The Handmaids Tale portrays many of the issues that were described in both Talking Back and Sins of Silence. In the text Sins of Silence one part stood out to me more than the rest, "But no matter! I was stone. Silent. Hard. Emotionless. Nothing was going to hurt me!" In The Handmaids Tale Offred says something similar was told to her by her mother, the she should steal herself and he wouldn't get hurt. The interesting thing is in both Sins of Silence and The Handmaids Tale they disregard their rules, Offred begins a strange unknown relationship with the commander, and Mai Kao Thao moves to America and learns differently.
I found it intriguing in Sins of Silence that she felt she was losing her "Self," I interpreted this to mean that she was losing who she was, her individuality, and her passion for life. I think that this is seen in many of the more compliant handmaids, they appear to have given up all hope for their world to return to the way it was before as well as resigning themselves to the repression they are subjected to now.
I like, Saumya and Rahul see the huge space between the rights of men versus those of women. When you go outside and watch India go by, you see very few women. Yet if you were to stand in a kitchen, you would only see women. Like in Talking Back the men were in charge of church and the women the house. After doing some research I found that in 1998 less than 40% of women in India were illiterate, this kind of life style (one without the power to read) is seen imposed on the handmaids in The Handmaids Tale as an attempt to control the women. http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment