The Handmaid's Tale and The Wife of Bath

Essay question: Compare and contrst the ways Atwood in "The Handmaid's Tale" and Chaucer in "The Wife of Bath" explore status in society.

Staus in society is explored in the novel "The Handmaid's Tale" by Atwood and epic poem "The Wife of Bath" by Chaucer. In the Handmaid's Tale, Atwood explores staus in socety through language, colour coding (clothing), role, name of characters, the past life of Offred and subjugation of women in the socety of Gilead. In the Wife of Bath, Chaucer explores status in socety through the Wife's prologue which describes her role, clothing and mastery in the bedroom. In the Tale, the status in socety is explored through the Queen's position and power over men. I will be exploring the ways Atwood and Chaucer explore status in socety.

In the Handmaid's Tale, the status of women and men are explored through their roles in socety. Firstly, the character of Offred (a Handmaid), as Atwood describes her role in the society of Gilead as, "I am a walking womb". In the quotation, the use of short sentence has been used, the reason why Atwood used short sentence is to declare her role. A declarative sentence is a grammatical mood that expresses a statement, Atwood used this to show reader's the Handmaid's role. Personal deixis "I" identifies Offred's feelings from her point of view about her status in society, the reason Atwood used the pronoun "I" in the statement is to express the role of Handmaid's from a Handmaid themself. Secondly, the character of Serena Joy (Commander's Wife), as Atwood describes her role in the society of Gilead as, "The garden is the domain of the Commander's Wife". In the quotation, the noun "domain" has been used to show her control and power over the garden, but this is the opposite to the traditional role of women in the house because men are supposed to control the garden. Atwood uses Offred's dialogue to show the Commander's Wife role in the society of Gilead, as Offred describes her role, she uses her name and not a pronoun, this shows her respect for the Commander's Wife, as she has higher status to the Handmaid's. Although Atwood clearly describes the Wife's role, the role enforced is not kept as its supposed to be, as the Wife does more than her role. The Commander's Wife shows Offred a picture of her daughter, in the ceremony (that takes place once every month), again the Commander's Wife has some control over it as Offred illustrates the Wife's attitude when she says, "her rings of her left hand cut through me like a knife." Lastly, through the manipulation of Offred and Nick in order to get rid of Offred. Finally, the character of the Commander, as Atwood decribes his role in the society of Gilead as, "The Commander, too, is doing his duty." In the quotation, the use of the noun "Commander" used by Offred when describing his role is to show her respect for those abover her, this reveals the Commander has a high status from Offred who is a Handmaid in the society of Gilead. The noun "duty" connotes his role, a job in society. The reason Atwood used this word is to reveal the purpose of his high status in the society of Gilead.