Handmaid's Tale

A detailed Summary of Handmaid's Tale

The novels 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale touch many disturbing aspects about the denial of a person's natural rights. In today's society people are granted certain rights which the government or anyone else can not take away. These rights are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In both novel, the government which the people live under has taken away all of the rights of people, including natural rights. The right to life has been taken away in the sense that a persons life is the party. A person is born for the party, works for the party, and dies for the party. Liberty is taken away by not allowing the privacy of thought or action. To coin the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" . The right of a person pursuing happiness is unquestionably taken away because all forms of pleasure (games, sex, laughter) are illegal. The government promotes hate and unhappiness.

The life of a person living in Oceania and Gilead is strictly controlled. A person does not choose what they do for a living, or whom they associate with. The party is the center of everybody's life. " Until they become canscious they will never rebel, and untill after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious" The only reason anyone marries or

The party undoubtedly denies the right to pursuit of happiness in 1984. The party promotes hate. They even celebrate it. Hate week is a special week set aside for the promotion of hate toward everything that the party condemns. People are also forced to take part in the two minute hate against Goldstein, the leader of the Brotherhood. The abomination of sex for pleasure, and falling in love with someone are both examples of the denial of pursuit of happiness. The party tries to keep people as pure as they can. They make sex out to be dirty and a disgusting act. The party even runs a Junior Anti-Sex League to teach children the sin in sex, and to keep them from desiring it. Sex is only supposed to be for the use of reproduction. " Sexual Intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly distinguished mirror operation, like having an enema." Winston and Julia's greatest crime was falling in love. It is putrid that the party can deny people expressing their feelings toward one another. Today true love is what everyone strives for. The only thing that the party allows people to love is the party itself, and Big Brother.

has children is so that the children can live for the party. The children grow up learning how to defy and betray everyone for the party. Children will tell on anybody, even their parents if they see them acting in an unorthodox or peculiar way. When Winston was in the Ministry of Love he discovers that a co-worker of his, a man by the name of Parsons, who had been turned in for thoughtcrime by his own daughter. This is a quite disturbing incident because Parsons was proud of his child and happy that he had been sent to the Ministry of Love before he had committed any other thoughtcrime. He is a prime example of a person whose entire life was for the party and for Big Brother. Even though Winston and Julia were enemies of the party their lives were still spent doing work for the party. They would still participate in the two minute hates and would still do their jobs, which both helped the party brainwash more and more people. No one ever outwardly betrayed the party.

A person's natural right should never be defied. It does not seem conceivable that a community of people could ever let a government control them in such a way. Throughout time people have rebelled against tyrannical governments

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1565
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English