Neologism In The Handmaids Tale - 731 Words

In â€Å"The Handmaids’ Tale† (Margaret, Atwood), neologisms are sprinkled throughout the storys characters and it’s deeper meaning. Neologisms (being words that have a different meaning than their current uses) show how certain characters or terms are viewed in Gilead’s society. Salvagings refer to the executions that take action against those that do not abide by the Gilead Republics laws such as the doctors who practiced abortions before the war. Another neologism is the view of freedom. Offred and the other Handmaids are not given any freedom. Similar to a regiment, the women are given orders and tasks and they must follow suit while the other roles are in this same regime, just with different tasks such as the Marthas who clean and†¦show more content†¦The types of names used for certain professions also have biblical references as the police are the â€Å"guardians of faith† and the soldiers are called â€Å"angels†. Guardians are a mythological creature tasked with defending their realm from demons while an Angel is a direct biblical reference to heaven. Another biblical connection is the reading a Commander did while Offred and Moira were in the Rachel and Leah Centre or the Red Center. â€Å"Give me children, or else I die. Am I in Gods stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.†(Atwood, p.101). This is read aloud to the handmaid’s to give them purpose and reasoning for their tasks as they are the only ones that can bear fruit. Neologisms and Biblical Language help to give new meaning to words that were heard before and are scattered throughout the novel, from beginning to end. With language resulting in so much of the woman’s freedom, the story quite frankly could go two ways. After Offred has her child (assuming she has one), she may find a new perspective in all of this and find her place in society, something that she has been searching for since she became a Handmaid. This would result in no social change, but would end the story as herShow MoreRelatedjourneys in handmaids tale1334 Words   |  6 PagesJourneys Essay We learn from the journeys we take, through experience, not from the destination itself. This statement is supported by both Margaret Atwood’s fictional dystopian novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and Oliver Stone’s crime fiction film ‘Natural Born Killers’. Through the use of multiple techniques Atwood makes it clear that the protagonist Offred undertakes inner and imaginative journeys during the course of the novel and learns from them. Likewise, Stone uses an array of film techniquesRead MoreHow Does Margaret Atwood Establish and Develop a Dystopian Narrative in Her Novel ‚Äà ²the Handmaid‚Äà ´s Tale‚Äà ´?2152 Words   |  9 PagesThroughout Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded state is created through the use of multiple themes and narrative techniques. In a dystopia, we can usually find a society that has become all kinds of wrong, in direct contrast to a utopia, or a perfect society. Like many totalitarian states, the Republic of Gilead starts out as an envisioned utopia by a select few: a remade worldRead MoreA Postmodernist/Posthumanist Reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s, Never Let Me Go Using Fredric Jameson’s Theory of Postmodernism and Late Capitalism.4659 Words   |  19 PagesA Postmodernist/Posthumanist reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s, Never Let Me Go using Fredric Jameson’s theory of Postmodernism and Late Capitalism. Posthumanism neologism is used to describe what comes after humanism and the question of what it means to be human. It is often and most frequently used to describe a dystopian life form that is created and crafted by humans themselves. Posthumanism is not to be confused with postmodernism, although their paths do cross intrinsically throughout this essay