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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In a narrative as wealthy as The Handmaid’s Story, it is unsurprising that a number of unfastened ends stay.
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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