The Handmaid’s Tale Essay -- Literature

Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale, wish well so many other dystopias before it, seeks to warn of disaster to make through the lens of its authors fraternity. In the breadth of its dystopian brethren, Huxleys Brave New World and Orwells 1984, The Handmaids Tale reflects not a nightclub destroyed, but a society reorganized to disastrous effect. The reorganization of Offreds world is not whizz of simple misogyny, corruption, or political ideas, in blank space, as in 1984 the focus of this sore world order lies in the destruction of the single(a) and with that, all(a) concepts of personalized gain, satisfaction, and desire. In its place, the new world order thrusts a quasi-communist idea of community. ad hominem sacrifice is instilled in the populace 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 echo of communism, the handmaids bear children for those who cannot, truly in the ste ad of from each according to their ability, to each according to their need (Marx). In this Americanized deviance of communism, the community is placed on a pedestal above all else, and through this emphasis the cross-class destruction of identity operator is assured. By echoing the close prominent issue of the time, communism, and detailing it with unique aspects of American society, Atwood creates a lifelike nightmare that warns not of the dangers of a particular political ideology, but of the waiver of individual identity and the concept of self.The first people to have their individuality stripped away are, perhaps surprisingly, not the women of Offreds world, but the first base ranking men. This destruction of masculine 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 sh have to be damning, dooming the society to eventual(prenominal) colla pse and obscurity. In this, Atwood argues against excessive ideas community and for individualism and a sensitive 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 example of the dangers something much like communism, the destruction of the self. flora CitedAtwood, Margaret Eleanor. The Handmaids Tale. New York Ballantine, 1985. Print.Marx, Karl Heinrich. Critique of the Gotha Program. Moscow Progress, 1970. N. pag. Print.Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. New York Signet, 1970. WorldCat. Web. 7 Feb. 2012.