Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"

Although they purport to have a traditional and purist ideology that bans products and acts that encourage sin, such as intoxicant and prostitution, they allow themselves to surrender to their human urges in secret and without chance of punishment. Gilead is ultimately an utopia for the degenerate people in power.

Gilead's rigid pecking order with its clear delineation of rules, roles and functions allows the leadership to exert complete admit everywhere the lives of their subjects. Most human societies be organized with hierarchies, commonly by age and kindle. Older people dominate over younger people while men dominate over women (Van den Berghe, 1974, p. 782). Therefore, in nigh societies, there is a unvaried struggle within the communities, in the forms of class conflicts, generational and stir tensions, along with military coups (Van den Berghe, 1974, p. 785).

However, in Gilead, social conflicts are suppressed through the rigidity of the hierarchy. The hierarchy envelops the entire mankind of the people and obliterates their individual identity. Deviation from these roles is punishable by conclusion in Gilead. In addition, the functions of these roles, especially for the people in the light ranks, are often menial and degrading to the human spirit. By giving them such menial functions, the leaders ensure that no one can accumulate enough power or resources to mount a challenge against their authority.

In Gilead, the Commanders are at the head of the hierarchy. Beneath them are

In contrast, Gilead is strongly characterized by private ownership. The Commanders enjoy the greatest wealth at the expense of the other people. The community is divided into opposite "households," with the Commander owning his wife, the Handmaid, the Marthas and a Guardian. In fact, the Handmaid does not hitherto have a real name. Her "name" indicates that she is a possession of the Commander: "Ofwarren."

Kanter, R. M. (1972). Commitment and community: Communes and utopias in sociological perspective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

What is most prominent about this world is the fragmentation of a woman's coordination compound identity into separate functions.

It is apparent that these divisions of labor are delimitate according to men's stereotypical perceptions of women. Like the fulfillment of a male fantasy, beautiful young women are transformed into sex objects, while unattractive ones are relegated to domestic labor. At the same(p) time, the saintliness of motherhood is maintained by removing the wife from direct knowledgeable activity. This world is indeed an utopia designed solely for the Commanders.

Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale highlights the key issues confronted by utopians in their formation of a ship's company that leave alone serve as a better alternative to the menses mainstream society. Although Gilead turns out to be an Orwellian nightmare, with the leaders transforming the system to their advantage, it is not a far-fetched representation of human society. Its creation is a binding attempt to replace the social ambivalence and moral vacancy of the previous society by instituting clearly-defined rules and functions. In fact, the takeover of the leaders of Gilead closely resembles the Communist transformation of countries such as China. The Communists' rely to create a perfect model of human society also led to a dramatic transformation that complicated the destruction of culture, knowledge and clothing of the previous society. The experiments of communes and utopi
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