"The Handmaid" By Margaret Atwood

As seen in both literary works, and the real world, cruelty and the effect it has on a person can be an extremely motivating force. The Handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood takes place in a dystopian future, where females are oppressed, and forced to obey the commands of the rich and powerful. In order to ensure the submissiveness of women and those who lack power, the powerful used cruel tactics to impose consequences on those who act against their demands.

Cruelty in the story is used to fuel the narrative, forcing the main character and her female allies to comply with the oppressor’s demands, no matter how outlandish or inhumane. After the intense trials and tribulations of being a woman in this dystopian future, our narrator is forced to adapt and make the decisions necessary to her survival.

In the dystopian future in which The Handmaid’s Tale takes place, women are practically enslaved, and forced to undergo barbarous conditions in order to survive.

The oppressors of the housemaids are known for being excessively cruel, to the point where the housemaids will do anything in order to escape, even knowing it could cost them their lives. Themes of freedom and confinement, love, passivity, and identity are all challenged by the cruel and inhumane treatment of the main character, as well as the other housemaids. These women are forced to mark harsh, perilous decisions in order to ensure their survival. Many of the oppressed are unable to comprehend the new lives they have been forced into, and either go insane or take their lives as a means of escape.

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Without the powerful women and men governing the center, and ultimately deciding the fates of any women still capable of having children, as well as the “rebels” who attempt to help them, the dystopian future may cease to exist, and the citizens could have lived in peace and harmony after the coup. Torn away from both her husband, child, mother, and lifestyle, the narrator struggles through countless acts of cruelty and torture that define her character and the choices she makes. When locked up in the center, the narrator is completely alone.

Being forced to separate from her young daughter, and unsure of the fate of her husband. The women are stripped of everything that makes them unique and human and are instead told they will be housemaids and nothing more, used for breeding with the rich and powerful men of society. When a familiar face enters the center in the form of her old friend Moira, the narrator is so distraught that she feels happiness, even knowing that her good friend is undergoing the torture she is currently experiencing. While the cruel acts of the people in charge break women, leading to suicides and insanity, the narrator’s will was strong enough to not sink into a savage state, like many of the other housemaids. When the head of the center, Aunt Lydia, allows the women to attack a male member of the rebellion, the narrator watches in horror instead of participating in the brutal killing of an innocent man, keeping what little humanity she had left. After going against her master’s order and falling in love with the chauffeur, the narrator is unable to trust him when he ensures that the men in the van coming to get her are on her side and are attempting to save her, instead of executing her, as the narrator fears.

While the narrator’s fate is unknown by the end of the novel, the decisions that kept her alive and led to her entering the van were all in part due to the cruelty she endured throughout and before the events of the novel. Cruelty is one of the most effective tools of motivation that one human can use on another. The Housemaid’s Tale explores a world in which women are constantly exposed to cruel and inhuman acts committed against them, and how they would react. While most of the women go insane or take their own lives to escape, others show more resilience and are able to escape to a rebel alliance attempting to save the housemaids. The novel explores a world in which the powerful give in to the temptation of exerting their maximum level of cruelty in order to oppress a group of people crucial to the survival of humanity.