Assignment #2

      Margaret Atwood's depress fictional novel, The Handmaid's Tale, favorably outlines the demise of Offred's life in the Republic of Gilead, where all women are impoverished of their independent life being vanished. 
      Offred the main character of Atwood's novel, her original name was never noticed throughout the whole story. The story is narrated by the handmaid telling this tale, and the readers experience the world of Gilead through her eyes. Offred has various remembrances which indicates her own individuality's demise as being independent woman. "I think about Laundromats. What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money , money I had earned myself"(Atwood 24). Doing laundry represents a level of freedom that would be unthinkable now that the Republic of Gilead has taken all autonomy and control away from her. The trivial things from her previous life have now become profound. Offred had plans with Luke in the future, but unfortunately it didn't happened. "We used to talk about buying a house like one of these, an old big house, fixing it up. We would have a garden, swings for the children.......Such freedom now seems almost weightless"(Atwood 23). The freedom that Offred and Luke used to take granted is practically ridiculous now. These commonplace things are impossible now. After all, the handmaids had to wear uniform, in other words they couldn't wear other type of clothing. "We are fascinated, but also repelled. They seem undressed. It has take so little time to change our minds, about things like this. Then I think: I used to dress like that. That was freedom. Westernized, they used to call it"(Atwood 28). These flashbacks just keep coming as the narrator is continually reminded of the freedoms she has lost. She confronted with a group of Japanese tourists, she remembers the way she used to dress wasn't about personal style, it also represented freedom. Being forced to wear the Handmaid uniform represents all the autonomy she's lost.
     By viewing Offred's new life in Gilead, and her remembrances of her previous enjoyable life, Atwood ensures the character's demise in having no freedom in life.