The American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby Essay exam

The American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a brilliant illustration of action among the unseasoned rich during the 1920s, people who had recently amassed a great deal of wealth but had no corresponding social connections. The saucy is an intriguing account just about love, money and life during the 1920s in New York. It illustrates the society and the associated beliefs, values and pipe dreams of the American population at that time. These beliefs, values and dreams can be summed up to what is termed the American Dream a dream of money, wealth, prosperity, and the happiness that supposedly came with the booming economy and the get-rich-quick schemes that formed the essential underworld of the American upper-class society. This withering theme presents itself in the novel finished many of its characters. The writing style throughout The Great Gatsby is terse and though the book is depressing at times, its overall messa ge of hope and the American dream is inspiring. The story begins when Nick Carraway, a young man, moves to New York from the Midwest to join the bond business. There, he soon becomes acquainted with his wealthy neighbor Jay Gatsby, and they become unspoiled friends. Gatsby confides in Nick and tells him that he is in love with Nick?s cousin, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. However, she is already married to the young and successful Tom Buchanan, who is unfaithful and has an engagement with poor George Wilson?s wife. ?Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table? They weren?t happy? yet they weren?t unhappy every? (Chapter 7, pg.148). Later, Nick arranges a meeting between Gatsby and Daisy but soon after, they became involved in a love affair. It is revealed that many years ago, Gatsby and Daisy were in love, but Daisy would not marry him because he was rather poor. Gatsby, however, made his fortune and became mouldd to win Daisy?s heart. ? Gatsby wanted to re cover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could honor out what that thing was? (Chapter 6,pg. 111-112). Towards the end of the story, however, Tom finds out about Gatsby and Daisy and a heated argument ensues. That fateful night, returning to th... ... intriguing way. Gatsby stretched out his hand urgently as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him? (Chapter 8, pg.153). Moving beyond style, the book pushes past the radical story line and becomes very symbolic. The characters, setting, and events that take place are all telling of the American dream in the twenties. It depicts people who let wealth determine their lives. It emphasizes how money and people?s desire for money can stand in the way of true happiness. The Great Gatsby realistically portra ys both the best and the tally of human attributes and allows any reader to identify with the characters, no matter how far-fetched this might seem. F. Scott Fitzgerald?s novel is the epitome of the American literary accomplishment and a essential read.In writing this novel, Fitzgerald achieved in showing future generations what the early twenties were like, and the kind of people that lived then. He did this in a beautifully written novel with in-depth characters, a captivating plot, and a wonderful sense of the time period. Works CitedFitzgerald, Scott F. The Great Gatsby. Simon and Schuster, New York. 1925.

The Marriage Of John And Jaqueline Kennedy Essay -- essays research pa

The Marriage of John and Jacqueline Kennedy.THESIS Although the relationship of John and Jacqueline Kennedy evolved fromfriendship to love, their labor union was filled with tragedy, shame, and change.I. The relationship of John and Jacqueline Kennedy evolved from friendship to love. A. They met at a dinner party thrown by Charles and Martha Bartlett.B. Their marriage was called the wedding of the year.II. Their marriage had many tragedies.A. Although lead children survived birth, dickheadie had many unsuccessful pregnancies.B. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas while riding in a motorcade.III. Their marriage was filled with shame. A. Jack had an irresistible urge to women.B. Jack had innumerable conversations with a Judith Campbell, a woman with mob connections.IV. Their marriage was filled with change.A. Life was different for the Kennedys in the White House.B. Jackie did a complete redevelopment of the White House.C. Life changed drastically for Jackie af ter the assassination of her husband.Although the relationship of John and Jacqueline Kennedy evolved fromfriendship to love, their marriage was filled with tragedy, shame and change. Thelife of the first family is highly publicise but many of the happenings of theKennedy family were not meant to be up for public scrutiny. During the time that Kennedy was in office there were many political as well as personal events thatwent on in his life. Love, tragedy, shame, and change were just some of thefeelings and occurrences that went on inside the White House. Jacqueline began her journalism career working for the Washington Times-Herald where she was soon promoted to enquire Cameragirl. This washow she first got to talk to Senator John F. Kennedy. She interviewed him for hercolumn a few times and attended a ... ... Publishers,1997.Anthony, Carl Sferrazza. First Ladies Volume II The Saga of the PresidentsWives and Their index finger 1961-1990. New York William Morrow and CompanyInc. , 1991. Davis, John H. Jacqueline Bouvier An Intimate Memoir. New York John Wiley andSons, Inc., 1996.Davis, John H. The Bouviers From Waterloo to the Kennedys and Beyond. Washington DC National Press Books, 1993.Donald, Aida Dipace. Kennedy, John F. Assassination. Dictionary of AmericanHistory. 1976 ed. encyclopaedia Americana John F. Kennedy. Frank B. Freidel, Jr. (1999)http//www.grolier.com/presidents/ea/bios/35pkenn.html.Heymann, David C. A Woman Named Jackie. Secaucus, New Jersey CarolPublishing group, 1994.Kennedy, John Fitzgerald. Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. 1998 ed.Mills, Judie. John F. Kennedy. New York Franklin Watts, 1962.Watney, Hedda Lyons. Jackie O. New York vacuous Books, 1994.

Childrens Rights Essay -- Social Issues, Child Rearing

At the onset, early in the seventeenth century, boorren suffered corporal punishment at the hands of their parents and educational institutions and, more all over, under the governing rules of religious institutions, children were abandoned, sexually treat and sometimes killed. Hugh Cunningham, a Professor of Social History, in his book entitled Children and Childhood In Western SocietySince 1500 analyzes the historical context of family and child rearing and highlights influences that cause helped shaped the rights of children. He asserts that the history of childhood was a history of progress, that the check of being a child, and an understanding of the nature of childhood have improved over time (Cunningham 40). Thus, children have emerged from hundreds of years of being unjustly and unfairly treated, to persons with rights childrens rights. In addition to this, the importance of equality between race, gender and childrens social welfare has resulted in a myriad of laws imple mented to improve the life and, specifically, the treatment of children. In examining the role of child rearing, child labour, education, states interest and the womens movement, it is evident that these serve as turning points that have shaped the history of childrens rights in society. The importance of child rearing is influential in propel the rights of children in society. Cunningham highlights the historical context of child rearing and argues that early in the seventeenth century, the importance of religion, specifically Catholicism, as having a growing emphasis on the duties of parents towards their children. Fathers were the masters of their household and were granted permission by the Church to have power over the life and death of their ... ...torically, DeMause asserts that children have experienced tremendous cruelness and neglect and also, children were likely to have been killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused by their caretakers (DeMause par.2). Clearly, the historical experiences of children with religion, labor, education, gender and politics are turning points that affect the way in which children experience life. In addition, there seems to be a growing interconnectedness between parents, children and the social constructs outside the family unit that significantly affect the socialization and life of children. In order to promote and foster a world free of injustices, society must continue to be concerned with the cruelty and discrimination of children. Every child has the right to live a worthy and dignified life and thus, society must strive to uphold the rights of children.

The Butterfly Sisters Essay -- essays research papers

The chief(prenominal) themes of this book is not to far from the reality of every persons life. Not everyone has to get going in a tyranny and fight for freedom to live but the concomitant is you still have to fight for something. Life is filled with struggles and that goes to different extents for different people. For the sisters in, In The Time of The Butterflies they had to go through an extreme ruin of their lives together and cease up not coming surface the same. They were dependent on each other yet they were independent at the same time. The briny theme I picked up from this book was the faith they had. The faith they had with each other, the faith they had to survive but most importantly the faith they had for themselves. They had faith as independent woman that they will survive no matter what the cost was and if they did not then they would die trying. The other theme I picked up was independency of these woman. They did not need anything from anyone else just eac h other. This faith and independence I look at with the growth of my favorite character, Minerva.In the beginning of the novel, Alvarez introduces Minerva to the reader with Minervas exhilaration that her Pap plans to come out her away to school. School becomes Minervas first victory and step towards her life as a revolutionary fighter. The faith she has in herself to go out into the world as an independent woman will shape her future greatly. Minerva says referring to going to school, is how I got free (13). Alvarez uses Minervas de... The Butterfly Sisters Essay -- essays research papers The main themes of this book is not to far from the reality of every persons life. Not everyone has to live in a tyranny and fight for freedom to live but the fact is you still need to fight for something. Life is filled with struggles and that goes to different extents for different people. For the sisters in, In The Time of The Butterflies they had to go through an extreme part of their lives together and ended up not coming out the same. They were dependent on each other yet they were independent at the same time. The main theme I picked up from this book was the faith they had. The faith they had with each other, the faith they had to survive but most importantly the faith they had for themselves. They had faith as independent woman that they will survive no matter what the cost was and if they did not then they would die trying. The other theme I picked up was independency of these woman. They did not need anything from anyone else just each other. This faith and independence I look at with the growth of my favorite character, Minerva.In the beginning of the novel, Alvarez introduces Minerva to the reader with Minervas excitement that her Pap plans to send her away to school. School becomes Minervas first victory and step towards her life as a revolutionary fighter. The faith she has in herself to go out into the world as an independent woman will shap e her future greatly. Minerva says referring to going to school, is how I got free (13). Alvarez uses Minervas de...

Mischels Greenhouse :: Creative Writing Story

Mischels GreenhouseWhile operative at the brand new Mischels Greenhouse I found out it was differentfrom any other line of products I ever had. It was one of the most responsible jobs so farof my life. Four cat valium lives were almost totally in my exchange sisters,Tanya, and my hands. By us watering them daily. Because it was so hot out-side,the greenhouse was stifling. Watering mums was a very tedious job be-cause itwas repetitious. I started daily at 9 A.M. my whole daytime consisted of takingcare of Forty thousand mums. They sat on top of many benchtops ingathering sunand, heat rays waiting for us to water them. After watering them, John, (Myboss), would go behind me and pull flowers. Which means picking out the bestplants. indeed Tanya and I would pick them up and put them on a rack 5x5 and thenshrink wrap them. Shrink-wrapping was mainly my job throughout the day. Iwould burden an 8 foot tall rack then I would wrap the rack full of mums so themums would not fall off. Th en I would canvass the palette jack and pick up therack,and load it into the Ford truck. Loading is hard because I have to make surethey go all the way of life to the back and to the side of the truck. It cant be oneinch off otherwise it could hurt the plants (They could rub together) and theracks wouldnt fit side by side. Its a endless cycle, day after day, untilall the mums are gone. When the mums are all gone, its a glorious feel ofrelief. All the benches had to be cleaned to get ready for poinsettias. Tanyawent back to Belarus to live with her current family so I asked my friends if anyof them wanted to help and only one said yes. I told my boss and a week latermy friend was working with me It was my job to show him the ropes with thepoinsettias. After he got the hang of things it was smooth sailing, to loadpoinsetias. We did everything the same as the mums except we put eight plants in

Allen Ginsberg :: essays research papers

Allen Ginsberg started his infamous life as a revolutionary and poet of the beat generation when he began attending Colombia University. While at Colombia Ginsberg met friend and mentor Jack Kerouac whom he would later join to form the School of Disembodied Poets. During his education at Colombia University Ginsberg started his super political and opinionated poems, which would become his signature for the beat generation. The poetry he produced would become the basis of protest and due to this and his strong political presence Ginsberg clear himself a spot on the FBIs dangerous list.Ginsbergs poems were that of a revolutionary and showed his dislikes of American Society and the Injustices throughout America. Ginsbergs most recognized and an earlier poem was whine and other poems written in 1956 (Ostriker 4). Howl being one of Ginsbergs most infamous poems has been translated to the T. In Alicia Ostrikers criticism of Howl she relates Ginsbergs Meloch in part two of Howl to many of the evils that befall this nation today (5). Ostriker states, Ginsbergs mind forged Meloch likewise as ponderousness of a modern industrial and military state, excluded from reason. Ginsbergs Meloch is also the modern version of Mammon, the capitalism of unobtainable dollars running money electricity and banks. (7). Howl records in veiled fashion, the humiliation and crippling of a population of immigrants to shores, which promised, hope and produced despair (3). In the poem Howls (1956) first lines, I saw the take up minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix. (Ginsberg, Howl) Ginsberg is speaking of the end that drugs have caused in American Society and Americas addiction to drugs. Ginsberg also describes the members of his communityWho distributed supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square and undressing while the sirens of Los Alomos wailed them down, and wailed down Wa ll, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed, who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,Who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with please in police cars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication (Ginsberg, Howl)In Levi Ashers review of Howl he describes these lines as Ginsbergs fellow travelers, the crazy, lonely members of his community of misunderstood poet artists, unpublished novelists, psychotics, radicals, pranksters, sexual deviants, and junkies (Asher 1).

Home Decision

Woven Shivers It is really nice to endure an investment of your throw, especially when the money comes from your avouch pocket (2012, First Time Home Buyers). Like for example, one of the best investments that a person could have in their life is to have his or her own root word, a home that he or she could call their own. When It comes to purchasing a car, parvenu home or even clo amour you must weigh the benefits and apostrophize properly so that you do not lead yourself down a path of financial ruins.While the idea of purchasing new home Is very excellent, It offer also some condemnations be overwhelming. A significant amount of time for consideration and evaluations Is necessary when making a study leverage such as buying a new home. Purchasing a home can have severe financial repercussions, thus making the purpose to purchase a new home a daunting and challenging choice, so when making a large financial purpose, the basic principles of economics along with ones relati ve take you must closely assess.Many of the decisions we overhear as consumers directly relate to the current enjoin of the economy. While the search for a new home continues, a play off of key principles should be used and leading prove to be rather helpful to the new homemaker. Comparing marginal personifys with marginal benefits while advisement out the disadvantages and advantages of the purchase Is included In this process (NAB, 2011). As homeowners have testified, a couple of key principles result contribute to this life-changing decision. Trade-offs Is one of the principles you will font before and after your purchase. That meaner that there Is a cost for everything. When a major purchase decision Is made nonusers definitely have to give up other thing that they equally like such as a new car, vacation, other major purchases, or savings and investment. Trade-offs exist for almost every decision contemplated, but in the real estate market, trade-offs can be serious when money is the concern.Neither buyer nor seller wants to lose money in one of the biggest legal proceeding they will ever complete. You can make better decisions when you realize that life has tradeoffs. The cost of what one decides to buy is equivalent to the cost of what one gives up for it. Choosing entails ride off a target against another and is a fundamental Issue of the decision- making process. In order to purchase a beautiful home, one will have to sacrifice opportunity cost for Instance, I have to cut-down on Individual cost like entertainment, clothing and food.When you have to choose one thing over another then you have to make do without the benefits of that which you do not have. You have to equal the cost and benefits of what you have to make the best choice. For ammonia alum more opportunities begin for a better paying seam. However, in this market he opportunity cost is typically minimal because the buyer can just find another home that meets his or her nee ds. Cost is not a matter of dollars and cents it also represents what we must give up to get something else.In reality, we do not always make decisions that are all or nothing. Some choices are made based on marginal changes. When we think of purchasing a home one must compare the marginal cost of purchasing a home. Amortization is a marginal cost, will the allowances be an addition to what you are already paying if you are renting. The difference in the mount is marginal cost. You must also consider the mortgage insurance cost, as a result, of purchasing a home. Will the house be bigger, adding more room for your growing family?Will utilities be higher? Other marginal cost to be considered would be the cost of moving, your travel time, the expense of gas and mileage on your car, which is associated with your travel time, if your new home is further away from your place of work compared to your current apartment. The maintenance cost of a new home must be considered because the own er of a home is solely responsible of aging sure their home is maintained and secure. visualize all of the benefits and costs that a home presents. What might a year of security monitoring cost?Assign a value to benefits or costs that do not have an explicit price tag. The benefits of living closer to the Job could be calculated as more pay for work from additional hours that would otherwise be spent commuting from a home further away. Your optimal goal is to find a home in which the total benefit, marginal and otherwise, exceeds the total cost. While one considers the marginal cost, you must also consider the benefits. Consider the marginal benefits of owning your own home. The tax shield with renting an apartment, and we must compare the marginal benefits (the Joy) of owing your own home.The tax break and financial security of owning a home are essential in appreciating the purchase off new home. In a decision to purchase a home you must carefully analyze the cost and benefits i n order to make the most sagacious decision for your family. Investments can sometimes be confusing, especially on real estate. One must always be careful when investing in the purchase off new home cause this is not Just money it is your hard-earned dollars you will be investing and unlike a pair of shoes you cant furnish it if you dont like it.The economy plays a major aim in the decision to purchase a new home. If the economy has recovered fully or motionlessness at a low point, one thing is for sure, your finances must be secure no matter the rates. The economy is made up of opposite factors such as trading, exporting and importing, unemployment, house market and inflation. The economy plays such an important role because home prices are usually very high and will quire a substantial down payment, (most lenders require around 3. 5% of the value of the home), which may sometimes deplete your savings.The demand for houses is considered highly price elastic. Economic theories state that the larger the proportion of income a certain purchase requires the more price elastic the demand will be. Your lender will explain that your house payment should not exceed more than one third of your monthly income. You, as the buyer, should have an understanding, as it will require the spending of a large proportion of your income, so this will inconsiderably lower your purchasing power when you decide to make the purchase of program if unemployment falls to under 7 part. Unemployment is projected to reach 6. percent in 2014, according to the Feeds projections. Currently, unemployment stands at 7. 6 percent (Brenan, 2013). Brenan said that if the economy continues to show improvement the Fed will ease the pressure on the hired gun. The Fed has kept interest rates low to stimulate the economy and the low rates have helped boost housing affordability. The federal government will adjust accordingly if the economy veers from projections. The housing sector is looking a little better so the state and local governments are in a position where they do not have to lay off many workers.That meaner that the economy is improving. Domestic economy is the made up of several components such as government spending, trade, level of consumption and investments. The strength of the economy is affected by changes in these components. Domestic economy and international trade play an important role in affecting the economy. If government spending increases, it will help the GAP (growth domestic product). Because of this, we have economic growth in which will increase Jobs and final payment but if the government spending decreases, the effect is contraction.This is somewhat of a ripple effect because it reduces the GAP, which thus reduces the level of income and number of jobs in the economy. International trade affects the countries balance and trade. We make choices daily based on the benefits. We have the freedom to want whatever but the resources to obtain th at is limited. In our day-to-day life, we use several principles to make decisions. We often-times make choices by realizing what SST be given up to gain something else or something better.Studies show that once consumers buy a home, get a mortgage and have a positive experience owning, they wanted to continue to own. In a study concerns about affordability both for the home purchase itself and upkeep was a major factor that discouraged renters from taking the plunge (Tara Bernard, 2012). A personal example off decision in which I compared marginal benefits and marginal costs associated with the decision was the time I decided that I was not happy in my Job and that the only way for me to et a better Job would be to go back to college to earn my degree.The reason I wanted to earn a college degree was for better Job advancement and better Job opportunities. Financially, the rate of mother made my decision easy. In addition, college graduates enjoy better health, save greater percent age of their income improve quality of life for them and their family (Sweatier, DCE. 2011). The marginal costs of my decision was the time and effort it took to complete course work, time away from family, the commuting and the stress of starting back to school at my GE after years of not attending.The incentives that would have led me to make a different decision might have been a Job in my field of expertise, more and better Job opportunities and more opportunities that did not require a college degree. After looking over all of the pro and cons of buying a house in the current market, I have concluded that it is the perfect time to purchase a home for my family and l. The government has been influenced by the recession to increase incentives for recurring as well as new buyers, in addition to low interest rates, and the large amount of repertoires to choose from.If the market were balanced, unemployment was at an all-time low and inflation was not so high, I believe I would not be able-bodied to afford the dropped to comparable prices, then I feel I would not be able to afford the over- priced properties. For new home buyers, the tax credit is a great incentive without it, I wouldnt even consider buying a new home. Therefore, I am only able to buy a new home in this economy and be able to take full advantage of the incentives which comes along with the market, while making the best use of my marginal benefits and re worth all of the subsidiary costs.

Emily Dickinson Outline Essay

I. Emily Dickinson was an introvert who wrote poems about life, love and destruction. Dickinson showed her feelings of death and Desire using unusual scenarios that cause the reader to stretch their thinking and go beyond superficial thought. Emily Dickinson uses imagery, Form, and settings in her poems in I Heard a Fly Buzz when I Died to set the tone of the poem.II. Dickinson uses imagery in I Heard a Fly Buzz when I Died to set the tone for this poem.A. Dickinson works hard and dissolute to give us a sense of what the atmosphere is like in this room. She wants to build up a sense of how quiet, calm, and stifling it is around this deathbed. Maybe everyone has experient a death, so she compares the situation to another one that everyone might be more familiar with.B. We dont actually get to see who else is in the room with the dying speaker system, but she does help us out by telling us that there are Eyes around. This helps us to fill in the blanks of the scene. At first we jus t had a dying person and a fly, but now we can start to imagine the room where this is taking place, free with crying onlookers.C. When it comes to this image of the King. She is referring to death itself, which runs the show. This could have a more specifically religious meaning. Such as reference to God or JesusDickinsons lyric poem uses form, meter, and scheme to convey its tone,A. Trimeter and tetrameter iambic lines, four stresses in the first and third lines of each stanza, three in the second and fourth lines. A rhythmic insertion of the long dash to interrupt the meter and an ABCB rhyme scheme.B. All the rhymes before the final stanza are half-rhymes (Room/Storm, firm/Room, be/Fly), while plainly the rhyme in the final stanza is a full rhyme (me/see). Dickinson uses this technique to build tension a sense of true completion comes only with the speakers death.C. A lyric poem is a short, song like poem that expresses someones thoughts or feelings which by the end of the poem where death is quickly approaching you feel the tone is the poem. It was evident that the person dying had plenty of other things to think about but the buzz from the fly calculate to distract them, all the way up to the point that the speaker could not see to see.

An Analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The retainers rehearsal Marg atomic publication 18t Atwood Context Marg atomic number 18t Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 18, 1939. She published her first book of poetry in 1961 plot of ground aid the University of Toronto. She later received degrees from both Radcliffe College and Harvard University, and pursued a c atomic number 18er in teaching at the university level. Her first fable, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969 to wide acclaim. Atwood proceed teaching as her literary c atomic number 18er blos any(prenominal)d. She has lectu rosy widely and has served as a writer-inresidence at colleges ranging from the University of Toronto to Macquarie University in Australia.Atwood wrote The handmaids Tale in western United States Berlin and Alabama in the mid-1980s. The novel, published in 1986, quickly became a silk hat-seller. The Handmaids Tale f exclusivelys squarely within the twentieth-century tradition of anti-utopian, or dystopian novels, exemplif ied by classics resembling Aldous Huxleys Brave parvenue World and George Orwells 1984. Novels in this genre present imagined worlds and societies that are non ideals, merely instead are terrifying or restrictive. Atwoods novel offers a strongly feminist vision of dystopia.She wrote it shortly afterward the elections of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, during a period of conservative revival in the West partly fueled by a strong, well-organized movement of ghostly conservatives who criticized what they perceived as the excesses of the get offual innovation of the 1960s and 1970s. The growing world-beater of this religious right heightened feminist fears that the gains women had made in front decades would be reversed. In The Handmaids Tale, Atwood explores the consequences of a reverting of womens rights.In the novels nightmare world of Gilead, a group of conservative religious extremists has taken power and turned the knowledgea ble revolution on its head. Feminists argued for liberation from traditional gender roles, but Gilead is a hostel inst in on the wholeed on a return to traditional determine and gender roles, and on the subjugation of women by men. What feminists withdrawed the great triumphs of the 1970s predictly, widespread access to contraception, the legalization of abortion, and the increasing governmental influence of female voters get downhearted all been undone. Women in Gilead are non merely forbidden to vote, they are forbidden to read or write.Atwoods novel in homogeneous manner paints a picture of a world undone by taint and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears ab pop forth declining birthrates, the dangers of nuclear power, and -environmental degradation. Some of the novels concerns seem dated today, and its implicit condemnation of the political goals of Americas religious conservatives has been criticized as unfair and overly paranoid. Nonetheless, The Handmaids Tale re mains one of the most powerful recent portrayals of a undemocratic society, and one of the a couple of(prenominal) dystopian novels to examine in detail the intersection of politics and sex activity.The novels exploration of the controversial politics of reproduction seems likely to guarantee Atwoods novel a readership well into the twenty-first century. Atwood lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson and their daughter, Jess. Her most recent novel, The Blind Assassin, won Great Britains Booker Prize for literature in 2000. bandage Overview Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic terra firma that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are charge to rove on children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving.Offred serves the air force officer and his wife, Serena Joy, a former gospel singer and advocate for traditional values. Offred is non the narrators real nameHa ndmaid names consist of the word of followed by the name of the Handmaids commander. every(prenominal) month, when Offred is at the right point in her menstrual cycle, she must have impersonal, wordless sex with the commanding officer while Serena sits behind her, confirming her hands. Offreds freedom, like the freedom of all women, is completely restricted.She stub leave the theatre of operations hardly on shopping trips, the door to her populate privy non be completely shut, and the Eyes, Gileads secret police force, watch her every public move. As Offred regularizes the written account of her daily life, she oft slips into flashbacks, from which the reader tidy sum reconstruct the counterbalancets leading up to the experiencening of the novel. In the old world, out front Gilead, Offred had an affair with Luke, a marital man. He divorced his wife and married Offred, and they had a child together. Offreds mother was a single mother and feminist activist. Offreds b est friend, Moira, was fiercely independent.The architects of Gilead began their prepare to power in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against womenwhen pollution and chemical spills led to declining fertility rates. exploitation the military, they assassinated the president and members of Congress and launched a coup, claiming that they were taking power temporarily. They cracked d stimulate on womens rights, forbidding women to hold property or jobs. Offred and Luke took their daughter and attempted to flee across the ring into Canada, but they were caught and separated from one another, and Offred has seen neither her husband nor her daughter since. later on her capture, Offreds marriage was voided (because Luke had been divorced), and she was sent to the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, called the rubicund Center by its inhabitants. At the center, women were indoctrinated into Gileads ideology in preparation for becoming Handmaids. aun tie Lydia supervised the women, giving speeches extolling Gileads beliefs that women should be subservient to men and solely concerned with hurting children. Aunt Lydia also argued that such a social rove ultimately offers women more than respect and safety than the old, pre-Gilead society offered them.Moira is brought to the Red Center, but she flyings, and Offred does not bonk what compels of her. Once assigned to the commanding officers domicile, Offreds life settles into a restrictive routine. She takes shopping trips with Ofglen, another Handmaid, and they dish the dirt the Wall outside what used to be Harvard University, where the bodies of rebels hang. She must visit the doctor frequently to be checked for disease and other complications, and she must endure the Ceremony, in which the Commander reads to the household from the Bible, thitherfore goes to the bed path, where his married woman and Offred wait for him, and has sex with Offred.The first break from her r outine occurs when she visits the doctor and he offers to have sex with her to get her pregnant, suggesting that her Commander is probably infertile. She refuses. The doctor makes her uneasy, but his proposition is too wasteshe could be sent a manner if caught. After a Ceremony, the Commander sends his gardener and chauffeur, Nick, to ask Offred to come see him in his study the following night. She begins visiting him regularly. They shrink from scratch (which is forbidden, since women are not allowed to read), and he lets her look at old magazines like Vogue.At the end of these secret meetings, he asks her to kiss him. During one of their shopping trips, Ofglen reveals to Offred that she is a member of Mayday, an underground organization dedicated to overthrowing Gilead. Meanwhile, Offred begins to find that the Ceremony feels different and less impersonal now that she knows the Commander. Their night beat conversations begin to touch on the virgin order that the Commander and his fellow leaders have created in Gilead. When Offred admits how unhappy she is, the Commander remarks, You cant make an omelette without breaking eggs. After roughly time has gone by without Offred becoming pregnant, Serena suggests that Offred have sex with Nick secretly and pass the child off as the Commanders. Serena promises to bring Offred a picture of her daughter if she sleeps with Nick, and Offred realizes that Serena has al federal agencys known the where approximatelys of Offreds daughter. The same night that Offred is to sleep with Nick, the Commander secretly takes her out to a club called Jezebels, where the Commanders mingle with prostitutes. Offred sees Moira on the job(p) there. The two women meet in a fundament, and Offred learns that Moira was captured salutary before she crossed the border.She chose life in Jezebels over being sent to the Colonies, where most political prisoners and dangerous people are sent. After that night at Jezebels, Offred asserts, sh e never sees Moira again. The Commander takes Offred upstairs after a hardly a(prenominal) hours, and they have sex in what used to be a hotel room. She tries to feign passion. Soon after Offred returns from Jezebels, late at night, Serena arrives and tells Offred to go to Nicks room. Offred and Nick have sex. Soon they begin to sleep together frequently, without anyones knowledge.Offred becomes caught up in the affair and ignores Ofglens requests that she gather information from the Commander for Mayday. One day, all the Handmaids take part in a group execution of a divinatory rapist, supervised by Aunt Lydia. Ofglen strikes the first blow. Later, she tells Offred that the so-called rapist was a member of Mayday and that she hit him to put him out of his misery. Shortly thereafter, Offred goes out shopping, and a raw(a) Ofglen meets her. This refreshed woman is not part of Mayday, and she tells Offred that the old Ofglen hanged herself when she saw the secret police coming for her.At home, Serena has make up out about Offreds trip to Jezebels, and she sends her to her room, promising punishment. Offred waits there, and she sees a black van from the Eyes approach. Then Nick comes in and tells her that the Eyes are authentically Mayday members who have come to save her. Offred leaves with them, over the Commanders futile objections, on her way either to prison or to freedomshe does not know which. The novel closes with an epilogue from 2195, after Gilead has fallen, written in the form of a lecture given by Professor Pieixoto. He explains the formation and customs of Gilead in objective, analytical language.He discusses the deduction of Offreds tosh, which has turned up on cassette tapes in Bangor, Maine. He suggests that Nick arranged Offreds escape but that her fate after that is unknown. She could have escaped to Canada or England, or she could have been recaptured. Character List Offred The narrator and protagonist of The Handmaids Tale. Offred be fore bargaineds to the class of Handmaids, fertile women forced to bear children for elite, barren couples. Handmaids show which Commander owns them by adopting their Commanders names, such as Fred, and preceding them with Of. Offred intends her real name but never reveals it. She no longer has family or friends, though she has flashbacks to a time in which she had a daughter and a husband named Luke. The cruel physical and psychological burdens of her daily life in Gilead torment her and propagate her narrative. Read an in-depth analysis of Offred. The Commander The Commander is the head of the household where Offred works as a Handmaid. He initiates an unorthodox kinship with Offred, secretly playing Scrabble with her in his study at night.He a good deal seems a decent, well-meaning man, and Offred sometimes finds that she likes him in spite of herself. He almost seems a victim of Gilead, making the best of a society he opposes. However, we learn from various clues and from t he epilogue that the Commander was actually involved in designing and establishing Gilead. Read an in-depth analysis of The Commander. Serena Joy The Commanders Wife, Serena worked in pre-Gilead days as a gospel singer, then as an anti-feminist activist and crusader for traditional values. In Gilead, she sits at the top of the female social ladder, yet she is desperately unhappy. Serenas unhappiness shows that her restrictive, male-dominated society cannot bring happiness even to its most pampered and powerful women. Serena jealously guards her claims to status and behaves cruelly toward the Handmaids in her household. Read an in-depth analysis of Serena Joy. Moira Offreds best friend from college, Moira is a lesbian and a staunch feminist she embodies female resourcefulness and independence. Her defiant nature contrasts starkly with the behavior of the other women in the novel.Rather than passively accept her fate as a Handmaid, she makes several escape attempts and finally manag es to get away from the Red Center. However, she is caught before she can get out of Gilead. Later, Offred encounters Moira works as a prostitute in a club for the Commanders. At the club, Moira seems resigned to her fate, which suggests that a totalitarian society can grind down and crush even the most resourceful and independent people. Read an in-depth analysis of Moira. Aunt Lydia The Aunts are the class of women assigned to indoctrinate the Handmaids with the beliefs of the new society and make them accept their fates.Aunt Lydia works at the Red Center, the re? education center where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids. Although she appears solitary(prenominal) in Offreds flashbacks, Aunt Lydia and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Aunt Lydias slogans and maxims drum the ideology of the new society into heads of the women, until even those like Offred, women who do not truly believe in the ideology, hear Gileads words echoing in their heads. Nick Nick is a Guardian, a dependent officer of Gilead assigned to the Commanders home, where he works as a gardener and chauffeur.He and Offred have a sexual chemistry that they get to sate when Serena Joy orchestrates an encounter between them in an effort to get Offred pregnant. After sleeping together once, they begin a covert sexual affair. Nick is not just a Guardian he may work either as a member of the Eyes, Gileads secret police, or as a member of the underground Mayday resistance, or both. At the end of the novel, Nick orchestrates Offreds escape from the Commanders home, but we do not know whether he puts her into the hands of the Eyes or the resistance.Ofglen Another Handmaid who is Offreds shopping partner and a member of the subversive Mayday underground. At the end of the novel, Ofglen is found out, and she hangs herself sort of than face torture and reveal the names of her co-conspirators. Cora Cora works as a servant in the Commanders household. She belongs to the class of Marthas, infertile women who do not qualify for the high status of Wives and so work in domestic roles. Cora seems more content with her role than her fellow Martha, Rita.She hopes that Offred will be able to conceive, because then she will have a hand in raising a child. Janine Offred knows Janine from their time at the Red Center. After Janine becomes a Handmaid, she takes the name Ofwarren. She has a baby, which makes her the envy of all the other Handmaids in the area, but the baby later turns out to be deformedan Unbabyand there are rumors that her doctor fathered the child. Janine is a conformist, always ensnare to go along with what Gilead demands of her, and so she endears herself to the Aunts and to all allowance figures.Offred holds Janine in contempt for taking the easy way out. Luke In the days before Gilead, Luke had an affair with Offred while he was married to another woman, then got a divorce and became Offreds husband. When Gilead com es to power, he attempts to escape to Canada with Offred and their daughter, but they are captured. He is separated from Offred, and the couple never see one another again. The kind of love they plowshared is prohibited in Gilead, and Offreds memories of Luke contrast with the regimented, passionless state of male-female relations in the new society.Offreds mother Offred remembers her mother in flashbacks to her pre-Gilead worldshe was a single parent and a feminist activist. One day during her education at the Red Center, Offred sees a video of her mother as a young woman, yelling and carrying a banner in an anti-rape march called Take Back the Night. She embodies everything the architects of Gilead want to seal of approval out. Aunt Elizabeth Aunt Elizabeth is one of the Aunts at the Red Center. Moira attacks her and steals her Aunts equal during her escape from the Red Center. Rita A Martha, or domestic servant, in the Commanders household.She seems less content with her lo t than Cora, the other Martha working there. Professor Pieixoto The guest speaker at the symposium that takes place in the epilogue to The Handmaids Tale. He and another academic, working at a university in the year 2195, transcribed Offreds recorded narrative his lecture details the historical significance of the story that we have just read. Analysis of Major Characters Offred Offred is the narrator and the protagonist of the novel, and we are told the entire story from her point of view, experiencing events and memories as vividly as she does.She tells the story as it happens, and shows us the travels of her mind through asides, flashbacks, and digressions. Offred is intelligent, perceptive, and kind. She possesses enough faults to make her human, but not so many that she becomes an unsympathetic figure. She also possesses a dark smell out of humora graveyard wit that makes her descriptions of the bleak horrors of Gilead bearable, even enjoyable. Like most of the women in Gilea d, she is an ordinary woman placed in an extraordinary situation. Offred is not a hero. Although she resists Gilead inwardly, once her attempt at escape discontinues, she submits outwardly.She is hardly a feminist champion she had always felt uncomfortable with her mothers activism, and her pre-Gilead family with Luke began when she became his mistress, meeting him in cheap hotels for sex. Although friends with Ofglen, a member of the resistance, she is never bold enough to join up herself. Indeed, after she begins her affair with Nick, she seems to lose sight of escape entirely and suddenly feels that life in Gilead is almost bearable. If she does finally escape, it is because of Nick, not because of anything she does -herself.Offred is a mostly passive character, good-hearted but complacent. Like her peers, she took for granted the freedoms womens lib won and now pays the price. The Commander The Commander poses an ethical problem for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offreds Commander and the immediate agent of her onerousness. As a laminitis of Gilead, he also bears responsibility for the entire totalitarian society. In person, he is far more sympathetic and friendly toward Offred than most other people, and Offreds evenings with the Commander in his study offer her a small respite from the wasteland of her life.At times, his unhappiness and pauperization for companionship make him seem as much a prisoner of Gileads strictures as anyone else. Offred finds herself feeling intellect for this man. Ultimately, Offred and the reader recognize that if the Commander is a prisoner, the prison is one that he himself athletic supportered construct and that his prison is heaven compared to the prison he created for women. As the novel progresses, we come to realize that his visits with Offred are selfish rather than charitable.They satisfy his need for companionship, but he doesnt seem to care that they put Offred at terrible risk, a fact of whic h he must be aware, given that the previous Handmaid hanged herself when her visits to the Commander were discovered. The Commanders moral blindness, apparent in his attempts to explain the virtues of Gilead, are highlighted by his and Offreds visit to Jezebels. The club, a place where the elite men of the society can hire in recreational extramarital sex, reveals the rank hypocrisy that runs through Gileadean society.Offreds relationship with the Commander is best represented by a situation she remembers from a documentary on the Holocaust. In the film, the mistress of a brutal death camp guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was not a monster. How easy it is to cook up a humanity, Offred thinks. In other words, anyone can seem human, and even likable, given the right set of circumstances. But even if the Commander is likable and can be kind or considerate, his responsibility for the creation of Gilead and his callousness to the hell he created for women means that h e, like the Nazi guard, is a monster. Serena JoyThough Serena had been an advocate for traditional values and the fundamental law of the Gileadean state, her bitterness at the outcomebeing confined to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a Handmaidsuggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes index not enjoy getting their way as much as they believe they would. Serenas obvious unhappiness means that she teeters on the edge of inspiring our sympathy, but she forfeits that sympathy by taking out her frustration on Offred. She seems to possess no compassion for Offred. She can see the difficulty of her own life, but not that of another woman.The climactic effect in Serenas interaction with Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to sleep with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans out of a desire to help Offred get pregnant, but Serena gets an equal reward from Offreds pregnancy she gets to bear the baby. Furthermore, Serenas offer to show Offred a pic ture of her addled daughter if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has always known of Offreds daughters whereabouts. Not unaccompanied has she cruelly concealed this knowledge, she is willing to exploit Offreds loss of a child in order to get an infant of her own.Serenas lack of sympathy makes her the perfect tool for Gileads social order, which relies on the willingness of women to oppress other women. She is a cruel, selfish woman, and Atwood implies that such women are the glue that binds Gilead. Moira Throughout the novel, Moiras relationship with Offred epitomizes female friendship. Gilead claims to promote solidarity between women, but in fact it only produces suspicion, hostility, and petty tyranny. The kind of relationship that Moira and Offred maintain from college onward does not exist in Gilead. In Offreds flashbacks, Moira also embodies female resistance to Gilead.She is a lesbian, which means that she rejects male-female sexual interactions, the only kind that G ilead values. More than that, she is the only character who stands up to authority directly by make two escape attempts, one successful, from the Red Center. The manner in which she escapestaking off her clothes and putting on the uniform of an Auntsymbolizes her rejection of Gileads attempt to define her identity. From then on, until Offred meets up with her again, Moira represents an alternative to the meek subservience and acceptance of ones fate that most of the Handmaids adopt.When Offred runs into Moira, Moira has been recaptured and is working as a prostitute at Jezebels, servicing the Commanders. Her fighting spirit seems broken, and she has become resigned to her fate. After embodying resistance for most of the novel, Moira comes to exemplify the way a totalitarian state can crush even the most independent spirit. Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Womens Bodies as Political Instruments Because G ilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically ecreased birthrates, the states entire structure, with its religious trappings and rigid political hierarchy, is built most a single goal control of reproduction. The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete control of womens bodies through their political subjugation. Women cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or independent and thereby undermine their husbands or the state. Despite all of Gileads pro-women rhetoric, such subjugation creates a society in which women are treated as subhuman.They are reduced to their fertility, treated as nothing more than a set of ovaries and a womb. In one of the novels key scenes, Offred lies in the bath and reflects that, before Gilead, she considered her body an instrument of her desires now, she is just a mound of flesh surrounding a womb that must be filled in order to make her useful. Gilead seek s to deprive women of their individuality in order to make them docile carriers of the next generation. Language as a Tool of Power Gilead creates an official vocabulary that ignores and warps reality in order to serve the demand of the new societys elite.Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles. Whereas men are delineate by their military rank, women are defined solely by their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. Stripping them of permanent individual names strips them of their individuality, or tries to. Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the terms Unwomen and Unbabies. Blacks and Jews are defined by biblical terms (Children of Ham and Sons of Jacob, respectively) that set them apart from the rest of society, making their persecution easier. at that place are prescribed greetings for personal encounters, and to fail to offer the correct greetings is to fall under suspicion of disloyalty. Specially created terms define the rituals of Gilead, such as Prayvaganzas, Salvagings, and Particicutions. Dystopian novels about the dangers of totalitarian society frequently explore the connection between a states repression of its subjects and its perversion of language ( new-fashionedspeak in George Orwells 1984 is the most famous example), and The Handmaids Tale carries on this tradition. Gilead maintains its control over womens bodies by maintaining control over names.The Causes of Complacency In a totalitarian state, Atwood suggests, people will endure oppression willingly as long as they receive some slight amount of power or freedom. Offred remembers her mother locution that it is truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. Offreds complacency after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the justness of this insight. Her situation restricts her horribly compared to the freedom her former life allowed, but her relationship with Nick allows her to reclaim the tiniest fragment of her former existence.The physical affection and companionship become compensation that make the restrictions almost bearable. Offred seems suddenly so content that she does not say yes when Ofglen asks her to gather information about the Commander. Women in general support Gileads existence by willingly participating in it, serving as agents of the totalitarian state. While a woman like Serena Joy has no power in the world of men, she exercises authority within her own household and seems to delight in her tyranny over Offred. She jealously guards what little power she has and wields it eagerly.In a connatural way, the women known as Aunts, especially Aunt Lydia, act as willing agents of the Gileadean state. They indoctrinate other women into the ruling ideology, pass on a close eye out for rebellion, and generally serve the same draw for Gilead that the Jewish police did under Nazi rule. Atwoods message is bleak. At the same time as she condemns Offred, Serena Joy, the Aunts, and even Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if those women mustered strength and stopped complying, they would likely fail to make a difference.In Gilead the tiny rebellions of resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of luck rather than resistance. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes. Rape and Sexual Violence Sexual violence, oddly against women, pervades The Handmaids Tale. The prevalence of rape and pornography in the pre-Gilead world justified to the founders their establishment of the new order.The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protect in Gilead, that they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence. Certainly, the official penalty for rape is terrible in one scene, the Handmaids tear apart with their blunt hands a supposed rapist (actually a member of the re sistance). Yet, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebels, the club that provides the Commanders with a ready stable of prostitutes to service the male elite.Most important, sexual violence is apparent in the central institution of the novel, the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. Religious Terms employ for Political Purposes Gilead is a theocracya government in which there is no separation between state and devotionand its official vocabulary incorporates religious oral communication and biblical references. Domestic servants are called Marthas in reference to a domestic character in the New Testament the local police are Guardians of the credence soldiers are Angels and the Commanders are officially Commanders of the Faithful. entirely the stores have biblical names Loaves and Fishes, All Flesh, Milk and Honey. Even the automobiles have biblical names like Behemoth, Whirlwind, and Chariot. Using religious terminology to describe people, ranks, and businesses whitewashes political skullduggery in pious language. It provides an ever-present reminder that the founders of Gilead insist they act on the authority of the Bible itself. regime and religion sleep in the same bed in Gilead, where the slogan deity is a National Resource predominates. Similarities between Reactionary and Feminist IdeologiesAlthough The Handmaids Tale offers a specifically feminist critique of the reactionary attitudes toward women that hold sway in Gilead, Atwood occasionally draws similarities between the architects of Gilead and radical feminists such as Offreds mother. Both groups claim to protect women from sexual violence, and both show themselves willing to restrict free speech in order to accomplish this goal. Offred recalls a scene in which her mother and other feminists burn porn magazines. Like the founders of Gilead, these feminists ban some expressions of sexuality.Gilead al so uses the feminist rhetoric of female solidarity and sisterhood to its own advantage. These points of similarity imply the existence of a dark side of feminist rhetoric. Despite Atwoods gentle criticism of the feminist go away, her real target is the religious right. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Cambridge, Massachusetts The center of Gileads power, where Offred lives, is never explicitly identified, but a number of clues mark it as the town of Cambridge.Cambridge, its neighboring city of Boston, and Massachusetts as a whole were centers for Americas first religious and intolerant societythe prude New England of the seventeenth century. Atwood reminds us of this history with the ancient prude church that Offred and Ofglen visit early in the novel, which Gilead has turned into a museum. The choice of Cambridge as a linguistic context symbolizes the direct link between the Puritans and their spiritual heir s in Gilead. Both groups dealt harshly with religious, sexual, or political deviation. Harvard UniversityGilead has transformed Harvards buildings into a hands center run by the Eyes, Gileads secret police. Bodies of executed dissidents hang from the Wall that runs slightly the college, and Salvagings (mass executions) take place in Harvard Yard, on the steps of the library. Harvard becomes a symbol of the inverted world that Gilead has created a place that was founded to pursue knowledge and truth becomes a seat of oppression, torture, and the denial of every principle for which a university is supposed to stand. The Handmaids Red HabitsThe red color of the costumes worn by the Handmaids symbolizes fertility, which is the castes primary function. Red suggests the blood of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the same time, however, red is also a traditional marker of sexual sin, hearkening back to the scarlet letter worn by the adulterous Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne s tale of Puritan ideology. While the Handmaids reproductive role supposedly finds its justification in the Bible, in some sense they commit adultery by having sex with their Commanders, who are married men. The wives, who often call the Handmaids sluts, feel the pain of this sanctioned adultery.The Handmaids red garments, then, also symbolize the ambiguous sinfulness of the Handmaids position in Gilead. A Palimpsest A palimpsest is a document on which old writing has been scratched out, often leaving traces, and new writing put in its place it can also be a document consisting of many layers of writing simply piled one on top of another. Offred describes the Red Center as a palimpsest, but the word actually symbolizes all of Gilead. The old world has been erased and replaced, but only partially, by a new order. Remnants of the pre-Gilead days continue to infuse the new world.The Eyes The Eyes of God are Gileads secret police. Both their name and their insignia, a winged eye, symbol ize the eternal watchfulness of God and the totalitarian state. In Gileads theocracy, the eye of God and of the state are assumed to be one and the same. Chapters 13 Summary Chapter 1 The narrator, whose name we learn later is Offred, describes how she and other women slept on armament cots in a gymnasium. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrol with electric cattle prods hanging from their leather belts, and the women, forbidden to speak aloud, whisper without attracting attention.Twice daily, the women walk in the former football field, which is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Armed guards called Angels patrol outside. While the women take their walks, the Angels stand outside the fence with their backs to the women. The women long for the Angels to turn and see them. They imagine that if the men looked at them or talked to them, they could use their bodies to make a deal. The narrator describes lying in bed at night, gently exchanging names with the other w omen. Summary Chapter 2The scene changes, and the story shifts from the past tense to the present tense. Offred now lives in a room fitted out with curtains, a pillow, a inclose picture, and a braided rug. There is no glass in the room, not even over the framed picture. The window does not open completely, and the windowpane is shatterproof. There is nothing in the room from which one could hang a rope, and the door does not lock or even shut completely. Looking around, Offred remembers how Aunt Lydia told her to consider her circumstances a privilege, not a prison.Handmaids, to which group the narrator belongs, dress entirely in red, except for the white wings framing their faces. Household servants, called Marthas, survive green uniforms. Wives wear blue uniforms. Offred often secretly listens to Rita and Cora, the Marthas who work in the house where she lives. Once, she hears Rita state that she would never debase herself as someone in Offreds position must. Cora replies that Offred works for all the women, and that if she (Cora) were younger and had not gotten her tubes tied, she could have been in Offreds situation. Offred wishes she could alk to them, but Marthas are not supposed to develop relationships with Handmaids. She wishes that she could share inflict like they dogossip about how one Handmaid gave birth to a stillborn, how a Wife stabbed a Handmaid with a knitting molest out of jealousy, how someone poisoned her Commander with toilet cleaner. Offred dresses for a shopping trip. She collects from Rita the tokens that serve as currency. Each token bears an image of what it will purchase twelve eggs, cheese, and a steak. Summary Chapter 3 On her way out, Offred looks around for the Commanders Wife but does not see her.The Commanders Wife has a garden, and she knits constantly. All the Wives knit scarves for the Angels at the front lines, but the Commanders Wife is a particularly skilled knitter. Offred wonders if the scarves actually get used, or if they just give the Wives something to do. She remembers arriving at the Commanders house for the first time, after the two couples to which she was previously assigned didnt work out. One of the Wives in an in the first place posting secluded herself in the bedroom, purportedly drinking, and Offred hoped the new Commanders Wife would be different.On the first day, her new mistress told her to stay out of her sight as much as possible, and to avoid making trouble. As she talked, the Wife smoked a cigarette, a black-market item. Handmaids, Offred notes, are forbidden coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol. Then the Wife reminded Offred that the Commander is her husband, permanently and forever. Its one of the things we fought for, she said, looking away. Suddenly, Offred recognized her mistress as Serena Joy, the lead soprano from Growing Souls Gospel Hour, a Sunday-morning religious syllabus that aired when Offred was a child. Analysis Chapters 15The Handmaids Tale plunges immediat ely into an unfamiliar, unexplained world, using unfamiliar terms like Handmaid, Angel, and Commander that only come to make sense as the story progresses. Offred gradually delivers information about her past and the world in which she lives, often narrating through flashbacks. She narrates these flashbacks in the past tense, which distinguishes them from the main body of the story, which she tells in the present tense. The first scene, in the gymnasium, is a flashback, as are Offreds memories of the Marthas gossip and her first meeting with the Commanders Wife.Although at this point we do not know what the gymnasium signifies, or why the narrator and other women lived there, we do gather some information from the legal brief first chapter. The women in the gymnasium live under the constant surveillance of the Angels and the Aunts, and they cannot interact with one another. They seem to inhabit a kind of prison. Offred likens the gym to a palimpsest, a parchment either erased and wr itten on again or layered with multiple writings. In the gym palimpsest, Offred sees multiple layers of history high train girls going to basketball games and dances wearing miniskirts, then pants, then green hair.Likening the gym to a palimpsest also suggests that the society Offred now inhabits has been superimposed on a previous society, and traces of the old linger beneath the new. In Chapter 2, Offred sits in a room that seems at first like a pleasant change from harsh asynchronous transfer mode of the gymnasium. However, her description of her room demonstrates that the same rigid, controlling structures that ruled the gym continue to constrict her in this house. The room is like a prison in which all means of defense, or escape by suicide or flight, have been removed.She wonders if women everywhere get issued exactly the same sheets and curtains, which underlines the idea that the room is like a government-ordered prison. We do not know yet what purpose Offred serves in the house, although it seems to be sexualCora comments that she could have done Offreds work if she hadnt gotten her tubes tied, which implies that Offreds function is reproductive. Serena Joys coldness to Offred makes it plain that she considers Offred a threat, or at least an annoyance. We do know from Offreds name that she, like all Handmaids, is considered state property.Handmaids names simply reflect which Commander owns them. Of Fred, Of Warren, and Of Glen get collapsed into Offred, Ofwarren, and Ofglen. The names make more sense when preceded by the word Property Property Offred, for example. Thus, every time the women hear their names, they are reminded that they are no more than property. These early chapters establish the novels style, which is characterized by considerable physical description. The narrator devotes attention to the features of the gym, the Commanders house, and Serena Joys pinched face.Offred tells the story in nonlinear fashion, following the temporal lea ps of her own mind. The narrative goes where her thoughts take itone moment to the present, in the Commanders house, and the next back in the gymnasium, or in the old world, the United States as it exists in Offreds memory. We do not have the sense, as in some first-person narratives, that Offred is composing this story from a distanced vantage point, reflecting back on her past. Rather, all of her thoughts have a quality of immediacy. We are there with Offred as she goes about her daily life, and as she slips out of the present and thinks about her past.Chapters 46 Summary Chapter 4 As she leaves the house to go shopping, Offred come ups Nick, a Guardian of the Faith, washing the Commanders car. Nick lives above the garage. He winks at Offredan offense against -decorum but she ignores him, fearing that he may be an Eye, a recognize assigned to test her. She waits at the corner for Ofglen, another Handmaid with whom Offred will do her shopping. The Handmaids always travel in pairs when outside. Ofglen arrives, and they exchange greetings, careful not to say anything that isnt strictly orthodox.Ofglen says that she has heard the war is going well, and that the army recently defeated a group of Baptist rebels. Praise be, Offred responds. They reach a checkpoint manned by two young Guardians. The Guardians serve as a routine police force and do menial labor. They are men too young, too old, or just generally unfit for the army. Young Guardians, such as these, can be dangerous because they are frequently more fanatical or noisome than older guards. These young Guardians recently shot a Martha as she fumbled for her pass, because they thought she was a man in disguise carrying a bomb.Offred heard Rita and Cora talking about the shooting. Rita was angry, but Cora seemed to accept the shooting as the price one pays for safety. At the checkpoint, Offred subtly flirts with one of the Guardians by making eye contact, cherishing this small infraction against the rules . She considers how sexy the young men must be, since they cannot marry without permission, masturbation is a sin, and pornographic magazines and films are now forbidden. The Guardians can only hope to become Angels, when they will be allowed to take a wife and perhaps eventually get a Handmaid.This marks the first time in the novel we hear the word Handmaid used. Summary Chapter 5 In town, Ofglen and Offred wait in line at the shops. We learn the name of this new society The Republic of Gilead. Offred remembers the pre-Gilead days, when women were not protected they had to keep their doors closed to strangers and ignore catcalls on the street. Now no one whistles at women as they walk no one touches them or talks to them. She remembers Aunt Lydia explaining that more than one kind of freedom exists, and that in the days of anarchy, it was freedom to.Now you are being given freedom from. The women shop at stores known by names like All Flesh and Milk and Honey. Pictures of meat o r fruit mark the stores, rather than lettered signs, because they decided that even the names of shops were too much temptation for us. A Handmaid in the late stages of pregnancy enters the store and raises a flurry of excitement. Offred recognizes her from the Red Center. She used to be known as Janine, and she was one of Aunt Lydias favorites. Now her name is Ofwarren. Offred senses that Janine went shopping just so she could show off her pregnancy.Offred thinks of her husband, Luke, and their daughter, and the life they led before Gilead existed. She remembers a prosaic detail from their commonplace life together she used to store plastic shopping bags under the sink, which annoyed Luke, who worried that their daughter would get one of the bags caught over her head. She remembers feeling wicked for her carelessness. Offred and Ofglen finish their shopping and go out to the sidewalk, where they encounter a group of Japanese tourists and their interpreter. The tourists want to t ake a photograph, but Offred says no.Many of the interpreters are Eyes, and Handmaids must not appear immodest. Offred and Ofglen marvel at the womens exposed legs, high heels, and polished toenails. The tourists ask if they are happy, and since Ofglen does not answer, Offred replies that they are very happy. Summary Chapter 6 This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. (See Important Quotations Explained) As they return from shopping, Ofglen suggests they take the long way and pass by the church. It is an old building, decorated inside with paintings of what seem to be Puritans from the colonial era.Now the former church is kept as a museum. Offred describes a nigh boathouse, old dormitories, a football stadium, and redbrick sidewalks. Atwood implies that Offred is walking across what used to be the campus of Harvard University. Across the street from the church sits the Wall, where the administration hang the bodies of executed crimi nals as examples to the rest of the Republic of Gilead. The authorities cover the mens heads with bags. One of the bags looks painted with a red smile where the blood has seeped through.All of the six corpses wear signs around their necks picturing fetuses, signaling that they were executed for performing abortions before Gilead came into existence. Although their actions were legal at the time, their crimes are being punished retroactively. Offred feels relieved that none of the bodies could be Lukes, since he was not a doctor. As she stares at the bodies, Offred thinks of Aunt Lydia telling them that soon their new life would seem ordinary. Analysis Chapters 46 The theocratic nature of Offreds society, the name of which we learn for the first time in these chapters, becomes clear during her shopping trip.A theocracy exists when there is no separation between church and state, and a single religion dominates all aspects of life. In Gilead, state and religion are inseparable. The of ficial language of Gilead uses many biblical terms, from the various ranks that men hold (Angels, Guardians of the Faith, Commanders of the Faith, the Eyes of God), to the stores where Offred and Ofglen shop (Milk and Honey, All Flesh, Loaves and Fishes), to the names of automobiles (Behemoth, Whirlwind, Chariot). The very name Gilead refers to a location in ancient Israel. The name also recalls a line from the Book of Psalms there is a balm in Gilead. This phrase, we realize later, has been transformed into a kind of national motto. Atwood does not describe the exact details of Gileads state religion. In Chapter 2, Offred describes her room as a return to traditional values. The religious right in America uses the phrase traditional values, so Atwood seems to link the values of this dystopic society to the values of the Protestant Christian religious right in America. Gilead seems more Protestant than anything else, but its brand of Christianity pays far more attention to the Old Testament than the New Testament.The religious justification for having Handmaids, for instance, is taken from the Book of Genesis. We learn that neither Catholics nor Jews are welcome in Gilead. The former must convert, while the latter must emigrate to Israel or renounce their Judaism. Atwood seems less interested in religion than in the intersection between religion, politics, and sex. The Handmaids Tale explores the political oppression of women, carried out in the name of God but in large part motivated by a desire to control womens bodies.Gilead sees womens sexuality as dangerous women must cover themselves from head to toe, for example, and not reveal their sexual attractions. When Offred attracts the Guardians, she feels this ability to inspire sexual attraction is the only power she retains. Every other privilege is stripped away, down to the very act of version, which is forbidden. Women are not even allowed to read store signs. By controlling womens minds, by not allowin g them to read, the authorities more easily control womens bodies. The patriarchs of Gilead want to control womens bodies, their sex lives, and their reproductive rights.The bodies of slain abortionists on the Wall hammering home the point feminists believe that women must have abortion rights in order to control their own bodies, and in Gilead, giving women control of their bodies is a grievous crime. When Offred and Ofglen go to town to shop, geographical clues and street names suggest that they live in what was once Cambridge, Massachusetts, and that their walk takes them near what used to be the campus of Harvard University. The choice of Cambridge for the setting of The Handmaids Tale is significant, since Massachusetts was a Puritan stronghold during the colonial period of the United States.The Puritans were a persecuted minority in England, but when they fled to New England, they re-created the repression they suffered at home, this time casting themselves as the repressors rather than the repressed. They established an intolerant religious society in some ways similar to Gilead. Atwood locates her false intolerant society in a place founded by intolerant people. By turning the old church into a museum, and leaving untouched portraits of Puritan forebears, the founders of Gilead suggest their admiration for the old Puritan society. Chapters 79 Summary Chapter 7I would like to believe this is a story Im telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. (See Important Quotations Explained) At night, Offred likes to remember her former life. She recalls talking to her college friend, Moira, in her dorm room. She remembers being a child and going to a park with her mother, where they saw a group of women and a few men burning pornographic magazines. Offred has forgotten a large chunk of time, which she thinks might be the fault of an injection or pill the authorities gave her. She remembers vigilant up somewhere and screaming, demanding to know what they had done with her daughter. The authorities told Offred she was unfit, and her daughter was with those fit to care for her. They showed her a photograph of her child wearing a white dress, retention the hand of a strange woman. As she recounts these events, Offred imagines she is telling her story to someone, telling things that she cannot write down, because writing is forbidden. Summary Chapter 8 Returning from another shopping trip, Ofglen and Offred notice three new bodies on the Wall.One is a Catholic priest and two are Guardians who bear placards around their necks that read Gender Treachery. This means they were hanged for committing homosexual acts. After looking at the bodies for a while, Offred tells Ofglen that they should continue walking home. They meet a funeral procession of Econowives, the wives of poorer men. One Econowife carries a small black jar. From the size of the jar, Offred can tell that it contains a dead embryo from an early miscarriageone that came too early to know whether it was an Unbaby. The Econowives do not like the Handmaids.One woman scowls, and another spits at the Handmaids as they pass. At the corner near the Commanders home, Ofglen says Under His Eye, the orthodox good-bye, hesitating as if she wants to say more but then keep on her way. When Offred reaches the Commanders driveway she passes Nick, who breaks the rules by asking her about her walk. She says nothing and goes into the house. She sees Serena Joy out in the garden and recalls how after Serenas apprisal career ended, she became a spokesperson for respecting the sanctity of the home and for women staying at home instead of working.Serena herself never stayed at home, because she was always out giving speeches. Once, Offred remembers, someone attempt to assassinate Serena but killed her secretary instead. Offred wonders if Serena is angry that she can no longer be a public figu re, now that what she advocated has come to pass and all women, including her, are confined to the home. In the kitchen, Rita fusses over the quality of the purchases as she always does. Offred retreats upstairs and notices the Commander standing outside her room. He is not supposed to be there. He nods at her and retreats. Summary Chapter 9Offred remembers renting hotel rooms and waiting for Luke to meet her, before they were married, when he was cheating on his first wife. She regrets that she did not fully esteem the freedom to have her own space when she wanted it. Thinking of the problems she and Luke thought they had, she realizes they were truly happy, although they did not know it. She remembers examining her room in the Commanders house little by little after she first arrived. She saw stains on the mattress, left over from long-ago sex, and she discovered a Latin phrase new scratched into the floor of the closet Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.Offred does not understan d Latin. It pleases her to imagine that this message allows her to commune with the woman who wrote it. She pictures this woman as freckly and irreverent, someone like Moira. Later, she asks Rita who stayed in her room before her. Rita tells her to specify which one, implying that there were a number of Handmaids before her. Offred says, guessing, the lively one . . . with freckles. Rita asks how Offred knew about her, but she refuses to tell Offred anything about the previous Handmaid beyond a vague statement that she did not work out. Analysis Chapter 79Atwood suggests that those who seek to restrict sexual expression, whether they are feminists or religious conservatives, ultimately share the same goalthe control of sexuality, particularly womens sexuality. In the flashback to the scene from Offreds childhood in which women burn pornographic magazines, Atwood shows the similarity between the extremism of the left and the extremism of the right. The people burning magazines are f eminists, not religious conservatives like the leaders of Gilead, yet their goal is the same to crack down on certain kinds of sexual freedom.In other words, the desire for control over sexuality is not unique to the religious totalitarians of Gilead it also existed in the feminist anti-pornography crusades that preceded the fall of the United States. Gilead actually appropriates some of the rhetoric of womens liberation in its attempt to control women. Gilead also uses the Aunts and the Aunts rhetoric, forcing women to control other women. Again and again in the novel, the voice of Aunt Lydia ring in Offreds head, insisting that women are better off in Gilead, free from exploitation and violence, than they were in the dangerous freedom of pre-Gilead times.In Chapter 7, Offred relates some of the details of how she lost her child. This loss is the central wound on Offreds psyche throughout the novel, and the novels great source of emotional power. The loss of her child is so painful to Offred that she can only relate the story in fits and starts so far the details of what happened have been murky. When telling stories from her past, like the story of her daughters disappearance, Offred often seems to draw on a partial or foggy memory. It almost seems as if she is remembering details from hundreds of years ago, when we know these things happened a few years before the narrative.Partly this distance is the product of emotional traumathinking of the past is painful for Offred. But in Chapter 7, Offred offers her own explanation for these gaps she thinks it possible that the authorities gave her a pill or injection that harmed her memory. Immediately after remembering her daughter, Offred addresses someone she calls you. She could be talking to God, Luke, or an imaginary future reader. I would like to believe this is a story Im telling, Offred says. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance . . A story is a letter. Dear You, Il l say. In the act of telling her imagined audience about her life, Offred reduces her lifes horror and makes its oppressive weight endurable. Also, if she can think of her life as a story and herself as the writer, she can think of her life as controllable, fictional, something not terrifying because not real. We learn in Chapter 8 that Serena used to campaign against womens rights. This makes her a figure worthy of pity, in a way she supported the anti-woman principles on which Gilead was founded, but once they were mplemented, she found that they affected her as well as other women. She now lives deprived of freedom and saddled with a Handmaid who has sex with her husband. Yet Serena forfeits what pity we might feel for her by her callous, petty behavior toward Offred. Powerless in the world of men, Serena can only take out her frustration on the women under her ovolo by making their lives miserable. In many ways, she treats Offred far worse than the Commander does, which suggest s that Gileads oppressive power structure succeeds not just because men created it, but because women like Serena sustain it.Nolite te bastardes carborundorumthe Latin phrase scrawled in Offreds closet by a previous Handmaidtakes on a magic importance for Offred even before she knows what it means. It symbolizes her inner resistance to Gileads tyranny and makes her feel like she can communicate with other strong women, like the woman who wrote the message. In Chapter 29 we learn what the phrase means, and its role in sustaining Offreds resistance comes to seem perfectly appropriate. Chapters 1012 Summary Chapter 10 Offred often sings songs in her headAmazing Grace or songs by Elvis.Most music is forbidden in Gilead, and there is little of it in the Commanders home. sometimes she hears Serena humming and listening to a recording of herself from the time when she was a famous gospel singer. Summer is approaching, and the house grows hot. Soon the Handmaids will be allowed to wear the ir summertime dresses. Offred thinks about how Aunt Lydia would describe the terrible things that used to happen to women in the old days, before Gilead, when they sunbathed wearing next to nothing. Offred remembers Moira throwing an underwhore party to sell sexy lingerie.She remembers reading stories in the papers about women who were murdered and raped, but even in the old days it seemed distant from her life and unrelated to her. Offred sits at the window, beside a blow embroidered with the word Faith. It is the only word they have given her to read, and she spends many minutes looking at it. From her window, she watches the Commander get into his car and drive away. Summary Chapter 11 Offred says that yesterday she went to the doctor. Every month, a Guardian accompanies Offred to a doctor, who tests her for pregnancy and disease.At the doctors office, Offred undresses, pulling a sheet over her body. A sheet hangs down from the ceiling, cutting off the doctors view of her face. The doctor is not supposed to see her face or speak to her if he can help it. On this visit, though, he chatters cheerfully and then offers to help her. He says many of the Commanders are either too old to produce a child or are sterile, and he suggests that he could have sex with her and impregnate her. His use of the word sterile shocks Offred, for officially sterile men no longer exist. In Gilead, there are only fruitful women and barren women.Offred thinks him genuinely sympathetic to her plight, but she also realizes he enjoys his own empathy and his position of power. After a moment, she declines, saying it is too dangerous. If they are caught, they will both receive the death penalty. She tries to sound casual and grateful as she refuses, but she feels frightened. To revenge her refusal, the doctor could falsely report that she has a health problem, and then she would be sent to the Colonies with the Unwomen. Offred also feels frightened, she realizes, because she has been g iven a way out. Summary Chapter 12It is one of Offreds required bath days. The bathroom has no mirror, no razors, and no lock on the door. Cora sits outside, waiting for Offred. Offreds own naked body seems strange to her, and she finds it hard to believe that she once wore dishwashing suits, letting people see her thighs and arms, her breasts and buttocks. Lying in the bath, she thinks of her daughter and remembers the time when a crazy woman tried to kidnap the little girl in the supermarket. The authorities in Gilead took Offreds then-five-year-old child from her, and three years have passed since then.Offred has no mementos of her daughter. She remember

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Huck Essay

Some seasons in literature, authors will enforce minor roles to highlight important qualities of another(prenominal) personality. This orgasm helps the endorser better under die hard the character since character foiling helps to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Mark twosome uses several character foils, each of which have a contrastive uphold on hucks moral growth. Throughout the classic American novel, The Adventures of huckleberry Finn, Hucks friends help to bring out the best of his traits and morals infract, tomcat and the power and the Duke. For example, gobbler Sawyer serves as a character foil for Huck Finn. turkey cock and Hucks religious beliefs con? ict since Tom believes in genies, and Miss Watson tries to teach Huck what she thinks is right. Huck comes to the conclusion Tom doesnt know what he is talking about So then I judged that exclusively the stuff was solo just one of Tom Sawyers lies (14). As a result, Toms ideas lead Huck to smorgasbord h is make beliefs and challenge the majority of peopless way of thinking. Tom also foils Huck at the end of the book when he uses his imagination and knowledge of books to endorse a plan to bountiful Jim.His unrealistic plan aggravates Huck Good come to why, there aint no necessity for it (239). Toms asinine childish behavior didnt bother Huck until now but since Tom is fooling around with Jims life and freedom, it makes Huck interrogative sentence his race with Tom. Toms actions affect Huck is a positive way that help him grow religiously and in maturity. Just as Tom frustrated Huck, Twain uses Buck to do the same Buck Grangerfords lifestyle is not similar to Hucks which highlights the differences in Hucks up-bringing. Bucks home life is much different than Hucks speci?cally in regards to Buck having someone to wait on him distribute and foot My nigger had a monstrous easy time, because I warnt used to having anybody do anything for me, but Bucks slave was on the flip most of the time (106). This example shows that Huck is independent and doesnt need someone to wait on him. Buck can relax and be free of any responsibility. In addition, Buck has a ability nice family, and a mighty nice house, too (99). Buck was raised without the worry of when his next meal was going to be put on the table, or if his father would die from his alcoholism problem.Buck is raised with a fair amount of money, an education, and freedom which Huck lacks. Hucks lifestyle is the opposite of Bucks and Twain does this on purpose to express the struggle Huck has with his own life. Not only does Twain use Buck and Tom to foil Huck, he uses the king and the duke to contrast Huck. The outlandish, inconsiderate Duke and King affect Huck with their remorseless theft and sel? shness. The con-artists plans to vex money from the gratuitous townspeople rub Huck the wrong way but when they want to steal from Mary Jane and the Grangerfords, Huck wont stand for it.Huck decides to expre ss Mary Jane that her uncles of yourn aint no uncles at all theyre a couple of frauds- regular dead-beats, because they just want land and money from the Grangerfords (187). The King and Dukes actions compel Huck to be mature and tell Mary Jane what is actually going on. Later on in the book, Huck sees the King and the Duke tarred and feathered being chased from the town because of what they have done. Huck realizes he is sorry for them poop pitful rascals, it seemed like I couldnt ever odour any severeness against them any more in the world (230).Huck thinks back on how he hated them and thought they were scumbags because of what they had done to innocent people. at present he feels abominable for them even thought they deserved it. Huck has grown as a person who can forgive instead of keeping a grudge. Twain artfully uses Tom, Buck, and the King and the Duke as character foils that help Huck grow morally throughout the book. All three sets of foils are different on purpose b ecause Twain wanted to show the readers the affects other characters can have someone. It does not the age or intelligence of the minor character.Twains system of logic is that using character foil gets his point across because the reader may not have picked up on traits or morals a character has since it was not without delay stated. Not only do people affect others in literature, in the real world peoples actions affect others. A small assortment gesture can change someones mood or attitude for the rest of the day. Or even something someone says might change another persons outlook on a problem they are having or even larger, their life. The use of character foil is rattling important in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and more importantly the real world today.Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Huck EssaySometimes in literature, authors will use minor characters to highlight important qualities of another character. This approach helps the reader better understand the chara cter since character foiling helps to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Mark Twain uses several character foils, each of which have a different impact on Hucks moral growth. Throughout the classic American novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Hucks friends help to bring out the best of his traits and morals Buck, Tom and the King and the Duke. For example, Tom Sawyer serves as a character foil for Huck Finn.Tom and Hucks religious beliefs con? ict since Tom believes in genies, and Miss Watson tries to teach Huck what she thinks is right. Huck comes to the conclusion Tom doesnt know what he is talking about So then I judged that all the stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyers lies (14). As a result, Toms ideas lead Huck to form his own beliefs and challenge the majority of peopless way of thinking. Tom also foils Huck at the end of the book when he uses his imagination and knowledge of books to corroborate a plan to free Jim.His unrealistic plan aggravates Huck Good land why, there aint no necessity for it (239). Toms foolish childish behavior didnt bother Huck until now but since Tom is fooling around with Jims life and freedom, it makes Huck question his relationship with Tom. Toms actions affect Huck is a positive way that help him grow religiously and in maturity. Just as Tom foiled Huck, Twain uses Buck to do the same Buck Grangerfords lifestyle is not similar to Hucks which highlights the differences in Hucks up-bringing. Bucks home life is much different than Hucks speci? ally in regards to Buck having someone to wait on him hand and foot My nigger had a monstrous easy time, because I warnt used to having anybody do anything for me, but Bucks slave was on the jump most of the time (106). This example shows that Huck is independent and doesnt need someone to wait on him. Buck can relax and be free of any responsibility. In addition, Buck has a might nice family, and a mighty nice house, too (99). Buck was raised without the worry of when his next meal was going to be put on the table, or if his father would die from his alcoholism problem.Buck is raised with a fair amount of money, an education, and freedom which Huck lacks. Hucks lifestyle is the opposite of Bucks and Twain does this on purpose to express the struggle Huck has with his own life. Not only does Twain use Buck and Tom to foil Huck, he uses the king and the duke to contrast Huck. The outlandish, inconsiderate Duke and King affect Huck with their remorseless theft and sel? shness. The con-artists plans to take money from the innocent townspeople rub Huck the wrong way but when they want to steal from Mary Jane and the Grangerfords, Huck wont stand for it.Huck decides to tell Mary Jane that her uncles of yourn aint no uncles at all theyre a couple of frauds- regular dead-beats, because they just want land and money from the Grangerfords (187). The King and Dukes actions compel Huck to be mature and tell Mary Jane what is actually going on. Later on in the book, Huck sees the King and the Duke tarred and feathered being chased from the town because of what they have done. Huck realizes he is sorry for them poop pitful rascals, it seemed like I couldnt ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world (230).Huck thinks back on how he hated them and thought they were scumbags because of what they had done to innocent people. Now he feels bad for them even thought they deserved it. Huck has grown as a person who can forgive instead of keeping a grudge. Twain artfully uses Tom, Buck, and the King and the Duke as character foils that help Huck grow morally throughout the book. All three sets of foils are different on purpose because Twain wanted to show the readers the affects other characters can have someone. It does not the age or intelligence of the minor character.Twains logic is that using character foil gets his point across because the reader may not have picked up on traits or morals a character has since it was not direc tly stated. Not only do people affect others in literature, in the real world peoples actions affect others. A small kind gesture can change someones mood or attitude for the rest of the day. Or even something someone says might change another persons outlook on a problem they are having or even larger, their life. The use of character foil is very important in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and more importantly the real world today.