8 Occasions ‘The Handmaid's Story’ Acquired Approach Too Actual

Primarily based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Story is about in a disturbing, oppressive dystopia below the management of the totalitarian Gilead regime, which topics fertile girls referred to as “Handmaids” to child-bearing slavery.

Premiering in 2017, the present has been a roaring success, and after six seasons has cemented its place as one of the crucial critically acclaimed and talked-about reveals in latest historical past, fascinating audiences with its compelling characters, spectacular world-building, and dread-filled environment.

Regardless of being set in a fictional dystopia, it’s inconceivable not to attract comparisons between the sequence and lots of real-world points. Right here, we’re exploring 8 elements of The Handmaid’s Story that blur the traces between fiction and actuality and hit a little bit too shut for consolation.

8

Indoctrination and Propaganda

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From a younger age, the ladies in The Handmaid’s Story are taught to simply accept their place as Handmaids or Marthas. By means of relentless propaganda efforts, they’re inundated with teachings and messages emphasizing the significance of obedience, purity, and sacrifice. The ladies are systematically brainwashed into believing Gilead’s oppressive teachings and upholding its thought of social order with out query.

Indoctrination Is a Widespread Methodology of Exerting Energy and Sustaining Management

Indoctrination via propaganda has been used as a device to implement authority and affect beliefs because the earliest historic information. From the times of Historic Sparta, the place boys had been taken from their households to enter state-run army agoge colleges, to Nazi Germany’s Hitler Youth packages, it’s particularly efficient with youthful people who find themselves extra prone to manipulation.

Whether or not we prefer it or not, indoctrination as a device of energy reveals no signal of disappearing anytime quickly, as we bear witness to its use in regimes like North Korea and even, extra subtly, in fashionable Western political campaigns.

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7

LGBTQ+ Persecution

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The Gilead regime treats homosexuality as a mortal sin and a criminal offense that carries extreme punishments. Labelled as ‘gender treachery,’ a number of harrowing examples all through the present spotlight simply how severely it’s taken. Offred recollects seeing a person hanged for the offence, and after Ofglen is revealed to be a lesbian, her lover is executed and Ofglen is forcibly subjected to feminine genital mutilation as a approach to ‘purify’ her.

Mirrors Actual-Life Points Across the Discrimination and Persecution of the LGBTQ+ Group

Gilead’s therapy of homosexuals is a major instance of its excessive intolerance. Sadly, although, it’s a problem that isn’t simply confined to the fictional world of The Handmaid’s Story. The LGBTQ+ neighborhood has lengthy confronted struggles with discrimination, and in lots of nations and areas throughout the globe, homosexuality continues to be deemed a felony offence—typically punishable by loss of life or a life sentence.

6

Compelled Marriage and Baby Brides

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Compelled marriages are central to Gilead’s management over girls. Women are recurrently married off to older males—primarily Commanders—with no regard for his or her consent or emotional maturity. Among the many many subjected to this apply, we witness Esther and Eden being forcibly married to far older males whereas nonetheless simply youngsters. In Eden’s case, regardless of her indoctrination and perception in Gilead’s teachings, she was completely unprepared for marriage and struggled together with her husband’s full lack of affection. She ultimately flees her marriage in pursuit of affection however is captured and executed for adultery.

Eden and Esther’s Experiences Mirror These of Hundreds of thousands Across the World

Typically based mostly on household, social, or spiritual concerns, organized marriages are a customary apply amongst many cultures but in addition increase questions on private freedom and the road between alternative and coercion. On probably the most excessive finish of the spectrum, although, is the difficulty of kid brides. Baby marriage is a severe world situation, with an estimated 12 million women a 12 months coming into into marriage earlier than maturity. Typically married to males far older than themselves, efforts are regularly being put in place to finish the apply—however progress is sluggish.

5

Refugee Struggles

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With Gilead’s oppressive regime displaying no indicators of moderating, many characters have tried to flee and escape to Canada, with various ranges of success. Risking torture and even loss of life if caught, they need to evade border patrols and secret police. Whereas many fail, a small quantity—like Luke, for instance—efficiently escape to Canada, the place, in his case, they be a part of the resistance to assist others observe of their path.

Brings to Thoughts the Present Migrant Disaster

The perilous journey to flee Gilead mirrors the present migrant disaster, the place tens of millions flee violence, oppression, and poverty seeking security and freedom. Like Luke and the others in The Handmaid’s Story, they put their lives on the road and are compelled to beat treacherous circumstances and harsh borders, demonstrating their sheer desperation and the necessity for compassion and understanding.

4

Stripping Girls of Monetary Autonomy

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Relating to funds, Gilead ensures girls are reliant on males. Stripped of all monetary independence, they’re forbidden from proudly owning property and even accessing their financial institution accounts, that are transferred to their closest residing male family member. A important device in reinforcing the regime’s patriarchal construction, it renders girls depending on their male counterparts and stripped of independence.

Monetary Independence Is Solely a Comparatively New Proper for Girls within the Developed World

Whereas this example may sound like a twisted state of affairs plucked from the minds of the present’s creators to show the Gilead regime’s oppressive nature and the dystopian world it’s set in, it’s really far nearer to the reality than many could notice. There are nonetheless monetary guardianship legal guidelines in place in sure elements of the world that prohibit girls’s monetary autonomy and pressure financial dependence on males.

Actually, up till the Equal Credit score Alternative Act of 1974, girls within the U.S. weren’t allowed to get a bank card in their very own identify with out permission from a male co-signer. Previous to the ’70s, there have been quite a few comparable guidelines in place that meant girls had been routinely denied loans and weren’t allowed to take out mortgages or enter contracts with out their husband’s approval. Whereas we’ve come a good distance since then, points surrounding gender pay gaps and underrepresentation in management nonetheless affect girls’s monetary freedom to at the present time.

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The Handmaid’s Story Solid: Principal Characters within the Present, Defined

There’s quite a bit to unpack about the primary characters of The Handmaid’s Story, from protagonists to antagonists. Here is a information to assist perceive them.

3

Trauma

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For a lot of, life below the oppressive Gilead regime is one in every of fixed worry and psychological (and infrequently bodily) torment, and unsurprisingly, quite a few characters clearly exhibit signs of trauma because of their mistreatment. There are indicators of emotional numbness, hypervigilance, anger, and melancholy. From Offred’s dissociation and Serena Pleasure’s bitterness to Janine’s tried suicide, it’s not shocking that so many are demonstrating indicators of PTSD.

Displays Actual-Life Psychological Well being Struggles Skilled by Trauma Survivors

As our comprehension of psychological well being slowly however certainly begins to deepen, we’re beginning to perceive the devastating psychological toll that traumatic occasions can have on people. Signs mirroring these of the aforementioned characters in The Handmaid’s Story have been seen in real-life instances of PTSD, together with amongst sexual assault survivors and conflict veterans—making the present really feel all of the extra highly effective and hard-hitting.

2

Management of Girls’s Our bodies

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Within the fictional world of The Handmaid’s Story, infertility amongst girls is a widespread situation led to by inorganic farming and radioactivity. Those that are fertile, nonetheless, are compelled right into a state of kid servitude as “Handmaids.” They’re compelled to breed after which separated from their infants, who’re given to their assigned male “Commanders.”

Brings to Thoughts the Present Debates Round Professional-Life/Professional-Selection

The management of ladies’s our bodies in The Handmaid’s Story starkly mirrors real-world debates surrounding reproductive rights and the strain between pro-life and pro-choice actions. Whereas maybe not as excessive as seen within the present, girls’s autonomy over their reproductive rights continues to be an space of nice rivalry throughout the globe—mirrored within the latest authorized rollbacks of abortion rights throughout the USA.

1

The Separation of Moms and Youngsters

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The separation of a mom and her baby might be an extremely traumatic expertise, resulting in long-lasting emotional scars. Below the Gilead regime, Handmaids’ kids are taken from them at start and given to assigned “Commanders” whose wives are infertile, with no regard for the emotional misery it causes the Handmaid.

Mirrors U.S. Immigration Insurance policies That Led to the Separation of Households on the Border

The traumatic expertise of separating Handmaids from their kids mirrors latest controversial U.S. immigration insurance policies which have led to kids being taken from their dad and mom on the border. These parallels show how state energy has the devastating capacity to dehumanize susceptible human beings.

The separation of oldsters from their kids isn’t unique to the US, although, and has lengthy been used as a device of management and punishment—persevering with to at the present time in sure locations around the globe—making The Handmaid’s Story’s fictional dystopia really feel disturbingly near actuality.