Handmaids Tale
The nature of Offred's lost identity is very drastic. Before the new religious group of Gilead took over the world she was a very normal every day woman. She did what was expected of her time and continued to do so after the take over. She had a husband and a daughter who she loved very much. But the new society which she lives in love is not permitted. " If I thought that this would happen again I would die. But this is wrong, nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from. There's nobody here I can love, all the people I could love are dead or elsewhere" . Offred also had the choice of free will before her civilization changed. But then slowly women began to lose all of their rights and were no longer allowed to have jobs or even to use money, "Sorry, he said. This number is not valid." "That's ridiculous, I said. It must be, I've got thousands in my account." "It's not valid, he repeated obstinately. See that red light? Means it's not valid,"(p.164). "In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from" (p.24). Social class was not a racial matter before the take over; and each individual was treated equally. However, slowly people of high social g
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) 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. 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 common words found in the essay are:
Handmaid's Tale, , Tuck Breathe, Aunt Lydia, lost identity, McClelland-Bantam Inc, lack love, handmaid's tale,
Approximate Word count = 1089
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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