The Handmaid’s Tale Essay -- Literature

Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids twaddle, like so gayy different dystopias before it, seeks to warn of disaster to come through the lens of its composes society. In the breadth of its dystopian brethren, Huxleys Brave bare-ass World and Orwells 1984, The Handmaids Tale reflects not a society destroyed, but a society reorganized to disastrous effect. The shake-up of Offreds ball is not one of simple misogyny, corruption, or political ideas, instead, as in 1984 the focus of this new world order lies in the close of the private and with that, all conceptions of personal gain, satisfaction, and desire. In its place, the new world order thrusts a quasi-communist idea of community. Personal sacrifice is instilled in the earth as the greatest good, and the death or misery of one individual is negligible when compared to the decided good of the community. In a true reiterate of communism, the handmaids bear children for those who cannot, truly in the stead of from from each o ne according to their ability, to each according to their need (Marx). In this Americanized distortion of communism, the community is placed on a pedestal above all else, and through this emphasis the cross-class destruction of individuality is assured. By echoing the most prominent issue of the time, communism, and dilate it with unique aspects of American society, Atwood creates a realistic nightmare that warns not of the dangers of a particular political ideology, but of the loss of individual identity and the concept of self.The first mickle to have their individuality stripped away are, mayhap surprisingly, not the women of Offreds world, but the low ranking men. This destruction of manly individuality begins long before the events of the book... ...as A Handmaids Tales most potent warning. With Gilead, the dangers of deifying society at the cost of its people are shown to be damning, dooming the society to eventual collapse and obscurity. In this, Atwood argues agains t ebullient ideas community and for individualism and a reasonable amount of selfishness, as Ayn rand puts it, mans right to exist for his own rational self-interest (Rand 42). By creating a world of such individual belittlement, Atwood provides a powerful typesetters case of the dangers something much like communism, the destruction of the self.Works CitedAtwood, Margaret Eleanor. The Handmaids Tale. New York Ballantine, 1985. Print.Marx, Karl Heinrich. Critique of the Gotha Program. capital of the Russian Federation Progress, 1970. N. pag. Print.Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. New York Signet, 1970. WorldCat. Web. 7 Feb. 2012.