Women That Are Denied of the Basic Human Rights in Republic of Gilead

Thesis statement

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The Republic of Gilead is a community that has marginalized women dragging down their identity leaving no chance of retrieval. For example, they are treated as sex puppets, child bearing machines and forced to take up their commanders name.

Key point 1 Offred has been marginalized in the society, being forced to bear children for the elite couples who are barren.

Key point 2 Although Serena Joy is the wife of the Commander, a former gospel singer and anti-feminist crusader from high social ladder, she is unhappy. She is unhappy that the society is male-dominated.

Key point 3 Handmaids are the compete property of the state. They are also utilized as national resources. When there is failure to bear a child, they are exiled and treated as slaves.

Key point 4 Although women are the ones mostly marginalized in Gilead, some men are also silenced and treated as logs of Woods, for example Nick. Which.....

Republic of Gilead is a society that has marginalized women denying them of the basic human rights. Women are treated as plaything for sexual pleasure dragging down their identity. Women are treated wrongly, disenfranchised, tortured and humiliated. The society has destroyed homosexuals and religious sects. Women have no right to talk to their circle and most of them yearn for the future. Offred is among the women and handmaiden who are treated as if there are no parts of the society.

Offred is the protagonist of the novel as well as the narrator. She is intelligent and kind. She narrates the whole story on how she experiences events, the memories she has and from her point of view. She inwardly resists Gilead and hates how women are treated in the society. Offred undergoes extreme torture, anguish, pain and humiliation. She is forced to bear children for the Commander. She is also forced to take up the name of the Commander Fred meaning she belongs to him of Fred as his property. She has no friends or family only flashback of memories of her daughter and husband Luke. She is repressed and even forced to have sex with Nick, the chauffeur of Serena Joy. She hates how women are exploited and used as plaything for sexual pleasure. Women are ill treated with no rights to education to the extent of confiscating their credit cards.

Serena Joy is the wife to the Commander and an advocate to the traditional values. She has high social status yet unhappy. Offred recalls Serena when she used to see her on the TV on Saturday mornings while waiting for cartoons. Serenas public recognition and power has been taken away by the Gileadean State. She is believed to be barren and therefore confined to the home and watch as her husband copulate with handmaid. This is where her bitterness, frustration and unhappiness begin. She refuses to take part in the monthly fertility ritual and is forced to accept that her husband has to use Offred to bear children. She takes out her frustrations with Offred, treating her in a cruel manner and finally striking a deal with Offred to get pregnant with Nick, her chauffeur.

The handmaiden are silenced and completely marginalized in Gilead. They are regarded as the property of the state. They are treated and utilized as national resources in the child bearing process. They are given three chances to produce a child failure to which they are exiled to the colonies. In the colonies, they do chores like cleaning toxic waste and becoming slave labourers. In the social set up, the handmaiden are fertile women whose function is to bear children for the barren wives. They dress in clothes that do not reveal their shape, meaning their bodies are not to be exposed. They cover their heads with white wings to prevent them from being seen unless standing directly in front of someone. The society produces handmaiden by increasing the re-educating fertile women who have broken the social laws and gender as well increasing the number of gender crimes.

Nick is one of the male figures who seem marginalized in Gilead by Serena. He is the Commanders chauffeur living above the garage. He is forced to start a sexual relationship with Offred as the Serenas command. This relationship is meant to get Offred pregnant. Although Offred begins to have feelings for Nick, this relationship was not initiated out of their own free will. This shows that women in power have the capacity to treat men as they wish; logs of wood as portrayed by Serena Joy.

In conclusion, Offred, Serena Joy and the handmaiden are in the social group of women who have been marginalized in Gilead. Womens bodies and minds have been colonized. They are controlled by men, doing whatever they want with them. They are not allowed to read meaning no brain advancement or knowledge addition is allowed. They want women to remain in a critical poverty condition of the mind. Offred has a husband and daughter, yet she is used by the Commander like a sex puppet. This portrays disrespect to women yet they have no say in such matters. Serena is from high social status yet she has no right to give her opinion in regards to her fertility. Suggestions are often made that the Commander is sterile, yet the Gileadean laws state that sterility is not for male, only women. Even if these suggestions are true, Serena cannot openly talk about it to her husband.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2011. Internet resource.