Lack of Unifying Theme

The popular image of women in modern religion and popular culture is the caring mother figure. What this new society has done has split the burden of motherhood upon two women, instead of just one, and that is only if you do not count the other women who are designated cooks and nurses. One woman endures a pregnancy and the other brings up the child. What is sad is that one of these women receives more flack than the other. Offred the handmaid, whose role is to endure the pregnancy, lives like a prisoner compared to Serena, the Commanders Wife, and women who would bring up the child. By using this system, one group of women has power, while another is being oppressed. Such importance is placed on the ceremonies surrounding birth, that it makes you wonder how the people of this society treat the women at the middle of these ceremonies like trash. It is all very ironic and absurd., but then again when you look at oppression it always is. Somehow, the person with the most power always seems to be able to convince everyone else, just about anything, in this case it is that a woman's body is a tool of the government. After reading more and more of the novel, it is easier to see everyday cases of oppression and not simply look at them as something natural. Many people in the novel know that what is going on is wrong but they simply cannot do anything about it, and they are forced to live in an absurd world.