One of the main themes of this book, I found, is the lack of a sensual intimacy. Offred mentions several times her yearning for her husband Luke, and any time she is around the men, there is a forbidden desire, similar to Eve and the fruit of knowledge in the bible. She also sees, or seems to see, a tenseness in the men whenever ladies are around. Everyone is taught that sex is for procreation only and is it inferred that intimate relationships are arbitrary. The fact that they have been taught to suppress these desires out of guilt and fear makes those emotions very difficult to control. This respectfully detached relationship between the men and the women is inhuman, and fights against our very physiological and psychological well being.
The question I'm going to try and tackle, isn't whether this is healthy or not. I believe research and history already show that we need to be truthful with ourselves to lead descent lives. The question is will this way of life reach a boiling point? All these men and women, holding back their desires for one another to such a catastrophic degree, will it come to a head and we'll we see more deviant behavior, sexual misconduct, and even rape? Will this behavior be on such a scale that total anarchy would produce favorable results? Maybe I am wrong and the government will have their way where there will be a controlled emotionally dead society.
If I can find these answers and perhaps more, I will be able to have some idea where the government is coming from in this book, and more important I will have an inkling of what Offred and everyone else is going through in “The Handmaid's Tale”. If I am able to find from research what happens with people's psyches and in turn how that effects there physiology, then I'll be able to understand the text better, and not only from a third person perspective but a more omniscient one.
Michael Boyd Clark. Freud Image. http://www.michaelclark.name/opticalillusions/freud.shtml. February 18, 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health. well being. November 9, 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment