We learn much about Offred through her own personal private thought. Atwood uses a technique of writing known as stream of conscientious (or ecrire feminine in this case) to allow Offred`s thoughts to flow providing the reader with a real sense of intimacy with Offred as she reveals her innermost secrets and emotions to us. She also uses this as survival tactic: no one can take away her dreams. Poet and author Maya Angelou once said: If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can transform one million realities. In Offred`s thoughts and dreams she is taken back to memories of when she had freedom to do as she desired, when she was in college with Moira, and times with Luke and her daughter. Night is used as a chapter heading seven times in total. This is the time when Offred does most of her contemplating, she says “The night is mine.” She is not repressed or scrutinised at night. She frequently reminisces about the past, paralleling the experiences to her present state of mind. This is part of the exposition used by Atwood in order to help the reader understand how Offred came to where she is to provide us with background information of the plot.
Offred`s person is in addition revealed in flashback demonstrating that she is generally influenced by her female counterparts from the past such as her mother and her best friend. Her best friend is a lively and vivacious character named Moira who is a key figure in Offred`s character development in the novel. Offred says of her:
The Essay on Yeah Time Night Somethin
Subj: Hey BABY Date: 2/11/01 5: 01: 54 PM Mountain Standard Time From: Hockey Man 32 To: Jake 729 Hey jack. how are you? i'm hope in good. i'm doing really good (knock on wood). Yeah I had a great time last night.sorry I was a lie shy at first but i didn't really know how to start so I just started be in myself, Yeah you are an awesome chic. and a whole lot prettier in person. Yeah I was all happy ...
“Moira was our fantasy. We hugged her to us, she was with us in secret, a giggle; she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In light of Moira, Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd.”
She helps Offred in piloting her sexuality as she herself is a radical feminist and dares to
do what Offred would want to do but is scared to do so. Moira seems to be, in my opinion, a catalyst to many of the events that occurred with Offred as the story develops. She gives Offred courage inadvertently and represents a symbol of hope as she escaped from the centre. Offred`s oppression caused her to harbour a negative but understandable stance towards men, including her husband Luke, as a lot of the negative feelings were projected onto him. But at her conclusion she can excuse the men’s behaviour because they are essentially just men and biologically and anatomically charged to act as they will.
Offred`s memories of her mother provide her character with some inner strength as well. She describes a time when her mother took her to a burning of pornographic books. Offred`s mother was a feminist activist that took part in pro-abortion rallies as seen on a video at the Rachel and Leah centre. Offred was at first embarrassed of her mother in her youth, but in her memories or flashbacks she understands her mother’s existentialistic mind and free spirit growing to admire these qualities. She too gives Offred courage. Offred`s mother says of men “A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.” Offred keeps her mother alive much in the same way she keeps Luke and her own daughter alive, through memory, she asks rhetorically:
“Where ever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a woman’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.”
Offred appreciates the feminist movement her mother represented and pioneered for much too late but since she has been through Gilead and lives there she starts to understand her mother a bit better. This can be connected to what Offred says in the closing of Chapter twelve “What I must present is a made thing, not something born.” As in French feminist philosopher Simone De Beavoir once said “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.”
The Essay on The Biosocial Differences Between Middle Aged Men And Women
The Biosocial Differences between Middle Aged Men and Women Middle adulthood is believed to be a period of transition and change. People experience changes physically, as the functioning of most systems slows down. People experience transition emotionally, trying to decide what to do with their lives. How they handle these changes is influenced by gender, genetic predisposition, their families and ...
One central aspect of Offred`s personality in the novel as the story unfolds, is her transformation from just conforming and submitting herself to Gileadean society. In essence being in the power and control of men, for it is men that set up Gilead and governed it. Basically she enforces her womanliness to at least try and obtain what she wants. Offred craves love and affection, a relationship with meaning. Men, like the Commander, the doctor and the Guardians crave frivolous sex as men have a natural impulse to want to procreate and cannot control themselves. This theory is proven in the very existence of Jezebels. Sex also equals power in society. The Commander and doctor both wanted sex from Offred so they could dominate her. Offred manages to keep the Guardians on a sexual edge because she can use her femininity to control them. Offred feels flattered that the Commander takes her to Jezebels but he treats her more like a trophy than a person. It is all about possession. The Commander, his wife Serena Joy and Offred engage in a triangle of sexual politics, which enables Offred to possess power to some degree. Offred has power over the Commander because of his male impulses and sexual urges and Offred has power over Serena because she is deliberately undermining her. Basically Serena is a pawn in the game between the Commander and Offred. On top of that Offred is able to carry child whilst Serena wants a baby giving Offred the upperhand.
Offred often tends to revert to typically female ideas she would have not given a second thought in her life before Gilead. It was D.H Lawrence that once said “The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women.” This is exemplified when she dresses up and put on make-up to go to Jezebels with the Commander masquerading as his mistress. The fact that there are no mirrors is typifying the point that female vanity and beauty no longer have no value in society, however this is not true in the case of the women in Jezebels. The first time Offred uses a mirror is to apply make-up for the Commander. This shows men still care about sexual attractiveness. Offred says of Jezebel’s “You need to know here, what you like it.” In pre-Gilead society women dressed provocatively could equal sexual power over men as men can often not control their urges, but in Gilead to be a female in Jezebel’s in just as demeaning as when in the costume of the Handmaid and merely being used for mechanical reproductive intercourse. Women are degraded and treated like pieces of meat, they are purely there for the men’s disposal and pleasure. At Jezebel’s Offred isn’t “procreating” but “fucking” in the sense of crudeness in the word but not in her context of when they perform the ceremony. The recreational sex is not a good experience for her. She additionally finds she can play on the Commander’s feelings of guilt for the previous Offred who killed herself.
The Essay on Women Men Gender Society
Throughout many decades women have been struggling to be equal to men, both at home and in the work place. Women have come a long way and are certainly fighting to gain that equality, but gender roles are very important in our society. They have become important in life from birth, and society continues to push these gender roles. The treatment of the male gender is very different from that of the ...
Offred discusses of how she used to loathe typical “women’s talk” but now she yearns for it because it is a way in which she can express herself “How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk.” The reasons why Offred likes the idle chatter and gossip she has with the Marthas is because gossip cannot be prevented like sexuality. Eric Jong once said, “Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.” It can be fed upon and in a way is gaining of knowledge and knowledge is power. This is illustrated in when the Commander invites Offred to play scrabble. This also has double meaning and can be seen as a metaphor or innuendo – it is foreplay.
Like most great heroines in great literature Offred has an illicit affair with a man she is passionately attracted to sexually. Nick and Offred have strong sexual tension especially when he first encounters her in the dark and has a clinch her. She says “His fingers moves, feeling my arm under the nightgown sleeve, as if his hand won’t listen to reason.” It shows that they mutually both want each other. He makes her feel validated. We do not know her real name but know the importance she holds on “I keep knowledge of this name like something hidden.” She tells it to Nick showing her love and trust for him: “He calls me by my real name. Why should this mean anything?” Nick calling her by her name signifies something because in The Handmaid’s Tale woman are debased and dehumanised. They all have their place in society from the Commanders wives to the aunts to the handmaids. Women are blamed for the ills and evils of society based on their sexuality. As the world Offred inhabits is a theocentric patriarchal society her power she does gain is limited for she is still oppressed.
The Essay on A Womans Role In Society Is Primarily That Of A Wife And Mother Do You Agree
A womans role is primarily that of a wife and a mother do you agree? The big debate about a womans role, and place in the society has been going on for a long time, and is still continuing. Women have been fighting to be able to stand on the same podium as men for over decades of years. However, I do agree with the given statement that the primary role of women in the society is to be a wife and a ...
Offred additionally grow to understand and rationalise the premise of Gilead. When a handmaid named Janine says she was gang raped the other handmaids are encouraged to chant that she “asked for it.” Women are blamed for society’s wrongdoing because of their sensuality. Casual sex is referred to as “it” and is this very form of sex that Gilead wants repressed. In many ways the undoing of Gilead may have been sexuality because it can not be conditioned or controlled as it is a human instinct. Women are known as “it” as that is what the handmaids basically are. Offred acknowledges this is when she says about a cat that Luke wanted to kill:
“And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where there was none before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that’s how they do it, I thought.”
This is a metaphor for exactly what has happened in Gilead. Women have become “its.” Another significance of Offred`s realisation is revealed in her attitudes towards the ceremony. The first time Offred describes it she says “There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.” And that “One detaches oneself. One describes.” But when she becomes involved with the Commander the new situation makes her “shy of him” She becomes more conscious of herself such as her leg and armpit hair. She complains of feeling “uncouth.” At the closing of the chapter she says, “To him I am not merely empty” as in she is not just a baby maker who has not delivered. This is a contrast and shows her character development as at the end of the previous chapter she felt she was just a product of a sexual urge to him. “For him. I must remember, I am only a whim.”
The Essay on Roles Of Men Women David Marcia
The Roles Played by the Men and Women Portrayed In Two Short Stories by Shirley Jackson As members of society we are affected by various elements of the world around us in everything we do. The actions, attitudes, and beliefs of those who make up the population are essentially the building blocks of society. The specific roles of men and women have been debated for as long as they have existed for ...
In conclusion Offred, like most women was searching for liberation. Offred`s emergence in using her sexuality as a means to gain power over men is akin to, in some parts, rediscovering her sexuality essentially finding her soul. It makes her feel like a woman to be wanted by a man, to know she can have men and to have the man she wants. She exerts herself as a woman and basically Offred learns that non-conformity while risky is worth it to fulfil your desires and experience liberation. This is the main aspect we discover of her personality and development in the novel.
“>What aspects of Offred`s character do we discover as the novel develops?
From first impressions Offred does not seem to be very feminist as she conforms to what men in society want her to do. However, as the novel progresses it transcends that for the state of society she was living in she had feminist qualities. Offred`s character grows as the novel develops. In the “old” times Offred was a post-feminist, appreciative for the rights women have but not so appreciative that she strives to keep them intact and growing unlike her feminist activist mother or friend Moira. In fact Offred has an affair with a married man, Luke who becomes her husband. In my opinion this allows the man power over both his wife and his lover in that they are both dependent on him whereas he is allowed the resources of both. Nonetheless Offred takes the rights she has for granted as many women in society do but then when she loses those rights and with them her identity. She has to face adversity of her family being taken away and having to have sex with a man she does not want but through all this she remains strong and does not give up hope: “What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth.” There is opportunity to commit suicide but she chooses not to. She starts out with little hope, trying not to think too much – she says “Thinking can hurt your chances and I intend to last.” This shows her strength. Her purpose for herself is to keep her sanity and survive. At first Offred does not use her sexuality to its full potential but as the novel goes on she yearns to take more risks. She realises slowly that there are more options that she previously thought. She gains her power through others such as Moira, Nick and her friendship with Ofglen. Also through her memories of her mother, Luke and her child she is able to gain strength. She gets her first taste of sexual power from her rendezvous with the Commander and she yearns for more. She transforms like all true heroines from submissive to dominant.
The Essay on Full Monty Men Women Film
Full Monty Full Monty is a film which women fulfill their fantasies. Film is talking about a fantasy world where women are power holders and men are objects. Film is based on the idea that after hundred years of industrial reform, which was started on United Kingdom, modernized factories and high technology machines make blue-collar workers unemployed. Those unemployed Englishmen who are losing ...
During the establishing of the setting of Gilead, Offred appears to generally accept her handmaid duties, possibly out of fear. She risks the chance of being sent to the colonies with the “Unwomen” where she will be exposed to radiation and death. Ofglen becomes an ally to Offred revealing the existence of an underground movement in Gilead that gives Offred hope. Her transformation is really facilitated when Offred learns how to manipulate men in positions of power (the Commander).
She learns that the hope she kept alive exists. Her relationship with Nick is her escape mentally and physically. Offred`s image of men are distorted as Luke was married when she met him and she was his mistress, the commander uses her to make a baby for his wife but Nick is different. He actually genuinely pays attention to her and gives her what she craves. She wants Nick to touch her not in the way the Commander touches her but the way Luke used to.
We learn much about Offred through her own personal private thought. Atwood uses a technique of writing known as stream of conscientious (or ecrire feminine in this case) to allow Offred`s thoughts to flow providing the reader with a real sense of intimacy with Offred as she reveals her innermost secrets and emotions to us. She also uses this as survival tactic: no one can take away her dreams. Poet and author Maya Angelou once said: If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can transform one million realities. In Offred`s thoughts and dreams she is taken back to memories of when she had freedom to do as she desired, when she was in college with Moira, and times with Luke and her daughter. Night is used as a chapter heading seven times in total. This is the time when Offred does most of her contemplating, she says “The night is mine.” She is not repressed or scrutinised at night. She frequently reminisces about the past, paralleling the experiences to her present state of mind. This is part of the exposition used by Atwood in order to help the reader understand how Offred came to where she is to provide us with background information of the plot.
Offred`s person is in addition revealed in flashback demonstrating that she is generally influenced by her female counterparts from the past such as her mother and her best friend. Her best friend is a lively and vivacious character named Moira who is a key figure in Offred`s character development in the novel. Offred says of her:
“Moira was our fantasy. We hugged her to us, she was with us in secret, a giggle; she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In light of Moira, Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd.”
She helps Offred in piloting her sexuality as she herself is a radical feminist and dares to
do what Offred would want to do but is scared to do so. Moira seems to be, in my opinion, a catalyst to many of the events that occurred with Offred as the story develops. She gives Offred courage inadvertently and represents a symbol of hope as she escaped from the centre. Offred`s oppression caused her to harbour a negative but understandable stance towards men, including her husband Luke, as a lot of the negative feelings were projected onto him. But at her conclusion she can excuse the men’s behaviour because they are essentially just men and biologically and anatomically charged to act as they will.
Offred`s memories of her mother provide her character with some inner strength as well. She describes a time when her mother took her to a burning of pornographic books. Offred`s mother was a feminist activist that took part in pro-abortion rallies as seen on a video at the Rachel and Leah centre. Offred was at first embarrassed of her mother in her youth, but in her memories or flashbacks she understands her mother’s existentialistic mind and free spirit growing to admire these qualities. She too gives Offred courage. Offred`s mother says of men “A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.” Offred keeps her mother alive much in the same way she keeps Luke and her own daughter alive, through memory, she asks rhetorically:
“Where ever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a woman’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.”
Offred appreciates the feminist movement her mother represented and pioneered for much too late but since she has been through Gilead and lives there she starts to understand her mother a bit better. This can be connected to what Offred says in the closing of Chapter twelve “What I must present is a made thing, not something born.” As in French feminist philosopher Simone De Beavoir once said “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.”
One central aspect of Offred`s personality in the novel as the story unfolds, is her transformation from just conforming and submitting herself to Gileadean society. In essence being in the power and control of men, for it is men that set up Gilead and governed it. Basically she enforces her womanliness to at least try and obtain what she wants. Offred craves love and affection, a relationship with meaning. Men, like the Commander, the doctor and the Guardians crave frivolous sex as men have a natural impulse to want to procreate and cannot control themselves. This theory is proven in the very existence of Jezebels. Sex also equals power in society. The Commander and doctor both wanted sex from Offred so they could dominate her. Offred manages to keep the Guardians on a sexual edge because she can use her femininity to control them. Offred feels flattered that the Commander takes her to Jezebels but he treats her more like a trophy than a person. It is all about possession. The Commander, his wife Serena Joy and Offred engage in a triangle of sexual politics, which enables Offred to possess power to some degree. Offred has power over the Commander because of his male impulses and sexual urges and Offred has power over Serena because she is deliberately undermining her. Basically Serena is a pawn in the game between the Commander and Offred. On top of that Offred is able to carry child whilst Serena wants a baby giving Offred the upperhand.
Offred often tends to revert to typically female ideas she would have not given a second thought in her life before Gilead. It was D.H Lawrence that once said “The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women.” This is exemplified when she dresses up and put on make-up to go to Jezebels with the Commander masquerading as his mistress. The fact that there are no mirrors is typifying the point that female vanity and beauty no longer have no value in society, however this is not true in the case of the women in Jezebels. The first time Offred uses a mirror is to apply make-up for the Commander. This shows men still care about sexual attractiveness. Offred says of Jezebel’s “You need to know here, what you like it.” In pre-Gilead society women dressed provocatively could equal sexual power over men as men can often not control their urges, but in Gilead to be a female in Jezebel’s in just as demeaning as when in the costume of the Handmaid and merely being used for mechanical reproductive intercourse. Women are degraded and treated like pieces of meat, they are purely there for the men’s disposal and pleasure. At Jezebel’s Offred isn’t “procreating” but “fucking” in the sense of crudeness in the word but not in her context of when they perform the ceremony. The recreational sex is not a good experience for her. She additionally finds she can play on the Commander’s feelings of guilt for the previous Offred who killed herself.
Offred discusses of how she used to loathe typical “women’s talk” but now she yearns for it because it is a way in which she can express herself “How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk.” The reasons why Offred likes the idle chatter and gossip she has with the Marthas is because gossip cannot be prevented like sexuality. Eric Jong once said, “Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.” It can be fed upon and in a way is gaining of knowledge and knowledge is power. This is illustrated in when the Commander invites Offred to play scrabble. This also has double meaning and can be seen as a metaphor or innuendo – it is foreplay.
Like most great heroines in great literature Offred has an illicit affair with a man she is passionately attracted to sexually. Nick and Offred have strong sexual tension especially when he first encounters her in the dark and has a clinch her. She says “His fingers moves, feeling my arm under the nightgown sleeve, as if his hand won’t listen to reason.” It shows that they mutually both want each other. He makes her feel validated. We do not know her real name but know the importance she holds on “I keep knowledge of this name like something hidden.” She tells it to Nick showing her love and trust for him: “He calls me by my real name. Why should this mean anything?” Nick calling her by her name signifies something because in The Handmaid’s Tale woman are debased and dehumanised. They all have their place in society from the Commanders wives to the aunts to the handmaids. Women are blamed for the ills and evils of society based on their sexuality. As the world Offred inhabits is a theocentric patriarchal society her power she does gain is limited for she is still oppressed.
Offred additionally grow to understand and rationalise the premise of Gilead. When a handmaid named Janine says she was gang raped the other handmaids are encouraged to chant that she “asked for it.” Women are blamed for society’s wrongdoing because of their sensuality. Casual sex is referred to as “it” and is this very form of sex that Gilead wants repressed. In many ways the undoing of Gilead may have been sexuality because it can not be conditioned or controlled as it is a human instinct. Women are known as “it” as that is what the handmaids basically are. Offred acknowledges this is when she says about a cat that Luke wanted to kill:
“And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where there was none before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that’s how they do it, I thought.”
This is a metaphor for exactly what has happened in Gilead. Women have become “its.” Another significance of Offred`s realisation is revealed in her attitudes towards the ceremony. The first time Offred describes it she says “There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.” And that “One detaches oneself. One describes.” But when she becomes involved with the Commander the new situation makes her “shy of him” She becomes more conscious of herself such as her leg and armpit hair. She complains of feeling “uncouth.” At the closing of the chapter she says, “To him I am not merely empty” as in she is not just a baby maker who has not delivered. This is a contrast and shows her character development as at the end of the previous chapter she felt she was just a product of a sexual urge to him. “For him. I must remember, I am only a whim.”
In conclusion Offred, like most women was searching for liberation. Offred`s emergence in using her sexuality as a means to gain power over men is akin to, in some parts, rediscovering her sexuality essentially finding her soul. It makes her feel like a woman to be wanted by a man, to know she can have men and to have the man she wants. She exerts herself as a woman and basically Offred learns that non-conformity while risky is worth it to fulfil your desires and experience liberation. This is the main aspect we discover of her personality and development in the novel.
“>
During the establishing of the setting of Gilead, Offred appears to generally accept her handmaid duties, possibly out of fear. She risks the chance of being sent to the colonies with the “Unwomen” where she will be exposed to radiation and death. Ofglen becomes an ally to Offred revealing the existence of an underground movement in Gilead that gives Offred hope. Her transformation is really facilitated when Offred learns how to manipulate men in positions of power (the Commander).
She learns that the hope she kept alive exists. Her relationship with Nick is her escape mentally and physically. Offred`s image of men are distorted as Luke was married when she met him and she was his mistress, the commander uses her to make a baby for his wife but Nick is different. He actually genuinely pays attention to her and gives her what she craves. She wants Nick to touch her not in the way the Commander touches her but the way Luke used to.
We learn much about Offred through her own personal private thought. Atwood uses a technique of writing known as stream of conscientious (or ecrire feminine in this case) to allow Offred`s thoughts to flow providing the reader with a real sense of intimacy with Offred as she reveals her innermost secrets and emotions to us. She also uses this as survival tactic: no one can take away her dreams. Poet and author Maya Angelou once said: If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can transform one million realities. In Offred`s thoughts and dreams she is taken back to memories of when she had freedom to do as she desired, when she was in college with Moira, and times with Luke and her daughter. Night is used as a chapter heading seven times in total. This is the time when Offred does most of her contemplating, she says “The night is mine.” She is not repressed or scrutinised at night. She frequently reminisces about the past, paralleling the experiences to her present state of mind. This is part of the exposition used by Atwood in order to help the reader understand how Offred came to where she is to provide us with background information of the plot.
Offred`s person is in addition revealed in flashback demonstrating that she is generally influenced by her female counterparts from the past such as her mother and her best friend. Her best friend is a lively and vivacious character named Moira who is a key figure in Offred`s character development in the novel. Offred says of her:
“Moira was our fantasy. We hugged her to us, she was with us in secret, a giggle; she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In light of Moira, Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd.”
She helps Offred in piloting her sexuality as she herself is a radical feminist and dares to
do what Offred would want to do but is scared to do so. Moira seems to be, in my opinion, a catalyst to many of the events that occurred with Offred as the story develops. She gives Offred courage inadvertently and represents a symbol of hope as she escaped from the centre. Offred`s oppression caused her to harbour a negative but understandable stance towards men, including her husband Luke, as a lot of the negative feelings were projected onto him. But at her conclusion she can excuse the men’s behaviour because they are essentially just men and biologically and anatomically charged to act as they will.
Offred`s memories of her mother provide her character with some inner strength as well. She describes a time when her mother took her to a burning of pornographic books. Offred`s mother was a feminist activist that took part in pro-abortion rallies as seen on a video at the Rachel and Leah centre. Offred was at first embarrassed of her mother in her youth, but in her memories or flashbacks she understands her mother’s existentialistic mind and free spirit growing to admire these qualities. She too gives Offred courage. Offred`s mother says of men “A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.” Offred keeps her mother alive much in the same way she keeps Luke and her own daughter alive, through memory, she asks rhetorically:
“Where ever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a woman’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.”
Offred appreciates the feminist movement her mother represented and pioneered for much too late but since she has been through Gilead and lives there she starts to understand her mother a bit better. This can be connected to what Offred says in the closing of Chapter twelve “What I must present is a made thing, not something born.” As in French feminist philosopher Simone De Beavoir once said “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.”
One central aspect of Offred`s personality in the novel as the story unfolds, is her transformation from just conforming and submitting herself to Gileadean society. In essence being in the power and control of men, for it is men that set up Gilead and governed it. Basically she enforces her womanliness to at least try and obtain what she wants. Offred craves love and affection, a relationship with meaning. Men, like the Commander, the doctor and the Guardians crave frivolous sex as men have a natural impulse to want to procreate and cannot control themselves. This theory is proven in the very existence of Jezebels. Sex also equals power in society. The Commander and doctor both wanted sex from Offred so they could dominate her. Offred manages to keep the Guardians on a sexual edge because she can use her femininity to control them. Offred feels flattered that the Commander takes her to Jezebels but he treats her more like a trophy than a person. It is all about possession. The Commander, his wife Serena Joy and Offred engage in a triangle of sexual politics, which enables Offred to possess power to some degree. Offred has power over the Commander because of his male impulses and sexual urges and Offred has power over Serena because she is deliberately undermining her. Basically Serena is a pawn in the game between the Commander and Offred. On top of that Offred is able to carry child whilst Serena wants a baby giving Offred the upperhand.
Offred often tends to revert to typically female ideas she would have not given a second thought in her life before Gilead. It was D.H Lawrence that once said “The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women.” This is exemplified when she dresses up and put on make-up to go to Jezebels with the Commander masquerading as his mistress. The fact that there are no mirrors is typifying the point that female vanity and beauty no longer have no value in society, however this is not true in the case of the women in Jezebels. The first time Offred uses a mirror is to apply make-up for the Commander. This shows men still care about sexual attractiveness. Offred says of Jezebel’s “You need to know here, what you like it.” In pre-Gilead society women dressed provocatively could equal sexual power over men as men can often not control their urges, but in Gilead to be a female in Jezebel’s in just as demeaning as when in the costume of the Handmaid and merely being used for mechanical reproductive intercourse. Women are degraded and treated like pieces of meat, they are purely there for the men’s disposal and pleasure. At Jezebel’s Offred isn’t “procreating” but “fucking” in the sense of crudeness in the word but not in her context of when they perform the ceremony. The recreational sex is not a good experience for her. She additionally finds she can play on the Commander’s feelings of guilt for the previous Offred who killed herself.
Offred discusses of how she used to loathe typical “women’s talk” but now she yearns for it because it is a way in which she can express herself “How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk.” The reasons why Offred likes the idle chatter and gossip she has with the Marthas is because gossip cannot be prevented like sexuality. Eric Jong once said, “Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.” It can be fed upon and in a way is gaining of knowledge and knowledge is power. This is illustrated in when the Commander invites Offred to play scrabble. This also has double meaning and can be seen as a metaphor or innuendo – it is foreplay.
Like most great heroines in great literature Offred has an illicit affair with a man she is passionately attracted to sexually. Nick and Offred have strong sexual tension especially when he first encounters her in the dark and has a clinch her. She says “His fingers moves, feeling my arm under the nightgown sleeve, as if his hand won’t listen to reason.” It shows that they mutually both want each other. He makes her feel validated. We do not know her real name but know the importance she holds on “I keep knowledge of this name like something hidden.” She tells it to Nick showing her love and trust for him: “He calls me by my real name. Why should this mean anything?” Nick calling her by her name signifies something because in The Handmaid’s Tale woman are debased and dehumanised. They all have their place in society from the Commanders wives to the aunts to the handmaids. Women are blamed for the ills and evils of society based on their sexuality. As the world Offred inhabits is a theocentric patriarchal society her power she does gain is limited for she is still oppressed.
Offred additionally grow to understand and rationalise the premise of Gilead. When a handmaid named Janine says she was gang raped the other handmaids are encouraged to chant that she “asked for it.” Women are blamed for society’s wrongdoing because of their sensuality. Casual sex is referred to as “it” and is this very form of sex that Gilead wants repressed. In many ways the undoing of Gilead may have been sexuality because it can not be conditioned or controlled as it is a human instinct. Women are known as “it” as that is what the handmaids basically are. Offred acknowledges this is when she says about a cat that Luke wanted to kill:
“And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where there was none before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that’s how they do it, I thought.”
This is a metaphor for exactly what has happened in Gilead. Women have become “its.” Another significance of Offred`s realisation is revealed in her attitudes towards the ceremony. The first time Offred describes it she says “There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.” And that “One detaches oneself. One describes.” But when she becomes involved with the Commander the new situation makes her “shy of him” She becomes more conscious of herself such as her leg and armpit hair. She complains of feeling “uncouth.” At the closing of the chapter she says, “To him I am not merely empty” as in she is not just a baby maker who has not delivered. This is a contrast and shows her character development as at the end of the previous chapter she felt she was just a product of a sexual urge to him. “For him. I must remember, I am only a whim.”
In conclusion Offred, like most women was searching for liberation. Offred`s emergence in using her sexuality as a means to gain power over men is akin to, in some parts, rediscovering her sexuality essentially finding her soul. It makes her feel like a woman to be wanted by a man, to know she can have men and to have the man she wants. She exerts herself as a woman and basically Offred learns that non-conformity while risky is worth it to fulfil your desires and experience liberation. This is the main aspect we discover of her personality and development in the novel.
“>What aspects of Offred`s character do we discover as the novel develops?
From first impressions Offred does not seem to be very feminist as she conforms to what men in society want her to do. However, as the novel progresses it transcends that for the state of society she was living in she had feminist qualities. Offred`s character grows as the novel develops. In the “old” times Offred was a post-feminist, appreciative for the rights women have but not so appreciative that she strives to keep them intact and growing unlike her feminist activist mother or friend Moira. In fact Offred has an affair with a married man, Luke who becomes her husband. In my opinion this allows the man power over both his wife and his lover in that they are both dependent on him whereas he is allowed the resources of both. Nonetheless Offred takes the rights she has for granted as many women in society do but then when she loses those rights and with them her identity. She has to face adversity of her family being taken away and having to have sex with a man she does not want but through all this she remains strong and does not give up hope: “What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth.” There is opportunity to commit suicide but she chooses not to. She starts out with little hope, trying not to think too much – she says “Thinking can hurt your chances and I intend to last.” This shows her strength. Her purpose for herself is to keep her sanity and survive. At first Offred does not use her sexuality to its full potential but as the novel goes on she yearns to take more risks. She realises slowly that there are more options that she previously thought. She gains her power through others such as Moira, Nick and her friendship with Ofglen. Also through her memories of her mother, Luke and her child she is able to gain strength. She gets her first taste of sexual power from her rendezvous with the Commander and she yearns for more. She transforms like all true heroines from submissive to dominant.
During the establishing of the setting of Gilead, Offred appears to generally accept her handmaid duties, possibly out of fear. She risks the chance of being sent to the colonies with the “Unwomen” where she will be exposed to radiation and death. Ofglen becomes an ally to Offred revealing the existence of an underground movement in Gilead that gives Offred hope. Her transformation is really facilitated when Offred learns how to manipulate men in positions of power (the Commander).
She learns that the hope she kept alive exists. Her relationship with Nick is her escape mentally and physically. Offred`s image of men are distorted as Luke was married when she met him and she was his mistress, the commander uses her to make a baby for his wife but Nick is different. He actually genuinely pays attention to her and gives her what she craves. She wants Nick to touch her not in the way the Commander touches her but the way Luke used to.
We learn much about Offred through her own personal private thought. Atwood uses a technique of writing known as stream of conscientious (or ecrire feminine in this case) to allow Offred`s thoughts to flow providing the reader with a real sense of intimacy with Offred as she reveals her innermost secrets and emotions to us. She also uses this as survival tactic: no one can take away her dreams. Poet and author Maya Angelou once said: If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can transform one million realities. In Offred`s thoughts and dreams she is taken back to memories of when she had freedom to do as she desired, when she was in college with Moira, and times with Luke and her daughter. Night is used as a chapter heading seven times in total. This is the time when Offred does most of her contemplating, she says “The night is mine.” She is not repressed or scrutinised at night. She frequently reminisces about the past, paralleling the experiences to her present state of mind. This is part of the exposition used by Atwood in order to help the reader understand how Offred came to where she is to provide us with background information of the plot.
Offred`s person is in addition revealed in flashback demonstrating that she is generally influenced by her female counterparts from the past such as her mother and her best friend. Her best friend is a lively and vivacious character named Moira who is a key figure in Offred`s character development in the novel. Offred says of her:
“Moira was our fantasy. We hugged her to us, she was with us in secret, a giggle; she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In light of Moira, Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd.”
She helps Offred in piloting her sexuality as she herself is a radical feminist and dares to
do what Offred would want to do but is scared to do so. Moira seems to be, in my opinion, a catalyst to many of the events that occurred with Offred as the story develops. She gives Offred courage inadvertently and represents a symbol of hope as she escaped from the centre. Offred`s oppression caused her to harbour a negative but understandable stance towards men, including her husband Luke, as a lot of the negative feelings were projected onto him. But at her conclusion she can excuse the men’s behaviour because they are essentially just men and biologically and anatomically charged to act as they will.
Offred`s memories of her mother provide her character with some inner strength as well. She describes a time when her mother took her to a burning of pornographic books. Offred`s mother was a feminist activist that took part in pro-abortion rallies as seen on a video at the Rachel and Leah centre. Offred was at first embarrassed of her mother in her youth, but in her memories or flashbacks she understands her mother’s existentialistic mind and free spirit growing to admire these qualities. She too gives Offred courage. Offred`s mother says of men “A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.” Offred keeps her mother alive much in the same way she keeps Luke and her own daughter alive, through memory, she asks rhetorically:
“Where ever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a woman’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.”
Offred appreciates the feminist movement her mother represented and pioneered for much too late but since she has been through Gilead and lives there she starts to understand her mother a bit better. This can be connected to what Offred says in the closing of Chapter twelve “What I must present is a made thing, not something born.” As in French feminist philosopher Simone De Beavoir once said “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.”
One central aspect of Offred`s personality in the novel as the story unfolds, is her transformation from just conforming and submitting herself to Gileadean society. In essence being in the power and control of men, for it is men that set up Gilead and governed it. Basically she enforces her womanliness to at least try and obtain what she wants. Offred craves love and affection, a relationship with meaning. Men, like the Commander, the doctor and the Guardians crave frivolous sex as men have a natural impulse to want to procreate and cannot control themselves. This theory is proven in the very existence of Jezebels. Sex also equals power in society. The Commander and doctor both wanted sex from Offred so they could dominate her. Offred manages to keep the Guardians on a sexual edge because she can use her femininity to control them. Offred feels flattered that the Commander takes her to Jezebels but he treats her more like a trophy than a person. It is all about possession. The Commander, his wife Serena Joy and Offred engage in a triangle of sexual politics, which enables Offred to possess power to some degree. Offred has power over the Commander because of his male impulses and sexual urges and Offred has power over Serena because she is deliberately undermining her. Basically Serena is a pawn in the game between the Commander and Offred. On top of that Offred is able to carry child whilst Serena wants a baby giving Offred the upperhand.
Offred often tends to revert to typically female ideas she would have not given a second thought in her life before Gilead. It was D.H Lawrence that once said “The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women.” This is exemplified when she dresses up and put on make-up to go to Jezebels with the Commander masquerading as his mistress. The fact that there are no mirrors is typifying the point that female vanity and beauty no longer have no value in society, however this is not true in the case of the women in Jezebels. The first time Offred uses a mirror is to apply make-up for the Commander. This shows men still care about sexual attractiveness. Offred says of Jezebel’s “You need to know here, what you like it.” In pre-Gilead society women dressed provocatively could equal sexual power over men as men can often not control their urges, but in Gilead to be a female in Jezebel’s in just as demeaning as when in the costume of the Handmaid and merely being used for mechanical reproductive intercourse. Women are degraded and treated like pieces of meat, they are purely there for the men’s disposal and pleasure. At Jezebel’s Offred isn’t “procreating” but “fucking” in the sense of crudeness in the word but not in her context of when they perform the ceremony. The recreational sex is not a good experience for her. She additionally finds she can play on the Commander’s feelings of guilt for the previous Offred who killed herself.
Offred discusses of how she used to loathe typical “women’s talk” but now she yearns for it because it is a way in which she can express herself “How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk.” The reasons why Offred likes the idle chatter and gossip she has with the Marthas is because gossip cannot be prevented like sexuality. Eric Jong once said, “Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.” It can be fed upon and in a way is gaining of knowledge and knowledge is power. This is illustrated in when the Commander invites Offred to play scrabble. This also has double meaning and can be seen as a metaphor or innuendo – it is foreplay.
Like most great heroines in great literature Offred has an illicit affair with a man she is passionately attracted to sexually. Nick and Offred have strong sexual tension especially when he first encounters her in the dark and has a clinch her. She says “His fingers moves, feeling my arm under the nightgown sleeve, as if his hand won’t listen to reason.” It shows that they mutually both want each other. He makes her feel validated. We do not know her real name but know the importance she holds on “I keep knowledge of this name like something hidden.” She tells it to Nick showing her love and trust for him: “He calls me by my real name. Why should this mean anything?” Nick calling her by her name signifies something because in The Handmaid’s Tale woman are debased and dehumanised. They all have their place in society from the Commanders wives to the aunts to the handmaids. Women are blamed for the ills and evils of society based on their sexuality. As the world Offred inhabits is a theocentric patriarchal society her power she does gain is limited for she is still oppressed.
Offred additionally grow to understand and rationalise the premise of Gilead. When a handmaid named Janine says she was gang raped the other handmaids are encouraged to chant that she “asked for it.” Women are blamed for society’s wrongdoing because of their sensuality. Casual sex is referred to as “it” and is this very form of sex that Gilead wants repressed. In many ways the undoing of Gilead may have been sexuality because it can not be conditioned or controlled as it is a human instinct. Women are known as “it” as that is what the handmaids basically are. Offred acknowledges this is when she says about a cat that Luke wanted to kill:
“And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where there was none before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that’s how they do it, I thought.”
This is a metaphor for exactly what has happened in Gilead. Women have become “its.” Another significance of Offred`s realisation is revealed in her attitudes towards the ceremony. The first time Offred describes it she says “There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.” And that “One detaches oneself. One describes.” But when she becomes involved with the Commander the new situation makes her “shy of him” She becomes more conscious of herself such as her leg and armpit hair. She complains of feeling “uncouth.” At the closing of the chapter she says, “To him I am not merely empty” as in she is not just a baby maker who has not delivered. This is a contrast and shows her character development as at the end of the previous chapter she felt she was just a product of a sexual urge to him. “For him. I must remember, I am only a whim.”
In conclusion Offred, like most women was searching for liberation. Offred`s emergence in using her sexuality as a means to gain power over men is akin to, in some parts, rediscovering her sexuality essentially finding her soul. It makes her feel like a woman to be wanted by a man, to know she can have men and to have the man she wants. She exerts herself as a woman and basically Offred learns that non-conformity while risky is worth it to fulfil your desires and experience liberation. This is the main aspect we discover of her personality and development in the novel.
