Handmaid's Tale

Section: Book Reports

However, this would take a very long process to prepare for. Streets were cleaned up, and prostitution disappeared, They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to continue on as usual (p.163). Then finally one day everything changed. Woman were no longer allowed to hold jobs, or even buy groceries. People were shipped off to a place called the Colonies, and others went elsewhere. Things happened so quickly that no one even saw it coming. The consequences of the lost identity in The Handmaid's Tale, were not as severe as one would have expected. Offred was a very reasonable woman who easily adapted to the changes. Her greatest loss was that of love. The results of this lack of love were several affairs throughout the entire story. Affairs were strictly prohibited in the Gileadian society; however, they were very hard to resist as well. Offred would try to convince herself that these affairs were not about love, simply about a feeling of being wanted: Some days I was rational. I did not put it, to myself, in terms of love. I said, I have made a life for myself, here, of a sort. That must have been what the settlers' wives thought, and woman who survived wars, if they still had a man. Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. (p.255) Her adaptations to the changes around her, were simply to keep her safe. If you were caught rebelling against the guardians or Eyes as they were called, you would be put to death; or sent to the colonies where you would surely die. However, she did steal from her commander every once in while. This was done to keep herself sane, and to give herself a feeling of power, I like this. I am doing something, on my own (p.92). The power that her master has over her eventually leads her to hate the world she lives in. She even feels the need to either kill her masters, or herself at times; although she knows that she won't. However, this is a whole new side of Offred that is never seen before: I could hide behind the door, wait until my mistress comes, hobbling along the hall, bearing whatever sentence, penance punishment, jump out at her, knock her down, kick her sharply and accurately in the head. To put her out of her misery, and myself as well. (p.274) She was pushed too far, and given a difficult job to carry out. And in return for this, she was treated as an insignificant person. She lost her feeling of being a human being, and became a thing that produced children at the whim of others.

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