Portents of the Monotheocracy in The Handmaids Tale Essay

Portents of the Monotheocracy in The Handmaids Tale American society has had certain cultural and political forces which have proliferated over the past few decades-described as the return to traditional Christian values. Television commercials promoting family values followed by endorsements from specific denominations are on the rise. As the public has become more aware of a shift in the cultural and political climate through the mass media, Margaret Atwood, in writing The Handmaids Tale, could have been similarly affected by this growing awareness of the public consciousness. This may have led Atwood to write of a bleak future for the country where a new regime is established and one religion becomes so powerful as to†¦show more content†¦Though the Commander reads accurately from Genesis 30: 1-3 to the household-- 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 114)-- the Biblical context, however, is irrelevant to the modern society which existed before the coup. The context of the scripture is that of an ancient patriarchal society where men often had multiple wives whose value was to produce progeny, and the Judaic laws accorded women few rights. Though there are some similarities between ancient times and Gilead-the high infant mortality rate and death in childbirth--scripture is used by Gilead as a means to an end. In order to increase the birth rate, the regime forced the wives to accept their roles as barren women, hence inferior people, and surrogate mothers. Consequently, the handmaids are not seen as whole people at all, just reproductive machines. Offred observed that her uterus made her like a womb on legs. At the Red Center, the women listened to a tape of the Beatitudes, and Offred knew the reading was incorrect. She recollects, †¦Blessed be the meek. Blessed are the silent. I knew it was wrong, and they left things out, too, bu t there was