The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

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  • By Nadia Rahman
  • Subject: English Literature
  • For Karen Penty

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Assignment 2

Chapter 16, the ceremony is structured to represent the nature of the Ceremony.  It is a short chapter of the novel, it symbolises the short duration of the actual Ceremony and the functional nature between the three characters, Offred, Serena and the Commander.

Atwood uses the ceremony to violate both female constructs, Serena and Offred.  Atwood, throughout the text shows the bitterness between both the women, “She doesn’t speak to me, unless she can’t avoid it” and then “There is loathing in her voice”.  This is caused by the regime’s strict rules on the women’s role.  Both characters don’t want what they have and so, are jealous of each other.  “Get up and get out.”   This shows the lack of compassion Serena holds for Offred.  This is what the hierarchy created by the regime intended to do.  It builds walls between the women, segregating them so to ensure that there isn’t a feminist uprisal.  The hierarchy causes jealously among the women on the different levels, which then leads to hatred, “…spits on the side-walk.  The Econowives do not like us”.  Again this prevents the unity of women and a rebellion against the regime even though most of the women are unhappy.  This hatred sometimes takes a physical form.  During the ceremony Atwood makes Serena hurt Offred, “The rings of her left hand cut into my fingers.”  The reason for this hatred could be due to the fact that Offred has sex with her husband and she has the key to unlock the future, to produce the next generation.        

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        Even during the only form of permitted sex, the Handmaid has no power.  Serena “is in control, of the process”.  However Serena does not feel this way and so is envious of the Handmaid.

        

        This links to the ideology that everyone has a function.  Atwood displays the ceremony as a chore to the Commander, something he does because he has to, “He is preoccupied…waiting for himself to come…There’s an impatience in his rhythm”.  Atwood describes the ceremony as if it’s a set of instructions “withdraws. Recedes.  Rezippers.”  The short sentences are used for intensity, representing the atmosphere.  Atwood has ...

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