Here is a link to my "Get Woke" prezi slideshow! https://prezi.com/p/keiwauef6bzq/
Eric Craig Professor Katherine King English 1a 09/27/2017 The Handmaid’s Tale: Socio-cultural/Religious dystopia The majority of people don’t really think about our world turning into a dystopia, yet the alarming fact is that it’s very possible that we could see the day where our rights are taken away and the populous will have to succumb to a life of tyranny. Margaret Atwood wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale” to show how many factors we see today that could change our society into a political dystopia. A society where its citizens do not have the power to forge their own life. Where we may be taken from our home and our families to go serve a function to help maintain the human race in a vile manner. Although we don’t ever really give it a second though, the dystopia is right upon us and we must stay woke and think about the consequences of our actions. To help raise awareness “The Handmaid’s Tale”, by Margaret Atwood tells a cautionary tale because of its alarming similarities to a dystopian society and how we perceive religion, and how the socio-culture relates to how we live today. The problems Atwood describes in the book are alarmingly similar to what we can see today. To start, Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” explains how the interpretation of the bible can lead to oppression upon society. The Handmaid’s Tale’s dystopia is based on a very strict and absolute interpretation of the bible to an extreme level. In this society every person is assigned to a house to uphold a function that helps keep their society in tact and oppressed. The role of religion in this dystopian society is linked to the role of a handmaid when Offred thinks to herself “give me children, or else I die” (61). This quote from the book tells how her role as handmaid is to give birth to the commanders children otherwise she will be killed. This quote can be traced directly to The Genesis in the epigraph, it states “give me children, or else I die” (Genesis 30:1-3). This quote is from the story of Rachel and Leah, leah is the servant of the house. Rachel is unable to give birth for some reason and she has Leah be the surrogate for Rachel's child. These two quotes are identical, and it plays a huge role in the story of Offred which is to give birth to the commanders child as reproduction is the highest value in this society. This shows how the story has an extreme literal translation of the bible which leads towards an oppressed dystopian society. Another example of how this society is linked to religion would be the hangings at the wall. The wall is right next to church where they hang the people who they feel are not loyal to the cause. Hanging in the book is referred to as “salvaging” which is to influence the citizens of gilead that these people were once troublesome but have been freed of their body and of the harm they could create. Public hangings are common throughout the history of christianity, however it’s mostly referred to as crucifying. The term salvaging is correlated with going to heaven, a place where all good souls can spend an eternity of bliss and peace. So the leaders of the dystopian society are trying to condition the people that they don’t kill for no reason, they kill in the name of the lord. It’s important to the reader to keep the thought of religious influence in mind while reading this story because it plays such a pivotal role. And the scarier thing is that if this dystopian society is based off of religion then we are closer than we think to the brink of a societal change. Were we to lose control of the government, it’s natural for human beings to cling onto a higher power for guidance, and that’s exactly how it shaped out in The Handmaid’s Tale. The government collapsed and the constitution was suspended, which lead to a new administration of power to take literal interpretations of the bible and put laws into place to control and guide this society. This raises the idea of when the world trade center was attacked and the government suspended the constitution. Atwood somehow was able to somewhat predict events that actually came true in real life through her story. Luckily for us we were able to avoid becoming a dystopian society. Another reason for which The Handmaid’s Tale is a cautionary tale is the connection between the socio-cultural aspect of the dystopian society and our own society. We see today a divide amongst citizens based off of the ideals that we value. There is still racism and segregation in our current world and this can be defined by the actions of alt-right leaders and follower who create violence in our streets to this day. It seems as though they seek a new form of government, one that will oppress a lot of people especially of color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. This idea is exposed in The Handmaid’s tale when Offred visits the wall on one of her walks back home from the market and she sees new bodies on the wall, “There are three new bodies on the wall. One is a priest still wearing the black cassock… the other two have purple place cards hung around their neck: Gender treachery” (Atwood 43). This shows oppression against the people of Gilead and the oppression Alt-righters choose to promote and inflict upon other citzens. In the vice news report on the charlottesville protests/ riots, the reporter had an interview with one of the alt-right leaders Christopher Cantwell. In the interview he referred to his rivals, people who are against white supremacy, as “stupid animals” (Vice news: charlottesville race and terror, 20:35). This conversation really shows how people even in the current society we live still have a desire to show oppression to other groups of people. When Cantwell states that his rivals are stupid animals he is referring to the people who were involved in the unprovoked attack by a vehicle mowing alt-right protesters down in the streets of Charlottesville. These actions demonstrate how closely members of our society relate to those of Atwood's dystopian society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, people are given a function or a job to carry out everyday based on their qualities as people. Handmaid’s are all fertile younger women who have the ability to give birth. For this reason, that is their sole job in the dystopian society, to give birth. In addition, the people of this society are also not allowed to break any laws and are also not allowed to flee. The consequences of such actions would result in being sent to “the colonies”, a place that closely resembles a concentration camp, which is another similarity between the world we live and this dystopian society. The connections between our current society and that of The Handmaid’s Tale show some seriously alarming similarities in socio-culture. It’s crazy to read a book that seems so outlandish yet possesses a lot of qualities that we see today. It’s important to be aware of these similarities that we see in white supremacists, neo-nazis, racists, and people alike because these kinds of ideals are what can lead to the construction of a new way of life similar to that of Atwood’s dystopia. Connections between our culture and Atwood’s dystopia can be seen especially through the ideals of alt-righters and white supremacy. For example, not unlike The Handmaid’s Tale our world has seen great oppression such as the holocaust. Caused by a twisted ideology of white supremacy, Nazis would take people who they saw as subordinates and not worthy of their society, like Jews, Gays, Gypsies, etc., and would send them to concentration camps where they would be forced to work themselves to death or die. This is very similar to the colonies in The Handmaid’s Tale. If people tried to escape or if people were considered traitors to their society, they’d either be killed and hung on the wall or sent to the colonies where they probably faced a fate worse than death. These reasons are why it is important to keep in mind the things we see in our society today and change them for the better. All in all it’s safe to say that Atwood’s dystopia depicted a lot of real world connections that people tend to overlook on a daily basis like religious views and the socio-cultural aspects that our modern day society shares. It’s important to the reader to take these views into perspective so we can take the knowledge and create a better future knowing how similar our two worlds really are. Although it may seem outlandish for a serious change in society such as this but in this world we can never really be too careful, unlikely events seem to happen every single day. Keeping in mind how many similarities our two societies share it’s up to those who read the story to keep these aspects in mind as we live our lives, so we can hope to make the world a better place.