Theme Of Women In The Handmaids Tale - 1239 Words

In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, women have one purpose- to reproduce. Offred, the protagonist, subjects to the command of Gilead, a dystopian society â€Å"in which a brutal patriarchal regime deprives women of power and subjectivity, enslaving them through a sophisticated, ubiquitous apparatus of surveillance† (Cooper 49). She is under the stringent control of the Commander. In the mid-1980’s, the President of the United States was assassinated and an oppressive group of people seizes control. A new nation, known as Gilead, is formed, in which women and minorities are degraded. In Gilead, women are merely a political instrument, used solely for reproduction. After the formation of Gilead, the nation is ill-struck with pollution due†¦show more content†¦All control is given to men. The women are divided into castes and â€Å"†¦are assigned a particular role and concomitant dress and duties, with no hope of ever breaking free of the se roles except through prostitution, exile, or death† (Callaway 22). Handmaids wear red signifying the blood of menstruation and childbirth. Wives of the commanders wear blue signifying their importance and upper class. Because of their envy of the Handmaids, the Marthas wear green. Econowives wear stripes because of the vast distribution of economic status. The women of Gilead have no say in what class they are part of. They are simply objectified based on their past. Women are merely a pawn within Gilead’s oppressive government. Gilead is corrupt, filled with corrupt individuals. The Handmaids never know who to trust are often left questioning the trustworthiness of their officials. Throughout the city, Eyes patrol the streets, looking for those breaking the laws. Eyes are often in disguise, conducting tests in order to apprehend law breakers. In the beginning of The Handmaids Tale, as Offred leaves the Center, Nick winks and whistles at her. She wonders if â€Å"pe rhaps it was a test, to see what I [Offred] would do. Perhaps he is an Eye† (Atwood 18). It is as if the Eyes want to make people act outlandish. Why would the officials be so corrupt in a government that they created? Towards the middle of the book, the Commander requests time alone with Offred. TheyShow MoreRelatedTheme Of Women In The Handmaids Tale1784 Words   |  8 PagesThroughout history, women have been shamed and oppressed in different aspects of life. In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the oppression of women continues into the dystopian future. One cannot read The Handmaid’s Tale without seeing the problems of gender separation among roles and treatment in society. Although a feminist story, The Handmaid’s Tale gives some surprisingly sympathetic portrayals of men while those of women can be critical. Men are the most mysterious characters; theyRead MoreThemes in Literature991 Words   |  4 Pagesthere are common themes that occur throughout eras and genres to link two otherwise different pieces of writing. One particular example of this occurrance can be seen in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Although these works have been written in very different time periods and use separate styles, there are two themes which link both stories and convey a very similar message. Strict societal roles and the treatment of women in patriarchal societiesRead MoreThe Characters of Women in The Handmaids Tale and The Bell Jar1504 Words   |  7 Pages Women in The Handmaids Tale and The Bell Jar nbsp; Sylvia Plaths renowned autobiographical legend The Bell Jar and Margaret Atwoods fictional masterpiece The handmaids tale are the two emotional feminist stories, which basically involve the womens struggle. Narrated with a touching tone and filled with an intense feminist voice, both novels explore the conflict of their respective protagonists in a male dominated society. In spite of several extraordinary similarities in termsRead MoreObserving the Similarities and Differences between Handmaids Tale and Gattaca1127 Words   |  4 Pagesdominated human imagination for centuries and themes of futuristic societies oppressed by bureaucratic and technological control have become consistent throughout various novels, films and television shows. The absence and mistreatment of humanity due to factors such as war, famine and poverty criticize current global issues while also foreshadowing the consequences of those issues if left unresolved. Both Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and the movie Gattaca reflect dystopian societiesRead MoreMargaret Atwood s The Handmaid s Tale1537 Words   |  7 Pagesauthor of both Lady Oracle and The Handmaid’s Tale. Both of these novels follow the conventions of the oppression of women. Lady Oracle is the narrative in which Joan Foster, the first-person narrator, tells the story of her life. Spanning the time period of the early 1940s through 1970s, Joan’s story describes her growing up in Toronto, becoming an author of gothic romances, marrying and faking her suicide to escape the complicated turmoil of her life. The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a city what usedRead MoreOppression Of Women In The Handmaids Tale1732 Words   |  7 PagesThe Oppression of Women that is shown in The Handmaid’s Tale When describing the newly established society in The Handmaid’s Tale, the Commander states that â€Å"better never means better for everyone [...] it always means worse, for some† (Atwood, 244). This accurately describes the nature of patriarchal societies, such as the society that is described by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale. The Republic of Gilead is a patriarchal society that has religious, and patriarchal values that benefit theRead MoreControlling Reader Response in the Handmaids Tale1257 Words   |  6 Pagessome extent, control reader response to themes within the text but the reader’s context may also influence the way the text is read. It is particularly evident in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale that by examining the experience of women within the world it is evident that women are more repressed. The characterisation of Offred may control reader response to theme because her own personal experiences are projected onto the reader. In Gilead, women are repressed by male power and dominanceRead MoreLiterary Analysis of the Handmaids Tale1068 Words   |  5 PagesOffred, in Margaret Atwood’s disturbing novel The Handmaid’s Tale says, â€Å"But who can remember pain once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.† The society of Gilead causes the aforementioned pain and demoralization by using women’s bodies as political instruments. Similar to Atwood’s novel, today’s men put immense pressure on women to be a certain way, give them children, and take care ofRead MoreSymbolism In The Handmaids Tale1025 Words   |  5 PagesThe Handmaid’s Tale The Handmaid’s Tale is a story told in the voice of Offred, who is the character of the â€Å"handmaid†, which is described best by women who are being forced and used for reproduction because they can make babies. In the Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood uses symbolism, which is the use of symbols to represent ideas, to show the reader the handmaid’s role in society of Gilead. The handmaids were women who had broken the law of Gilead, and forced into having sex and reproducing forRead MoreThe Handmaid s Warning By Margaret Atwood1363 Words   |  6 PagesThe Handmaid’s Warning What will the future bring? What will happen as feminists speak out, women work out of home, pornography spreads and is battled, and the desire for children dwindles? Perhaps life on Earth will improve. Maybe women will have the rights they demand, porn will be defeated, and people will respect women’s bodies. Maybe mothers will miraculously have the perfect number of children: just the right amount to keep the population within its limits. Or perhaps a deterioration will

Advantages of a Web Presence Free Essays

Advantages and disadvantages of a Web Presence The World Wide Web is a World Wide Market. It is a new way of selling. More and more customers expect to find your product news and specifications on the web. We will write a custom essay sample on Advantages of a Web Presence or any similar topic only for you Order Now But even on the Net, you have to advertise your product. Using Internet as a media to advertise your product is different from traditional media. Through Internet companies can be present all over the world. Using the web as an advertising tool is the cheapest way to be discovered at every time. You can also quickly change your promotional campaign, in order to gain attention that may lead the consumer to the product. Online services become so popular because they provide two major benefits to potential buyers: Convenience: Customers can order products 24 hours a day wherever they are. They don’t have to sit in traffic, find a parking space, and walk through countless aisles to find and examine goods. And they don’t have to drive all the way to a store, only to find out that the desired product is out of stock. Information: Customers can find reams of comparative information about companies, products, and competitors without leaving their office or home. They can focus on objective criteria such as prices, quality, performance, and availability. Customers can expect the advantage to pull the information, to be drained into detailed catalog or other information about products and services for sale that they are looking for. They do not feel forced, they are looking for the information by themselves. Nevertheless it seems that Web advertising is much more price than image oriented. Web advertising does not seem the appropriate way to advert a product. According to BMRB International (annex 1) 37% of UK Net shoppers are not ready to purchase off-line They always fear to give their account number to a company they do not know. Today a well-known brand is a real competitive advantage. BRMB International has shown that 16% of purchases has done thanks to an implicit trust of established brands. Nevertheless it does not mean that it will stay an advantage in the future. Moreover the difference with more traditional media is that customers come to you and not you to the customers. You cannot retain their attention if they feel that it does not worth it. When you wish to expand your market share trough Internet, you have to consider the specificity of your target audience. At the present time people who buy through Internet are young, daily users of computers. But there are not only people used to Internet. Because e-business is growing up (annex 2), we can assume that most people have no experience in e-business. The audience can be both good Internet users and beginners. Dealing with communication interaction Security The World Wide Web is the fastest growing part of the Internet. Increasingly, it is also the part of the Internet that is the most vulnerable to attack. For users, a secure web server is one that will safeguard any personal information (bank account number) that is received or collected. It is one that supports their privacy and will not subvert browser to download viruses or other rogue programs onto their computer For a company, a secure web server is resistant to a determined attack over the Internet or from corporate insiders. In order to increase security, you can use a system for automatically encrypting information as it is sent over the Internet and decrypting it before it is used. One of Netscape Communication’s early innovations was its SSL. You can also use firewalls, which is a device that isolates an organization’s internal network from the Internet at large, allowing specific connections to pass and blocking others. Marketing / Communication It is really important to get people inform of the existence of your web site. You will have to shout it from the roof tops! You can use your letterhead, your cards or your leaflets to write your web address. You can also through a TV or board advertising campaign let people know about your site existence. As Jim Sterne says: your web site can be funny, pretty, useful, crisp and clean, but if you don’t promote it, its message won’t be seen. By the way you can also manage to register different key words on browsers in order to put make know your web site when people look for information in your business area. Deliveries and Payment If you use e-commerce on your website, once the buyer has searched through a catalog and made his decision to purchase, the order, the payment, the handle fulfillment and other aspects of order management have to be processed. The order processing must include the ability to group items together for later purchase; this capability is called a shopping cart in the case of retail transactions; it usually includes the ability to modify the contents of the shopping cart at any time. This way the buyer can discard items, add new ones, change the quantities and so on. To the purchase, the buyer will have additional charges such as sales taxes and shipping costs. The order processing system presents the buyer with an itemized order form including all the charges so the buyer can pay for the items. Information effect With the Internet, it is now possible to obtain accurate and immediate feedback from your customers (A daemon can count the number of hits). With access to this information, your business will be able to add the most personalized value to the customer. Tool such as the World Wide Web helps you to build more of your business decision-making based on outside information, and find out more about your non-customers and what non-customers and what they are doing, and why they are not customers. Fiscal and legal implications Internet is still largely unregulated. Because Internet is global (no territorial limits), electronic (no writing) and digital (perfect copies can be made almost instantaneously and repetitively), it is a source of different problems. The state of California tries to regulate e-business in California (annex 3). It seems very complex to set up a world wide regulation and, at the present time nobody knows what to do if something going wrong in the cyberspace. Concerning taxation, applying existing tax rules and system to the Internet world is tempting but does not answer to the needs of this marketplace. One key aspect to resolving the taxation issue of Internet commerce is to keep tax policies universal, uniform, and neutral. Resources needed to maintain the Site Obviously, resources need to maintain a web site is going to depend on the size of the web site. Whatever the size you firstly need to ask you few questions such as: Will this solution be flexible enough to accommodate change? Do we have the technical competencies to support Internet initiatives? Is this solution customizable to our needs and our customer needs? Do we have the technological infrastructure (network services; hardware, software) required to develop and scale? Do we have sufficient funding for ongoing web site maintenance? Do we have operations capabilities to support our Internet strategy? Web creation There are two different ways to create a web site. You can do it yourself or ask an agency to manage the creation of your web site. If you decide to create yourself your web site, you will need special coding software. But if you decide to delegate the creation to an agency, it might cost you around $750 for a basic web site (annex 4). Web maintenance However you must also take into consideration the maintenance. When you have created your web site, you must care to make it alive. You need to care about your human resources skills According to the Business Marketing Web Consortium the following roles should be filled:  · A Web Editor. Depending on the size of the site, this could be a part-time or a full-time person. The Web editor is responsible for content for a site.  · A Web Master, responsible for the infrastructure and technology supporting the website. Making sure that links link, and the site performs  · An Infomaster responsible for timely response to inquiries  · An overall Technology Leader, defining corporate standards and resources required Poor maintenance can severely damage a company’s image Site Design and Structure As we have pointed out since the beginning, e-business is a new way of selling. When a potential customer gets connected to your site, you have not sell anything yet. There are different ways to attract customers to your product. Firstly, you need to care about your web design. It means that you should not forget that if there are too many pictures or electronic animations, download is going to take a while. If your site require downloading applications, they should downloaded in twenty seconds or less. Users of Internet expect fast and functional site (avoid horizontal scrolling). Web sites must be customers oriented rather than product oriented. Information value is much more important than glizz. Customers stay loyal because of the service, not because they like your web site. Simplicity and speed differentiate your site, making it easy for business customers to order. Secondly, Web marketers must ask if their markets are comfortable with English. Global marketers recommend adding local languages when needed. Thirdly, in order to maintain interest in your site, you have to make it interactive. Internet is both a business and communication tool, you must provide to users a page where you give relevant information on your product but also on your industry area. It is recommended to let customers express their feelings through email. But you do not do it only for the fun, your site must be professional (ie: updated, fast answers), that is why you have to deal with your e-customers as you are used to do with your offline customers. In order to support the design of your future web site, we would like to present this tree structure. There will be 7 theoretical pages linked together. How to cite Advantages of a Web Presence, Papers

African Americans Essay Example For Students

African Americans Essay Black Americans Black Americans are those persons in the United States who trace their ancestry to members of the Negroid race in Africa. They have at various times in United States history been referred to as African, coloured, Negro, Afro-American, and African-American, as well as black. The black population of the United States has grown from three-quarters of a million in 1790 to nearly 30 million in 1990. As a percentage of the total population, blacks declined from 19. 3 in 1790 to 9. 7 in 1930. A modest percentage increase has occurred since that time. Over the past 300 and more years in the United States, considerable racial mixture has taken place between persons of African descent and those with other racial backgrounds, mainly of white European or American Indian ancestry. Shades of skin colour range from dark brown to ivory. In body type black Americans range from short and stocky to tall and lean. Nose shapes vary from aquiline to extremely broad and flat; hair colour from medium brown to brown black; and hair texture from tightly curled to limp and straight. Historically, the predominant attitude toward racial group membership in the United States has been that persons having any black African ancestry are considered to be black. In some parts of the United States, especially in the antebellum South, laws were written to define racial group membership in this way, generally to the detriment of those who were not Caucasian. It is important to note, however, that ancestry and physical characteristics are only part of what has set black Americans apart as a distinct group. The concept of race, as it applies to the black minority in the United States, is as much a social and political concept as a biological one. Blacks Under Slavery: 1600-1865 The first Africans in the New World arrived with Spanish and Portuguese explorers and settlers. By 1600 an estimated 275,000 Africans, both free and slave, were in Central and South America and the Caribbean area. Africans first arrived in the area that became the United States in 1619, when a handful of captives were sold by the captain of a Dutch man-of-war to settlers at JAMESTOWN. Others were brought in increasing numbers to fill the desire for labour in a country where land was plentiful and labour scarce. By the end of the 17th century, approximately 1,300,000 Africans had landed in the New World. From 1701 to 1810 the number reached 6,000,000, with another 1,800,000 arriving after 1810. Some Africans were brought directly to the English colonies in North America. Others landed as slaves in the West Indies and were later resold and shipped to the mainland. Slavery in America The earliest African arrivals were viewed in the same way as indentured servants from Europe. This similarity did not long continue. By the latter half of the 17th century, clear differences existed in the treatment of black and white servants. A 1662 Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life, and a 1667 act declared that Baptism do not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom. By 1740 the SLAVERY system in colonial America was fully developed. A Virginia law in that year declared slaves to be chattel personal in the hands of their owners and possessors . . . for all intents, construction, and purpose whatsoever. In spite of numerous ideological conflicts, however, the slavery system was maintained in the United States until 1865, and widespread antiblack attitudes nurtured by slavery continued thereafter. Prior to the American Revolution, slavery existed in all the colonies. The ideals of the Revolution and the limited profitability of slavery in the North resulted in its abandonment in northern states during the last quarter of the 18th century. At the same time the strength of slavery increased in the South, with the continuing demand for cheap labour by the tobacco growers and cotton farmers of the Southern states. By 1850, 92 percent of all American blacks were concentrated in the South, and of this group approximately 95 percent were slaves. Under the plantation system gang labour was the typical form of employment. Overseers were harsh as a matter of general practice, and brutality was common. Slaves could own no property unless sanctioned by a slave master, and rape of a female slave was not considered a crime except as it represented trespassing on anothers property. Slaves could not present evidence in court against whites. In most of the South it was illegal to teach a black to read or write. Opposition by Blacks Blacks were forbidden to carry arms or to gather in numbers except in the presence of a white person. Free blacks, whether living in the North or South, were confronted with attitudes and actions that differed little from those facing Southern black slaves. Discrimination existed in most social and economic activities as well as in voting and education. In 1857 the DRED SCOTT V. SANDFORD case of the U. S. Supreme Court placed the authority of the Constitution behind decisions made by states in the treatment of blacks. Whenever I get a package of plain MMs, I make it EssayLater international audiences were won by Johnny MATHIS, Diana ROSS, and Michael JACKSON. BLACK AMERICAN LITERATURE and art were slower to develop than was black music. Early artists and writers who were black dealt with themes that, in selection and approach, were indistinguishable from the works of whites. By the 1920s centers of artistic activity had developed, the best known being in New York. The HARLEM RENAISSANCE, as this artistic outpouring was known, produced outstanding figures. Among them were poets Langston HUGHES, Countee CULLEN, and James Weldon JOHNSON; writers Claude MCKAY and Jean TOOMER. The work of the Harlem Renaissance and writers such as Richard WRIGHT reflected the growing race consciousness among blacks and their opposition to the segregation encountered in all forms of life. These themes continue to be important in the work of such writers as James BALDWIN, Amiri BARAKA, Gwendolyn BROOKS, Ralph ELLISON, Douglas Turner WARD, and John A. WILLIAMS. Religion Religion has traditionally been important to black American life. The first major denomination among blacks, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, grew from the church established by Richard Allen in Philadelphia in 1787. With Emancipation, most former slaves joined Baptist or Methodist churches. These remain today as the church groups with the largest black memberships. Smaller numbers belong to other denominations and to independent churches of varying sizes. Among non-Christian religious groups that have attracted sizeable followings are the Peace Mission of Father DIVINE and the Nation of Islam, often referred to as the Black MuslimsThe Peace Mission is strongly integrationist in teachings, a concept opposed by the Nation of Islam during most of its history. In recent years the racial character of leadership and members of the Peace Mission have become increasingly white. In 1985 the main Black Muslim group was unified with the Muslim community world-wide. Black ministers who have figured prominently in politics during the post-World War II period include Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr. , Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. , Leon Sullivan, and Andrew YOUNG. The Family The black family through much of U. S. history has borne the strain of slavery and Jim Crow. These institutions limited the opportunity for the black male to fulfill his traditional role of head of household and protector of and provider for his family. Because women were often able to find domestic employment when no jobs were available to black men, women often provided more dependable and regular incomes. Statistically, black women are more frequently the head of families than is the case in nonblack families. In addition to problems of unemployment, urbanisation produced strains of overcrowding, weakening of the extended family concept, and alienation. Nevertheless, relations among family members have traditionally been close. Many first-and second-generation city-dwelling blacks continue to think of home as the Southern place from which the family came. Education Until the post-World War II period, most blacks seeking higher education attended private BLACK COLLEGES located mainly in the South. Most of these had been started in the years immediately following the Civil War as a joint effort of blacks, Northern church groups, and the Freedmens Bureau. Among these were Fisk University, Atlanta University, Talladega College, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. Late in the 19th century Tuskegee Institute was founded by Booker T. Washington, and a number of colleges were established by black church groups. Almost all blacks who received a college education before 1940 attended these institutions. In the 1940s some improvement was made in publicly supported institutions of higher education for blacks, and for the first time black students began to appear in colleges that had previously been all white. In the 1970s the percentage of blacks attending college increased markedly, but in the 1980s blacks lost ground. Although desegregation of the public schools in the South proceeded slowly for the first decade after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, by 1969 school districts in every state were at least in token compliance with the 1954 ruling. By that time all forms of de jure segregation had been struck down by the courts. De facto school segregation continued, however, in large part because the communities the schools served were segregated in their residential patterns. This was particularly true in large urban areas and more prevalent in the North than in the South. One method adopted to overcome such segregation was to bus children across school district lines in order to achieve racial balance in the schools. This caused major controversy and led to instances of violent opposition . The overwhelming majority of black children now attend formally integrated schools, although they may have little contact with white pupils even within the schools