Society Has Forced Women to Become the Victim.

Int:
A victim, a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action, a person who is tricked or duped, a person who has come to feel helpless and passive in the face of misfortune or ill-treatment. The definition is for victims, I would also say for women. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood defies unequal gender-based power with women as the subordinate class to men.

Rank one Wives, then Aunts, Econowives, Marthas, Handmaids, Jezebels and lowest rank of all, the Unwomen. No matter what “kind” of women you are you have an opressed life and a singular function in The Republic of Gilead. Along with a singular function life has brought a uniform, the kind that is worn and the routine endured each day. In our current Western society what you wear is considered an expression of yourself. The Handmaid’s Tale is a distorted version of this by the uniform you wear day to day is not expression of yourself but a simple description of your function. Atwood really emphasises the fact that each women is just a unit of function within Gilead by displaying them in these uniforms. The wives wear powder blue which represents the virgin Mary, they will bear children but as a “virgin” using the Handmaids. Aunts wear khaki green that of military style for their militant type role. The Econowives “have to do everything, if they can” wear three colours of a Martha, Wife and Handmaid. The Unwomen wear grey, its the colour of ash as though they have been burned from society. The jezebels of course wear highly eroticised costumes from the previous era and on the other end of the spectrum the Handmaid’s whom wear long red dresses symbolising the blood they shed for fertility. The freedom of choice is something so simple and something many take for granted is stripped away …



“You don’t have different clothes…we merely have different women”

Speech/Language

Sexuality