The handmaid tale

Authors Avatar

The Handmaid’s Tale

Section 4: Birth VIII (pg. 135 -176)

Brief Summary/ Analysis

Chapter 19

  • Offred and all other handmaids are send in the birth mobile  to Janine’s home so they can help “encourage”/ attend Janine’s birth ceremony.
  • Offred and the Handmaids all file into the home of Ofwarren’s commander, Gilead dictates that all birth should be at home and it should be an all natural birth with no doctors.
  • Offred also talks about how Gilead’s society begin in the first place, she says that the late 20th century’s environmental pollution and natural disasters are the cause of low birth rates and this is what caused an antifeminist society like Gilead.
  • Gilead emphasis on natural birth embraces the idea of women being punished by the crucial pain that is involved in labor. The system created an unfriendly and jealous environment between the women, keeping them divided and powerless.
  • The wives attitude towards Janine is ironic; as they provide her a cookie and be nice in front of her and as soon as she leaves they call her and all the handmaids’ whores.
Join now!

Chapter 20

  • Offred is surrounded by handmaids and there wives. Offred starts to think about her experiences in the red center and how she was able to see an “unwomen documentary” which showed the antifeminist movement and her mother as part of it.
  • The way the aunts brain wash the handmaids is very bias and typical for a society like Gilead, they only show or let them read what they want, the movies they watch are pornography and abusive videos of women being hurt and cut into pieces and they contrast it with antifeminist documentaries of porn to change ...

This is a preview of the whole essay