Comparing Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Laurences The Fire-Dwellers :: comparison compare contrast essays

Loss of Identity in Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale andMargaret Laurences The Fire-Dwellers The protagonists in Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale and Margaret Laurences The Fire-Dwellers are very different in character. However, both of these women lose their individualism due to an outside influence. In each of the books, we see the nature of the unconnected identity, the circumstances which led to this doomed identity, and the consequences which occurred as a result of this lost identity. In The Handmaids Tale our main character, Offred, has her whole arena stolen away by the government of Gilead. This bare-ass society is sexually repress and is founded by religious extremists. Women are only used to produce children, and they countenance no rights at all in the new world of Gilead. In The Fire Dwellers our main character, Stacey MacAindra, has been thrown into a life of responsibility. She has an uncommunicative husband who means well, but shows her no l ove, as well as intravenous feeding children who she feels are being ruined by her every action. She feels that life has a great deal more to offer than the tediousness of every day routine. The nature of Offreds lost identity is very drastic. Before the new religious group of Gilead took over the world, she was a very normal every day woman. She did what was expect of her time and continued to do so after the take over. She had a husband and a daughter who she loved very much. In the new society in which she lives, however, love is not permitted. If I thought that this would pass by again I would die. But this is wrong, nobody dies from deficiency of sex. Its lack of love we die from. Theres nobody here I can love, all the people I could love are absolutely or elsewhere(page?). **Are these words spoken by Offred? ** Offred to a fault had the choice of free will before her civilization changed, but thus slowly women began to lose all of their rights and were no longer allow ed to have jobs or even to use money. Sorry, he said. This number is not valid. Thats ridiculous, I said. It must be, Ive got thousands in my account. Its not valid, he perennial obstinately. See that red light? Means its not valid,(p.