Utopian fiction & The Handmaid's Tale
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Utopian fiction and utopian programs have been written for centuries, and it seems likely that there is something in the human soul that seeks the perfect society. There are two reasons for this--a perfect society would fulfill the promise of humankind on earth rather than humanity having to wait for the City of God in heaven, and the society in which human beings do live is seen as seriously flawed. The word "utopia" can have a specific meaning or a broader meaning. A utopia is a society that offers a perfect form of government, at least according to the individual who has developed it. The word is of Greek origin, a play on the Greek word eutopos, meaning "good place." Many writers have seemed convinced of the idea of and the inevitability of progress, and yet the reality has often seemed to belie this belief with periods of economic troubles, social unrest, and other ills. At various times, this has produced a reaction in the form of utopian literature suggesting how to correct the ills of society by reshaping it from top to bottom. Jean Pfaelzer writes of a spate of such writing at the end of the nineteenth century,The popularity of this generation of utopian fiction lies partially in its incorporation of various explanations for the recurrent industrial depressions and suggestions for their cure. Progressive, pastoral, and feminist utopias subscribed to class analyses and cooperative remedies, while conservative, dystopian, and apocalyptic utopias realized the
. . .
ear to a large segment of the population. In this vision, the revival of family values so touted by a conservative segment in American society today has come to pass in a way that highlights control, subordination, and the isolation of women and their biological functions into a ghetto that is society-wide and that is enforced most brutally. Also revived is the power of class conflict and a social hierarchy, and though Offred and her mistress may seem worlds apart, both are controlled in this male-dominated society in ways that determine every aspect of their lives, limit their choices, and return them to a time when women were expected to know their place and stay in it.
Offred's description of the place where she lives evokes the sense of the past as something that has come back into the present that infuses this novel, extending beyond location and dress to underlying social attitudes:
Late Victorian, the house is, a family house, built for a large rich family. . . A sitting room in which I never sit, but stand or kneel only (Atwood 11).
The image of the sitting room evokes class differences not unlike a distorted version of television's Upstairs, Downstairs, with slavery replacing normal servitude. Atwood's novel demon
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Significantly Atwood, Christianity Gilead, Margaret Atwood, Danuta Walters, Jean Pfaelzer, City God, Upstairs Downstairs, Victorian Age, Late Victorian, , women own, women society, story set future, gender roles, handmaid's tale, class differences, family values, traditional values, utopian fiction, society gilead, surrogate mother,
Approximate Word count = 1601
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Utopian fiction The Handmaid s Tale
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
