Essays on Margaret Atwood

The theme of alienation and resistance permeates throughout Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Alienation, disillusionment and fear are dominant elements in dystopian societies. In this paper, I seek to make the argument that alienation makes resistance to oppression difficult since individuals are separated from each other and the products that individuals produce. I argue that The Handmaid’s Tale shows how difficult it is for women to wage a successful resistance movement against a male dominated society. Even though Marx did reduce all human relations to means and modes of production, it is important to note ...

In the novel Oryx and Crake by the author Margaret Atwood, the author should have focused more on the two characters Oryx and Crake as the title depicts. Instead, the whole novel is centered on one character Jimmy or rather Snowman. The story is seen as being told through the vantage point of one character as memories of events that happened in his life, this story is centered on human nature in the phase of scientific developments (Tolan 294). The story should have been written in a first-hand experience of events as they happen. The characters Oryx and Crake ...

In her article, “Human/Nature: Ecological Philosophy in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake”, Jayne Glover talks about how Atwood constantly shifts the perspective of the readr between the utopian ideals of the lead characters and how it leads to dystopian ends. She argues that the novel challenges the reader into thinking about how an ecologically sustainable world can be created without losing what is essentially human about it. Glover in her article talks about how science fiction deals with the issues raised by ecological philosophers and eco critics such as the divide the exists between culture and nature and ...

Introduction

Among the contemporary poets, Margaret Atwood is a name which resonates highly among the literary society. Aged 75 years as of today, she has become face of the feminist critic, while also writing several famous prose and poetry alike. Some of the most common themes in her poetry are -- feminism, westernisation versus civilisation, exploitation of nature etc. She became an established and well read author in the very early phases of her writing career, owing much to the fact that her poetry is realistic and contemporary in nature. For the very reason, I have decided to work on ...

One of the major conflicts in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake is the rivalry between ethics and corporate profit. As business becomes technologically more advanced and carries more power in society, the public is frequently asking where the boundaries will develop to protect humanity. As in many science fiction novels, the destruction of civilization in Oryx and Crake comes about when one group makes decisions that ultimately result in annihilation. Atwood’s world shows what happens when corporate greed for capital is allowed to operate without being forced to do so ethically. While some of the science discussed ...

(Student’s Full Name)

Part 1

Personal, Psychological, and Philosophical Perspectives on the Individual 4. Discuss the philosophy of the individual that underlies Thich Nhat Hahn’s “Call Me by My True Names” and compare it to that expressed by Rumi in his poem “Only Breath” or “Where Everything is Music.” In Thich Nhat Hahn’s “Call Me by My True Name” and Rumi’s “Only Breath” illustrate the interconnectedness of the individual with other individuals outside of his or her personal sphere. For instance, Hahn shows the relationship between the malnourished child in Uganda and the arms merchant “ ...

Literature possesses a vast territory for expressing meaningful human feelings, abstract emotions, or themes. Desperation and comfort is a common theme in literature, encompassed in short stories, poems and dramas and reflected differently through the mechanisms of each literary genres, the style of each literary piece or the personality of the authors. Various literary genres like short stories, poems or dramas, possess their unique mechanisms for reflecting the theme of desperation and comfort. Looking at Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, the poet uses techniques specific to poetry space for transmitting his desperate adversity to resisting ...

Please put your name here

Please put your instructor name here Literature

One of the most crucial issues that are faced by modern day human beings is the degradation of land as well as the surround ecology and its eventual consequences on the very survival of the human beings (Bhalla 1). In this background the term Ecofeminism becomes notable and pertinent. Does Atwood’s novel gets a happy ending or is it an ambiguous one? This paper tries to answer the above question by conducting a comprehensive study of Margaret Atwood‘s Surfacing, written in the year 1972, and present the analysis from the perspective ...

The purpose why I would campaign against the banning of the Handmaid novel is due to its themes which has major implication on the current societies worldwide. (Atwood, p7) The main themes in this novel involve Feminism, the place of the individual in society, sexuality and power, the power of language, gender conflict and moral relativism. It is due to these themes which has hierarchical condemnation that drives those at authority feel sliced and thus intrigue the Bunning of this novel. My aim is to campaign against banning of this novel since it has consideration of individuals who are ...

In The Handmaid's Tale, there are many different social groups within Gilead, all of which have varying degrees of power. The Commanders of the Faithful are the ruling class of Gilead, and are allowed a Wife and a Handmaid, among others. It is their solemn duty to procreate in order to continue the ruling class, and they reached that level of power because of their responsibility to maintain the power structure of Gilead. The Angels are the officers in the Gilead military; they are given the most honorable duty of fighting in wars with the intent of protecting and expanding the ...

The Handmaid's Tale movie is an adaptation of the novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. It is directed by Volker Schlondoff and the screen play written by Harold Pinter. The movie is about the republic of Gilead. It was set in totalitarian future of America. It tells of Kate’s story as a handmaid where she is subjected to bear children so as to avoid facing criminal charges. Kate nicknamed as Offred is the protagonist in the movie who is trained to become a Handmaid and a concubine for one of the barren couple’s ruling the countries religious primary regimes. ...

Night by Elie Wiesel

In the book, Night by Elie Wiesel, the theme of “the individual and the state” resonates throughout the book. In every chapter, the struggle between the individual and the state is brought out by the narrator. The German occupation of Hungary, including Eliezer’s own, brings with it a horrifying experience. The narrator, once captured together with his family, is taken to holding camp where he is separated from his mother and sisters. The narrator and his father undergo a series of ordeals as they are forced to watch and experience death. All along, Eliezer and his father stay alive through ...

In The Handmaid's Tale, there are many different social groups within Gilead, all of which have varying degrees of power. The Commanders of the Faithful are the ruling class of Gilead, and are allowed a Wife and a Handmaid, among others. It is their solemn duty to procreate in order to continue the ruling class, and they reached that level of power because of their responsibility to maintain the power structure of Gilead. The Angels are the officers in the Gilead military; they are given the most honorable duty of fighting in wars with the intent of protecting and expanding the ...

Offred and Leah are characters in The Handmaid’s Tale and The poisonwood Bible Respectively. They are both women who live in a patriarchal society and have to submit to the interests and needs of men rather than their own, Offred as a Handmaid and Leah as the daughter to a missionary. They struggle to survive this society, one by rebellion, the other by blending with the society. This paper seeks to provide a link between the Poisonwood Bible and the Handmaid’s Tale, as well as, the characters, similarities and differences in the books. The Handmaid tale was written by Margaret ...

Strange Science: The Role of the Grotesque in Oryx and Crake and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde Every culture has different rules and norms to follow, the adherence to which often separate the classes from each other. However, there are a few hand-and-fast rules that are cross-cultural; these values seem to be etched into the fabric of what makes humanity human. Although there are slight differences across the varying cultures, most cultures agree that murder, for instance, is immoral and undesirable within a civilized society. Another example of a nearly-universally-held value is the general human distaste for ...

In Margaret Atwood's post-apocalyptic novel The Year of the Flood, Ren, a member of the cult God's Gardeners, begins to gradually fall for a man named Jimmy; once she realizes this, and understands the love of her friend Lucerne for a man named Zeb, she has the following revelation: "I could see how you could do extreme things for the person you loved. Adam One said that when you loved a person, that love might not always get returned the way you wanted, but it was a good thing anyway because love went out all around you like an energy wave, and a creature ...

Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003) and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008) bear striking resemblances to each other. Both novels are set in an apocalyptic dystopian future; both novels use modern advances in the media as a central part of their plot; and both could be argued, in a way, to address the issues of male/female relationships. They are linked too by critical confusion over their genre. Are they both science fiction novels? Are they fantasies? Are they informed predictions of the fate of humanity? Atwood has always been adamant that her earlier novel The Handmaid’s Tale was ...

Introduction

Offred is a patronymic name meaning Of Fred – referring to the man that the woman is serving. Offred is of a class of individuals who are kept as concubines mainly for reproductive purposes by the ruling class. Offred lost her autonomy to her husband by indoctrinating into the life of a handmaid.

Since Offred’s main purpose in the life of the commander was for reproduction purposes, and the commander was sterile, she strikes a deal with the commander’s wife to have sex with her driver in an effort to get her pregnant.

Offred who is the protagonist was separated from her ...