Margaret Atwood Essay, Research Paper

Fight for the Female

Margaret Atwood, a modern-day Canadian writer, has been classified as one of this century? s & # 8217 ; most women’s rightist, and near dystopian novelists. Her plants exemplify how feminism has caused the ruin of modern-day society. Margaret Atwood, a outstanding women’s rightist writer of the 20th century, is driven by her sense of societal reform and her realistic position of a disturbed society to bring forth plants such as The Handmaids Tale.

Atwood was born on November 18, 1943 in Ottawa, Ontario. In her earlier old ages as a kid, she lived in the Canadian wilderness where her male parent was an bugologist. He studied and observed insects. Atwood is the second of three kids of Margaret Dorothy Kilam and Dr. Carl Edmund Atwood ( Brimrose 3 ) . Her parents were both strong and independent minded parents who wanted their kids to be the same ( 3 ) . The Atwoods were a stat mi, by H2O, to the nearest small town. There was no wireless, telecasting, film theatre, or kids, other than her brother who was two old ages older. She attributes her foreigners? oculus to this unconventional childhood ( Bedell 2 ) . When Atwood eventually go to venture into the metropolis, all societal groups seemed to her every bit eccentric, all artifacts and wonts peculiar and strange ( 2 ) .

A childhood divided between summers in the forests of Quebec, and winters in many different Canadian metropoliss, is what Atwood credits her lecherousness for reading, therefore a love for authorship, to ( Brimrose 2 ) . She used reading as a agency of amusement. Atwood centered her reading on Grimms Fairy Tales and George Orwells Animal Farm, both of which created a dark paradigm of victim and victimiser ( Rice 37 ) . In address in 1995, Atwood said that her literary calling began at age 16 when she crossed the schoolyard on her manner place. I was scurrying along in my usual sneak manner ; surmising no ailment, when a big pollex descended from the sky and pressed down on the top of my caput. A verse form formed ( Casciato 2 ) .

At the age of six, Atwood was composing verse forms, mortality dramas, amusing books, and an unfinished novel about an emmet ( Rice 3 ) . Ten old ages subsequently Atwood decided her end in life is to compose. She wanted to populate a dual life ; to travel topographic points I haven? t been ; to analyze people in ways, and at deepnesss, that are otherwise impossible ; to be surprised? to give back something of what [ I have ] received ( 3 ) . Since the bulk of her childhood was spent in the Canadian wilderness, happening her manner through anything, canoeing, and hunting, Atwood developed a great trade of assurance ( Brimrose 3 ) This self respect is recognized deeply in her authorship.

By the clip Atwood left high school she had decided she wanted to compose. Her high school yearbook quotation mark had stated that her end was to compose the great Canadian novel ( Bedell 3 ) . Soon after she graduated from high school, in 1961, Atwood published her first book of poesy entitled Double Persephone ( Brimrose 3 ) . Publication was a end for Atwood that she had now successfully achieved. Atwood figures composing poesy and hopefully printing a few books would be sufficient for her. Her instruction was more of import to herself every bit good as her parents. Atwood moved on to go to the University of Toronto, Victoria College majoring in English. Around this clip, harmonizing to her English friend Xandra Bingley, she spent a summer vactiondelivering nose count signifiers in a tally down, destitute country of Quebec, and decided that though she wanted to be a author, she decidedly didn? T want to be hapless ( Bedell 3 ) .

After graduation from Victoria College, the immature poet was at the beginning of her literary calling. She was now printing in Canadian literary magazines including the critically acclaimed Mcleans magazine ( Hubbard 3 ) . Assorted verse forms and short narratives game her some acknowledgment, but Atwood decided it wasn? t plenty. She wanted to yet foster her instruction and detect if authorship was truly the right calling path she was destined for. Even though she loved authorship, the influence of her parents, every bit good as her experiences in Quebec, had put a damper on her dreams. Atwoods parents were wary about her desire to compose because they didn? T want her to hunger to decease ( Rice 3 ) . Her parents were set on the thought that she should be a life scientist because non merely was it in the household but a female author had ever been looked down upon. Again, Atwood wanted to get personal success but didn? T want to be hapless.

When Atwood began her formative old ages at Radcliffe, the all adult females university at Harvard, she realized she didn? T attention about starvation, she merely wanted to compose ( Rice 3 ) . Not merely was Atwood certain about her calling she besides discovered what she wanted to compose about, feminism. The intensely chauvinistic atmosphere mortified her: among other things female pupil were non allowed to entree the universitys modern poesy aggregation in the Lamont Library ( Brimrose 2 ) . Atwood lived her childhood in equity and equality. She was raised to be independent. The environment in which she grew up was non one of unfairness and inequality. In the Atwood family Mrs. Atwood ruled the roost ( Brimrose 4 ) . So coming to the United States, and witnessing the unjust intervention of adult females was an tremendous civilization daze for her.

When Atwood foremost decided she wanted to go a author she was convinced she was crushing a dead Equus caballus. Atwood states that:

It was because of all those lifes of adult females authors

. There was ever something drastically incorrect with them. Emily Dickinson lived in a closet, Charlotte Bronte died in childbearing. They were weird like Christina Rosetti, or they drank or committed self-destruction like Sylvia Plath. Writing seemed a sort of call to day of reckoning. I though I would likely acquire TB and live in a loft and have a awful life ( Hubbard 2 ) .

The prejudiced Acts of the Apostless towards females, at Radcliffe, were get downing to take a toll on Atwood. She began to believe that she, being a female, would ne’er do it as a author. Females in the United States had few rights to anything and Atwood witnessed first manus how society was get downing to fall. It wasn? T until Atwood met Jay MacPherson when her hereafter began to look brighter. Meeting at a literary survey at Radcliffe, he helped her develop literary doctrines and feminism ( Mary Ellen Snodgrass 238 ) . Atwood was now ready to protest her position on the discriminatory regulations that faced adult females. Ironically Atwood shows this through her authorship.

Margaret Atwoods woman hater incubus, published in Canada in 1885 and filmed by Cinecom in 1990, is a bold cooling dystopia that speculate on where and how modern-day society is likely to derail and destruct itself ( Mary Ellen Snodgrass 245 ) . Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale is a scientific discipline fiction novel based around two facets of society, which Atwood feels, have caused the ruin of society. One facet, which is what the bulk of her plants are based around, feminism. The other facet is faith. Atwood seems to make a manner of binding the two together to bring forth a possible near future.

The novel The Handmaids Tale marks adult females and how the hereafter seems to be centralized around the usage and maltreatment of them. This right-winged society is taking topographic point in a futuristic universe. Pollution, atomic waste/war, and genital disease have destroyed a civilisation one time known as the metropolis of Boston, Massachusetts ( Atwood 20 ) . Now work forces have taken over all parts of society ; faith, the economic system, and most significantly, the control of adult females. Gilead, the new society, has taken reproduction out of the females? control. A servant is a fertile female who works for a adult male, normally of rank, for engendering intents merely. There are really few productive adult females left in the metropolis.

The chief character in the book is Offred. She is a Handmaid to the Commander. Ironically, the Commanders name is Fred. There is no sarcasm! Offreds & # 8217 ; name literally average Of-Fred. One ne’er learns her existent name because adult females are give new names to match with their proprietors. The adult females of Gilead are given arbitrary categorizations: Wifes, Widows, Daughters maidservants, viragos ( Marthas ) , workers ( Econowives ) , indoctrinators ( Aunts ) , Unwomen, and Breeders ( Handmaids ) . Aunts and breeders play the most of import function in the novel. Aunts are the older adult females who train Handmaids for their responsibilities. No adult females in the spiritual society may have money, or read. All the rights adult females worked so had to obtain, lost them to the really people who wrote them. Every female is given a specific responsibility and is brainwashed to obey. The work forces in this narrative observe the misdemeanor of adult females as being the manner it should be. In the novel the Commander says,

We & # 8217 ; ve given them more than we & # 8217 ; ve taken off. Think of all the problem they had before. Don & # 8217 ; t you remember? Think of human wretchedness? This manner they & # 8217 ; ve protected ; they can carry through their biological fates in peace. With full support and encouragement ( Atwood 51 ) .

Not merely did work forces mistreat the organic structures of adult females ; they desecrated faith every bit good.

It is apparent in the narrative that the leaders of Gilead ( work forces ) are motivated by the hungriness of power instead than spiritual beliefs ( Magill 2748 ) . Throughout the text there is much mention to the Bible. These mentions do non hold to make with the Christian religion but point out designated responsibilities for adult females. Men/Leaders use the Bible as a tool for implementing prejudiced Torahs ( Witcombe 3 ) . Women aren? T permitted to read the Bible but work forces are. Religion is distributing the word non utilizing the word against those who have faith. The leaders of Gilead usage faith as concluding for this phantasmagoric demeanour. Atwood shows how faith could advance sexism.

& # 8220 ; For Margaret Atwood life is a pursuit, and her authorship & # 8211 ; peculiarly her poesy is the charting of that journey. Atwoods & # 8217 ; journey is rarely geographical & # 8230 ; Atwood does non brood on location, physical presence, inside informations of her topographic point. Her hunt is alternatively a piercing interior geographic expedition, driving through any personal uneasiness into parts marked by crude responses, both violent and beautiful. Atwood is interested in the human status which exists independent of sex ; and she plays a assortment of games in order to research that status to the full & # 8221 ; ( Detecting Writers ) .

Margaret Atwoods & # 8217 ; feministic positions on a society being slain apart, is a direct contemplation on her modern-day novel, The Handmaids Tale. She has embodied her competent doctrine that adult females are utilised for immoral intents, and regard for them has been lost in the affaire d’honneur for domination. Atwood uses a near-dystopian novel to assist society recognize the importance of being coevals next. She is seeking and do a difference before the prostration of society. One may inquire if this is a practical position of the hereafter or merely a psychological pragmatism. One? s hereafter is what one may do of it.

Bibliography

& # 8220 ; Handmaids Tale & # 8221 ; -Margaret Atwood

Internet

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