Sarah Tyree
Literature and Gender
Mini Essay 2
Fight Club/The Handmaid’s Tale
Fight Club and The Handmaid’s Tale are presented as speculative writings of fiction. They depict a worst-case scenario of possible future tragedies based on current social practices. These dystopian novels serve as a warning to readers to show the dangerous that coexist with consumerism and materialism. In Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale the reader is warned of the lack of freedom that results from a consumer and materialized society. The authors show that the only solution to prevent this tragic society is through rebellion. Joe and Offred are protagonists who are limited by lack of knowledge due to government power. Both characters feel limited in their roles in society and as a result contemplate suicide.
Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale we are introduced to a government like power called Gilead. Gilead is a society in which the thoughts, ideas, possessions, and freedoms of women and men alike are limited. The narrator, Offred, explains her scenario as well as the individuals that she comes across. She explains how they have been stripped of their spirits. Atwood appears to be demonstrating a society in which individuals are forced to act and think in a way decided by government authority. She suggests throughout her writings and Offred’s actions that the only way to exert any freedom is through acts of rebellion. Atwood is encouraging readers through her novel to protect ones freedom and rights. In Fight Club we see a similar situation in which men exert violent acts in spite of government rule. Joe lacks signs of individuality and as a result creates this alternative identity that forms a cult-like group that rebels against corporate America. Joe feels powerless and it leaves him feeling emasculated and desperate. He feels restricted by consumer and
