"The Handmaid's Tale"

In The Handmaid's Tale, The main character, Offred, is caught in an oppressive society where women are merely objects of sex, baby production, and housekeeping, and the Bible is the only source of law and lifestyle. The society uses the Bible word for word. They follow the text, and not the meaning behind it. Through this, the author, Margaret Atwood, illustrates one of her many points -how literal interpretation of religious texts blurs what the religion is actually about. Due to this extreme interpretation, the society developed an exceptionally meaningless, bleak, way of life, without emotion, without human reasoning or feeling. Offred's narration is numb, even describing her personal account of forced sex in an un-phased manner, where in our society, that can be an incredibly traumatic situation. She is dead, emotionally. She is mechanical, along with the society. Because of the society's literal interpretation of the Bible, it has blurred the love the religion is supposed to teach. It has lost the faith the Bible is meant to bring, it has lost everything, but the text itself.
    Atwood does not just express her opinion focused solely on religious extremist, but all extremists. Offred's mother was a part of an extremist feminist group. When Offred was a young girl, her mother forced her to burn a pornographic magazine that she did not entirely understand. She had to burn it, because it was bad. There were no explanations, just the simple fact that it was wrong, and the mother forced that idea upon her. She did not allow her daughter to form her own opinion,she only allowed her to accept what she is giving her. Extreme viewpoints do not allow opposing views to be even recognized. This leaves minds closed and unaccepting, unwilling to even respect the opposition, and expects others to do the same.
     Personally, my favorite passage of the novel was when Offred was describing the room she had to live in, where everything was removed that "you could tie a rope to." This was disturbing to read, chilling to know that the sweetest escape would have been suicide. It illustrates the intensity of this oppression, and how the society is aware of it.
     I actually enjoyed this novel, because I agree with many of the points the author makes. Although analyzing every little bit of seemingly unimportant description grows tiresome, it does show the author's ability to weave in her points throughout all of the novel. I liked the bleak narration, as it gave insight into the way Offred felt, just by the way she phrased things. Overall, I like The Handmaid's Tale, and I could see myself reading it outside of class.