In her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood addresses the concept of different expression of romantic love through the eyes of Offred, a woman who has lost almost all her freedom to a repressive, dystopic society. Throughout her struggle against oppression and guilt, Offred’s view evolves, and it is through this process that Atwood demonstrates the nature of love as it develops under the most austere of circumstances.
The first glimses of romantic love one notes in this novel are the slivers of Offred’s memeories of Luke, her husband from whom she has been separated. For the most part they are sense memories–she recalls most of all images of comfort: of lying in her husband’s arms, of his scent, and of little details of his appearance–but also a sense of connectedness that gives her identity. And it is this that she misses the most. “I want Luke here so badly. I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable” (125-126). And yet already the person as a whole is beginning to slip away. The life she is leading now is driving him from her reality–she says, “Day by day, night by night he recedes, and I become more faithless” (346). Her love for her husband is marked with guilt and regret even in the beginning–she misses all the little characteristics about him that she never took time to appreciate when she was with him. She even misses the arguments, and wonders, “How were we to know we were happy?” (67). The memory of her love for Luke, and her guilt at betraying him with other men, especially Nick, for whom she develops genuine affection, is a significant psychological factor throughout the course…
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…ing previous relationships. It is perhaps what can be seen as the one spark left of a healthy bond between man and woman in the midst of a society that seems to have forgotten there could be such a thing. They alone among the victims of this dystopic society have learned the truth that “we must love one another or die.”
The student may wish to begin the essay with the quote below:
“All I have is a voice / To undo the folded lie / The romantic lie in the brain / Of the sensual man-in-the street / And the lie of Authority / Whose buildings grope the sky / There is no such thing as State / And no one exists alone / Hunger allows no choice / To the citizen or the police / We must love one another or die.” –W.H. Auden,”September 1939″
Works Cited:
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Ballantine, Fawcett Crest, 1987.
The Negative Portrayal of Women in Breakfast of Champions
The Negative Portrayal of Women in Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions was written, as he says in the opening pages, “to clear my head of all the junk in there. . . . The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly” (5). Though Vonnegut wrote this book over twenty years after Simone de Beauvoir made her assessment of women’s place in the world, his searing social critique shows that the position of women has not changed much, that they are still the “Others” in relation to men. A flawed society contributes to the situation, but Vonnegut shows that misplaced priorities, foolish behavior, and shallow ways of thinking lead to bad ends for women. In the descriptions of Patty Keene, Francine Pefko, Mary Alice Miller, and Beatrice Keedsler, it becomes evident that Vonnegut intends to show not only female submission to males, but also to show how the weaknesses in the present ways of thinking result in negative events .
In describing the character of Patty Keene, Vonnegut is also commenting on the general state of women, and the fact that very few seem to think for themselves. He says that Patty is “stupid on purpose, which was the case with most women in Midland City. The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them much for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies, and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get” (136). Vonnegut then criticizes women for becoming “agreeing machines instead of thinking machines,” since many form their opinions by merely finding out “what other people were thinking, and then they thought…
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…iety, circa 1973. In portraying materialistic Patty Keene, submissive Francine Pefko, dominated Mary Alice Miller, and frivolous Beatrice Keedsler, Vonnegut suggests that the women are not totally responsible for their weak behavior and ideas; rather that they are the products of an imperfect society in which females must submit to males. However, whatever the cause of the flawed ways fo thinking, the results are usually negative, especially for the women involved.
“What peculiarly signalizes the situation of woman is that She–a free and autonomous being like all other human creatures–nevertheless finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the ‘Other'”
–Simone de Beauvoir, Introduction to The Second Sex, Knopf, XXXV.
Works Cited:
Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of Champions. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1973.