April 03, 2005
Gender Inequality and its Solution
Contrary to what some may have you believe, men and women have very different roles even in a modern, first world society, like America. The niches in which each is supposed in reside are becoming increasingly blurry, but very slowly and with the amount of effort that should not be required for the achievement of simple equality. The idea of equality is simple, but reaching its execution from a time and place where stark inequality once existed is complex. Yes, progress has been made over the centuries, but is there truly a big difference? Women are able to vote, but not nearly enough are exercising that right. Women are now working in jobs that were originally only considered to be jobs for men, like lawyers and politicians, but they are still paid 70% of what a man in a given position is paid. Women have more control of their reproductive rights than they did a hundred years ago, but that may soon change for the worse.
Continue reading "Gender Inequality and its Solution"March 29, 2005
Self Responsibility
The Lottery was a story of self responsibility; the individual can fulfill their own destiny. Like many the fade for suing McDonalds can along; fat Americans blame the fast food chain for their own obesity problem. Much like the McDonalds lawyers, Shirley Jackson argues that humans only travel paths in life they chose to travel. Therefore all the fat Americans are fat because everyday they purchase with their own free will a box of fat with a side of fries. Atwood tries to explain the same concept; the creation of Gilead wasn’t prevented because the citizens allowed it to.
Continue reading "Self Responsibility"gILEAD fOR tHE wEAK
It so sad to think that the creation of Gilead was based on the tribulations of men. When the Commander says, "The problem wasn't women… it was with the men, there was nothing for them anymore." In the Commander's eyes were run down soldiers who needed a boost in their egos in order to be superior to women again. I feel one of the reason Gilead was started was because men like the Commander were so insecure that they couldn't truly be men unless they had forceful power over the other sex. Gilead is a place where women are nothing; they are just there to please the other sex. The men of Gilead couldn't live in a society where women might have more intelligence or money or respect then most men because this would put their "manhood" in jeopardy. Gilead for the Commander was a place where men could redeem themselves, gain their self-wroth back. Men were now and forever would be the superior sex. Men would be smarter, granted they denied women any right to read, they would have more money because women given jobs without pay and men would be praised by other men never allowing women to have a scene of pride. Gilead was the land for the timid man.
Continue reading "gILEAD fOR tHE wEAK"March 28, 2005
A Capitalist Tradition
The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, is a very interesting read. At first, one might be extremely surprised by what seems to be a completely grotesque tradition, but when thinking about it more thoroughly, one realizes that the lottery is somewhat analogous to many things that happen in our society today. When first reading this story, what struck me was how the people of the village, mainly the Adams', were talking about other villages that had begun to get rid of the lottery in their society.
Continue reading "A Capitalist Tradition"March 27, 2005
Gilead: a popular revolution?
Gilead was not created through a popular rebellion- it was a sudden and bloody coup d’etat that created it. The difference is that in a rebellion, the people create a change in government. In a coup, the people have nothing to do with it. As in Gilead, a coup is a precise, highly organized revolution led by a small group of people. So the question becomes, if the people were not involved in Gilead, how did its leaders stay in power? How did Gilead continue to grow and exist for years after the coup? The people of Gilead, and the rest of the world, must have allowed it to happen.
Power: "The Lottery" and The Handmaid's Tale
“The Lottery” is Shirley Jackson’s way of sounding an alarm. It is like saying “watch out for how oblivious you are to your surroundings and intricate webs of control around you because one day, when you least expect it, you will be the innocent bystander.” Except what Shirley is saying is very similar to what Margaret Atwood is saying—no one has the right to complain or get angry at being the victim, as Tessie did, because they, by their ignorance and apathy, are not innocent bystanders, they are the cause of their own misery, unless they consciously fought against the system. Undoubtedly, Shirley Jackson was concerned about the structure of a capitalistic society and how that affects the ones with the least power, but the overarching message of the story is that nothing happens to people, they allow it to happen or do it to themselves.
Continue reading "Power: "The Lottery" and The Handmaid's Tale"a cop out ending?
Reaching the last page of The Handmaid's Tale feels nothing like the appropriate ending of a book. It's something of a cop out. A false ending. As if both author and protagonist (one and the same) simply got bored and ended the narrative mid-thought, mid-event, mid-story, mid-plotline and mid-history.
March 21, 2005
A New Life?
In this world that we live in, we have learned that things happened that we can not explain. The only thing that we can explain is making a great educational guess of how things happened. This can go with Gilead in the book, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Continue reading "A New Life?"Gilead: We read about it in our books, but will we read about it in our newpapers?!?
In Chapter 28, Atwood goes back to Offred’s life Pre-Gilead to illustrate how Coup d’etat happened, which was aided through computers. Since money is no longer a tangible object, but instead has turned into a code on a plastic card, Atwood proves that people’s privacy no longer existence, even before Coup d’etat occurred. Taking over was easier because the Government had everyone’s information and money, all they needed to do is obtained that information from the Government. What better way to do that than to assassinate the President and kill all Congressmen. The Government, with their advances to technology allowed it to happen because they owned everybody’s information, and thus making it convenient for that information to get in the hands of any criminal.
Continue reading "Gilead: We read about it in our books, but will we read about it in our newpapers?!?"How Far From Gilead Are We?
An age where women have no rights seems like a thing of the past, yet in The Handmaids Tale Margaret Atwood depicts exactly that as well as Americans basic constitutional rights from being granted to them. Once the entire government is ‘gunned down’, the constitution is ‘temporarily suspended’, and women are the first ones to have their privileges s taken away. The things that as women were taken for granted, such as making money, being able to control money, and holding down steady jobs were destroyed. Of course the men of the society had no problem with the situation because one, they were the ones in control once the Islamic fundamentalists supposedly took out the entire government, and two they were given the most freedom in society.