing it. Karl agrees with this statement by offering an example of the satire of both the military and civilian institutions in Catch-22:The influence of mail clerk Wintergreen, the computer foul-up that promotes Major Major, and the petty rivalries among officers satirizes the communication failures and the cut-throat competition Heller saw within both the civilian and military bureaucracies of the 1950s. Even the Civil Rights movement, not yet widespread in the 1950s, is satirized in Colonel Cathcart attitudes toward enlisted men. (23)Karl summarizes the satirazation of the military with this: The enemy in Hellers book is not simply the chaos of war, but also the deadly inhuman bureaucracy of the military-economic establishment which clams to be a stay against chaos while it threatens human life moreinsidiously then battle itself. Heller also questions the need for the death and carnage throughout the novel asking if it is really necessary. Many other institutions are also satirized in Catch-22. Bryant points out the extreme variety of institutions that Heller satirizes with this His satire is directed toward the institutions that make up society, business, psychiatry, medicine, law, the military. . . (Bryant 228). Medicine is one of the institutions that is heavily satirized. He does this by portraying medicine as a science that is almost barbaric and not exact. He writes of how the men of the squadron used the hospital as a way out of battle. Catch-22 it self begins in the hospital where Yossarian is faking Jaundice of the liver in order to avoid battle. Many characters also take this up as a form of staying out of battle. Heller addresses the barbarism of medicine with Dr. Daneekas aides. He writes of them painting peoples gums and feet violet in order to ward of certain illnesses. In Catch-22 Heller also satirize religion. This occurs in Chapter Nineteen when Colonel Cathcart is aspiring to become a general. In this chapter religion is satirized in a number of ways. The first is when Colonel Cathcart uses it for a social icon to improve his chance of becoming general. Dr. Peek agrees with this by saying . . . we see a satire on religion used as a matter of social status (25). In Catch-22 there is also one more major satiriazation it is that of industry and finance. The reason this is true is because of certain things Milo says such as Whats good for the syndicate is good for the country (Karl 34). Good as Gold is manly a satire on the White House and government. Heller portrays the White House as being, disgraceful, according to Merrill. Merrill believes that this work criticizes politics almost from page one and that it does an excellent job of it in fact he writes A number of reviewers found that the Washington satire brilliant and incisive. . . (103). The other device that Heller uses is humor. Catch-22 is so satirical in places that it is hilarious. Mr. Hellers talent and use of comedy is so prevalent in these novels that it caused The Atlantic to write Mr. Hellers talents for comedy are so considerable that one gets irritated when he keeps pressing (Phoenix 31). Other critics such as Brustein also wrote that Hellers works are extremely hilarious (228). Although the novel is funny is uses humor in order to further satirize. Dr. Peek agrees with this statement by saying that Its Catch-22 not a flag-waving war adventure, but a novel using humor to discredit or ridicule aspects of out society (24). Dr. Peek also goes on to comment on the amount of comical dialogue in the novel. He says that it contains a significant amount of this dialogue and that it further adds to the humor (11). Heller even takes his humor as far as naming his characters comically. Dr. Karl points out the comical naming of Major Major which turns into Major Major Major Major with his accidental promotion (11). The attaching of the prefix Hungry to Joes name in the novel is also comical, but Heller does not stop at that he goes as far as naming a character Scheisskopf, the parade crazed lieutenant, which actually means shithead. (Peek 10). Vietnam3 Persuasive EssayGood as Gold also has a certain element of irony although it is less apparent. The characters of the White House seem to take their job lightly and do the improper things. The offering of a White House job as high-level as the Secretary of State to Professor Gold by Ralph Newsome, the presidential aide, simply because the president liked Golds book on him is ironic and a excellent example of satire. In Catch-22 Heller also portrays characters that hold high level positions in the military as being incompetent and irresponsible. Merrill believes that almost all of the characters in the novel are portrayed incompetent which is according to satiric fashions. He sites the numerous doctors that Yossarian fooled by faking a liver condition. He also cites Gus and Wes, Doctor Daneekas assistants, as being incompetent for their rushing of people to the hospital for a fever and their painting to ill peoples toes and gums violet (Merrill 18). It is also obvious in the novel that the military decisions are made in a absurd way and are highly illogical. The prime example of this is in the character Wintergreen who intercepts mail between the generals and doctors thereby allowing him to change orders to his liking. On this subject Burgess commented in his work on contemporary fiction by saying His approach Hellers is not merely satirical it is surrealistic, absurd, even lunatic, though the aim is serious enough to show . . . the monstrous egotism of the top brass (Burgess 140). This example of Wintergreen and the Burgess quote further show the irresponsibility and incompetence of high ranking officers. Heller portrays the military in Catch-22 as being exploitative of its soldiers and society. This is true in certain circumstances such as the tight bomb pattern that Colonel Cathcart deems imperative in order for him to be raised in command level. The military seems to act irresponsibly almost all the time. At one point in the novel the military ordered a whole civilian town destroyed in order to obtain a picture of a tight bomb pattern. This portraysion goes farther then a tight bomb pattern it extends to the point of total control of the soldiers in the military. Dr. Peek comments on this saying that . . . satire against dominating bureaucracy in general as the squadron begins to realize that administrators whose job is to serve them have taken control of their lives instead (20). The last device that Heller uses to create satire is in Good as Gold. In this novel he uses extreme amounts of caricature. This occurs especially in the White House characters. Merrill also points out Hellers caricature of Jewish people as whole by saying that their are no Jews in Good as Gold only caricatures conceived on a level somewhat between sitcom and slapstick (100). Hellers two novels, Catch-22 and Good as Gold, in short contain much satire. Catch-22 contains satire which is deeply integrated into its architecture, while Good as Gold is more superficial but still substantial. While Catch-22 satirizes primarily the military, Good as Gold satirizes the White House and government. These two novels contain many devices such as humor, irony, and caricature in order to achieve the desired effect of satire. As Karl points out Catch-22 had a profound effect on peoples views on war and also a impact on war novels of the 1960s and 1970s. If these novels are read as anything but satires they will not be appreciated nor understood totally. Works CitedBrustein, Robert. The Logic of Survival in a Lunatic World. TheCritic as Artist: Essay on Books 1920-1970 1972:47-54. Rpt. in Heller, Joseph. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Eds. Carolyn Riley. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1975. 228. Bryant, Jerry H. The Open Decision: The Contemporary American Novel and Its Intellectual Background. 1970:156-159. Rpt. in. Heller, Joseph. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Eds. Carolyn Riley. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1975. 229. Burgess, Anthony. The Novel: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction. 1967:53. Rpt. in Heller, Joseph. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1973. 140. Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Dell, Aug 1963. Heller, Joseph. Good as Gold. New York: Simon,1979. Karl, Frederick R. Barrons Book Notes Joseph Hellers Catch-22 (1983). American Online. Merrill, Robert. Joseph Heller. Ed. Warren French. Twaynes United States Authors Series. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Olderman, Raymond M. The Grail Knight Departs. Beyond the Waste Lands: A Study of the American Novel in the Nineteen-Sixties. Rpt. in Heller, Joseph. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1975. 229-230. Peek, C. A., Ph.D. Cliffs Notes on Hellers Catch-22. Ed. Gary Carey. Cliff Notes. Lincoln: Cliff, 1993. Phoenix, James. Joseph Heller: The Comedian. Atlantic Sept 1987: 47-52. 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