Compare how Orwell, a British novelist writing in the 1940s, and Atwood, a female Canadian novelist writing in the 1980s present the individual in a repressive society.

The first 200 words of this essay...

Compare how Orwell, a British novelist writing in the 1940's, and Atwood, a female Canadian novelist writing in the 1980's present the individual in a repressive society.

Atwood's 'The Handmaids Tale' and Orwell's '1984' both present a critique of social structures. The Oceanic society in '1984' shares strong similarities between 20th century dictatorships and can be interpreted as a criticism of the regimes of Stalin in the USSR and of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Hitler's secret police, the Gestapo, are infamously known for abduction-style arrests where thousands of "enemies of the state" would be taken away at night. This is similar to the arrests made in Oceania "during the night" by the 'Thought Police' for "thought crimes". In both instances, ultimately, existence of those individuals that were taken would be erased. In Nazi Germany these enemies would be sent to concentration camps, used as labour, tortured and eventually killed - and likewise in Oceania they were "removed from the registers", "forgotten" and then "vaporised".

'The Handmaids Tale' on the other hand bares strong similarities between 1980's Iran, where there existed great inequality of women. In both societies men are shown to hold a greater status than women. This higher