The Foreign Influences on the Roman art

In the course of its history, the civilization of Ancient Rome incorporated and modified the elements of those cultures which it dominated. This argument is particularly relevant if one speaks about Roman art which includes painting, architecture, or sculpture. This paper is aimed at examining foreign influences on the Roman art. One can argue that Romans were able to adapt, modify, and sometimes improve the artistic techniques which they borrowed from others. This is the main argument that can be put forward.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Foreign Influences on the Roman art specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More One of the examples can be considered is Temple of Portunus[1]. This architectural monument can be dated back to the first century before the Common Era. This building represents the Republican period in the history of Ancient Rome [2]. Overall, this architectural work incorporates the elements of Greek and Etruscan art. For example, one can mention that Temple of Portunus includes such elements as columns, pediment, cella and extensive use of marble. In turn, the main Etruscan influences can be exemplified with such elements as high stairs, podium, and front entrance. Overall, the architectural style developed in Ancient Greece strongly influenced people who created Temple of Portunus. To a great extent, this temple bears a close resemblance to Parthenon. This example indicates that Romans did not neglect the culture of countries or regions which they dominated. Additionally, it is important to speak about Roman sculpture which was also affected by other cultures. One should take into account that Romans produced copies of Greek sculptures such as Apollo Belvedere[3].To a great extent, Roman were impressed with the meticulous techniques used by Greet sculptures. Yet, one should remember that they modified the legacy of Ancient Greece. In particular, Romans insisted on the realisti c portrayal of subjects without idealizing the physical beauty of a person[4]. This style is often called verism, and it is a forerunner of modern realism. For example, one can mention such an artwork as the bust of Trojan Decius[5]. This sculpture was created in 249 C. E. The viewers can see that the artist did not try to idealize the physical appearance of the subject. This is one of the main aspects that can be identified because it distinguishes Roman sculpture among other styles and traditions. This sculpture was created during the period of the Late Empire and it shows that even at the height of Roman political and cultural domination, Greek art still greatly appealed to them.Advertising Looking for essay on art? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Furthermore, it is important to speak about painting, especially frescos. One can argue that this technique was widely adopted by Etruscans[6]. A good example of this technique is the portrayed of a husband and wife. This artwork was found in Pompeii. It was created in the first century of the Common Era which is the period of the Early Empire. Again, one can say that the author of this fresco attempted to emphasize the realism of his artwork. This is one of the main things that should be considered. These examples are important because they demonstrate that Romans were willing to use the artistic techniques used in other cultures. This openness is one of the reasons why Romans could produce magnificent artworks. However, one should not suppose that they merely copied the artworks created by others. In many cases, they modified foreign influences and in this way, produced unique sculpture, painting, or architectural monuments. Appendixes Picture 1: Temple of Portunus (Gardner and Kleiner 182) Picture 2: The Bust of Trojan Decius Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Foreign Influences on the Roman art specifically for you fo r only $16.05 $11/page Learn More (Gardner and Kleiner 185) Picture 3: The Portrait of a Husband and Wife found in Pompei (Gardner and Kleiner 187) Works Cited Furtwangler, Adolf. Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture: A Series of Essays on the  History of Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print. Gardner, Helen, and Fred Kleiner. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global History, New York: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Gates, Charles. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near  East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome, London: Routledge, 2003. Print.Advertising Looking for essay on art? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Footnotes Please, refer to the Appendixes, Picture 1 Gardner, Helen, and Fred Kleiner. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global History (New York: Cengage Learning, 2012). 182. Furtwangler, Adolf. Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture: A Series of Essays on the History of Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 7. (Gardner and Kleiner 185). Appendixes, Picture 2 Gates, Charles. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome (London: Routledge, 2003). 312. This essay on The Foreign Influences on the Roman art was written and submitted by user M0j0 to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

The History of Aspirin and Salicin

The History of Aspirin and Salicin Aspirin or acetylsalicylic acid is a derivative of salicylic acid. It is a mild, non-narcotic analgesic that’s useful in the relief of headache as well as  muscle and joint aches. The drug works by inhibiting the production of body chemicals known as prostaglandins,  which are necessary for blood clotting and  for sensitizing nerve endings to pain. Early History The father of modern medicine was  Hippocrates, who lived sometime between 460 B.C and 377 B.C. Hippocrates left historical records of pain relief treatments that included the use of powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree to help heal headaches, pains and fevers. However, it wasn’t until 1829 that scientists discovered that it was a compound called salicin in willow plants that relieved the pain. In From A Miracle Drug Sophie Jourdier of the Royal Society of Chemistry wrote: It was not long before the active ingredient in willow bark was isolated; in 1828,  Johann Buchner, professor of pharmacy at the University of Munich, isolated a tiny amount of bitter tasting yellow, needle-like crystals, which he called salicin. Two Italians,  Brugnatelli  and Fontana, had in fact already obtained salicin in 1826, but in a highly impure form. By 1829, [French chemist]  Henri Leroux had improved the extraction procedure to obtain about 30g from 1.5kg of bark. In 1838,  Raffaele Piria  [an Italian chemist] then working at the Sorbonne in Paris, split salicin into a sugar and an aromatic component (salicylaldehyde) and converted the latter, by hydrolysis and oxidation, to an acid of crystallised colourless needles, which he named salicylic acid. So while Henri Leroux  had extracted salicin in crystalline form for the first time, it was Raffaele Piria  who succeeded in obtaining the salicylic acid in its pure state. The problem, though, was that salicylic acid was hard on the stomach and a means of buffering the compound was needed. Turning an Extract Into Medicine The first person to achieve the necessary buffering  was a French chemist named  Charles Frederic Gerhardt. In 1853, Gerhardt neutralized salicylic acid by buffering it with sodium (sodium salicylate) and acetyl chloride to create acetylsalicylic acid. Gerhardts product worked but he had no desire to market it and abandoned his discovery. In 1899, a German chemist named  Felix Hoffmann, who worked for a German company called  Bayer, rediscovered Gerhardts formula. Hoffmann made some of the formula and gave it to his father who was suffering from the pain of arthritis. The formula worked and so Hoffmann then convinced Bayer to market the new wonder drug. Aspirin was patented on February 27, 1900. The folks at Bayer came up with the name Aspirin. It comes from the â€Å"A in acetyl chloride, the spir in spiraea ulmaria (the plant they derived the salicylic acid from) and the â€Å"in† was a then familiar name ending for medicines. Before 1915, Aspirin was first sold as a powder.  That year, the first Aspirin tablets were made. Interestingly, the names Aspirin and Heroin were once trademarks belonging to Bayer. After Germany lost World War I, Bayer was forced to give up both trademarks as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

11 Challenging Words Starting With A for Spanish Students

11 Challenging Words Starting With A for Spanish Students Here are 11 words beginning with A that can pose some difficulty for Spanish students. Learn these, and youll be well on your way to improving your use of the language. a: As a common preposition, a has at least six uses. It usually means to but can also be translated by other prepositions or used as a type of connecting word. Sometimes, as with the personal a, it need not be translated at all. No fuimos a la playa. We didnt go to the beach. Llegamos a Guatemala a las 17 horas. We arrive in Guatemala at 5 p.m. Conocà ­ a la superestrella en Buenos Aires. I met the superstar in Buenos Aires. adonde and adà ³nde: Adonde and adà ³nde usually mean where, but only in cases where to where or some variation of that could be substituted in translation. In other words adà ³nde functions much as a dà ³nde would and indicates motion to a place or in a direction. Es una pequeà ±a playa pà ºblica adonde mis padres nos llevaban en verano. Its a small public beach (to) where my parents took us in summer.  ¿Quà © pasa si adà ³nde viajamos es otro planeta? What happens if where were traveling (to) is another planet? al: Al is one of Spanishs few contractions, combining a and el, a word for the. When al means to the, its use is straightforward. However, al followed by an infinitive is a common way of explaining that something happened after the action represented by the infinitive. Paulina y yo vamos al zoo para ver los animales. Paulina and I are going to the zoo to see the animals. Me alegrà © al encontrar algunos de mis amigos en el centro. I became happy when I found some of my friends downtown. aparentemente: Depending on the context, aparentemente can suggest more strongly than does the English apparently that things may not be what they seem. Est aparentemente feliz, pero est a punto de pedirle el divorcio. Shes supposedly happy, but shes on the verge of asking him for the divorce. apologà ­a: An apologà ­a is a defense of a position, as in a legal case or an argument. It is not used to express regret. No hay apologà ­a del terrorismo. There is no defense for terrorism. asistir: Although asistir can mean to assist, it much more often means to attend a gathering or event. Gracias a todos que asistieron mi concierto anoche. Thanks to everyone who attended my concert last night. El gobierno le asistià ³ con una pensià ³n hasta el final de sus dà ­as. The government assisted him with a pension until the end of his days. atender: Atender can mean to attend in the sense of attending to someone but not in the sense of attending an event. El doctor atendià ³ al futbolista en el hospital durante su grave enfermedad. The doctor attended to the soccer player during his serious illness. aun and aà ºn: Although aun and aà ºn are both adverbs, the first is usually used to indicate even as in the examples below, while the latter usually indicates an action continues and can be translated as still or yet. Aun este aà ±o no tengo nada. Even this year I dont have anything. Ni aun yo puedo entenderlos. Not even I can understand them. He configurado mi dispositivo, pero aà ºn no puedo usar la internet. I have configured my device, but I still cant use the Internet. Or, I have configured my device, but I cant use the Internet yet. aunque: Aunque is the most common way of saying although; often it is better translated even though or even if. If the verb that follows refers to something that already happened or is happening, it must be in the indicative mood, while a verb referring to the future or a hypothetical event must be in the subjunctive. Todo est bien aunque me tragaron los mosquitos cuando me fui de camping. Everything is fine even though the mosquitoes ate me up when I went camping. (Tragaron is in the indicative because it refers to a past event.) Crean una pila que no hace daà ±o aunque los nià ±os la traguen. They are developing a battery that causes no harm even if children swallow it. (Traguen is in the subjunctive mood because the event is yet to happen or is theoretical.) Sources: Sample sentences have been adapted from the following sources: TripAdvisor.es, Diario Norte, Marcianitos Verdes, Facebook conversations, El Zol 107.9, Zendesk, Goal.com, La Nacià ³n (Argentina), Twitter conversations, Cuba Encuentro, LaInformacià ³n.com and Diario Correo (Peru).

Muslim Women Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Muslim Women - Essay Example Women constitute a group whose rights are systematically violated around the world. A holistic look at an average Muslim woman’s life can help determine the allocation of inferior rights in Islam. In most Muslim countries, especially in the rural regions of developing countries, if girls are born, they are considered as a burden on the family for reasons associated with fear of loss of dignity and honor and as a symbol of inferiority as they are viewed as a cumbersome duty levied on the parents. The omnipresence of these notions varies only slightly across different cultures, but what is important to note here is that these notions are almost ubiquitous. Moreover, upon reaching adolescence, women are obliged by Islamic law to wear hijab (veil) which serves the purpose of covering all of their body from head to toe except the face and hands. In a modern, globalized society like today's, this obligation works more on the subconscious than on the conscious side of the mind. It re inforces the flawed image of patriarchy, in the minds of women, as a self-sustaining way of nature and further suppresses women in society. This carries on to wider scales of inequality where women are subject to ‘the glass ceiling effect’. It is an illusionary structure whereby women are made to believe they can acquire key positions, instead of women are made to go through the male-dominated ways of the world only to fail at the end. There is a large difference in the number of women in international arenas concerning politics.... A holistic look at an average Muslim woman’s life can help determine the allocation of inferior rights in Islam. In most Muslim countries, especially in the rural regions of developing countries, if girls are born, they are considered as a burden on the family for reasons associated with fear of loss of dignity and honour and as a symbol of inferiority as they are viewed as a cumbersome duty levied on the parents. The omnipresence of these notions varies only slightly across different cultures, but what is important to note here is that these notions are almost ubiquitous. Moreover, upon reaching adolescence, women are obliged by Islamic law to wear hijab (veil) which serves the purpose of covering all of their body from head to toe except the face and hands. In a modern, globalised society like todays, this obligation works more on the subconscious than on the conscious side of the mind. It reinforces the flawed image of patriarchy, in the minds of women, as a self-sustaining way of nature and further suppresses women in society. This carries on to wider scales of inequality where women are subject to ‘the glass ceiling effect’. It is an illusionary structure whereby women are made to believe they can acquire key positions, instead women are made to go through the male-dominated ways of the world only to fail at the end. That is precisely why there is a large difference in the number of men and women in international arenas concerning politics, administration and business. An issue that combines traditional Islamic ideology with the modern new-age thinking is the fact that, emerging neo-modern schools of thought promoting women’s rights are artlessly classified as ‘secular Muslim feminism’. This has

Fina 307 assignment 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Fina 307 assignment 2 - Essay Example These offer many range of credit, banking and investment products and services to customers. The clients have been empowered to have access to a franchise network that stretches coast to coast through 32 states and the District of Columbia. Consumer Real Estate Services on the other hand provides real estate products to its customers. Consumer Real Estate Services products include fixed and adjustable mortgage services for loans and residential acquisition. The Global Banking services are intended to provide a range of lending-related products and services, integrated working capital management and treasury solutions to clients, and underwriting and advisory services through the Corporation’s network of offices and client relationship teams along with various product partners. Global Banking’s lending products and services include commercial loans, leases, commitment facilities, trade finance, real estate lending, asset-based lending and direct/indirect consumer loans. Global Markets offers sales and trading services, including research, to institutional clients across fixed income, credit, currency, and commodity and equity businesses. Global Markets product coverage includes securities and derivative products in both the primary and secondary markets. Global Markets provides market-making, financing, securities clearing, settlement and custody services globally to institutional investor clients in support of their investing and trading activities. The global wealth and investment management allows for the provision of a comprehensive wealth management solutions to many of its customers. These services include investment and brokerage services, estate and financial planning, fiduciary portfolio management, cash and liability management, and specia lty asset management. The study carried out a comprehensive statistical analysis of returns of shares of a bank of America

The Patriot Act Essay Example for Free

The Patriot Act Essay After the atrocious terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, the Government has focused an overwhelming amount of attention on combating terrorism. On October 26, 2001 the Bush Administration passed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, infamously known as Patriot Act. Practically, Patriot Act significantly expands the power of the federal government to investigate, detain, and deport those people who the government suspects are linked to terrorist activity and other crimes. Although the US Congress while enacting this bill thought of the ways to protect America from future terrorist attacks, it failed to balance acceptably the Act with Americans’ civil and constitutional liberties (Strickland, 26). Ironically, the bill created to protect against terrorism extends beyond its limited goal, jeopardizing the civil liberties of Americans more than necessary and creating many opportunities for privacy and freedom violations. History illustrates that, in times of peril, hastily taken measures often weaken governmental restrictions against coercive and intrusive powers and often infringe on civil liberties without substantially enhancing security. Throughout United States history, the country allowed civil liberties to be sacrificed in face of what seemed to be legitimate exigencies of war: the Alien and Sedition Acts, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the blacklisting of supposed communist sympathizers during the McCarthy era, and the government’s surveillance of civil rights leaders in the 1960s (Pike, 20). These abuses should not be forgotten in this war against terrorism, but rather used as a lesson that the risk of governmental abuse is substantial. As Louis D. Brandeis explained, â€Å"experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the governments purposes are beneficent . . . The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding† (Gastil and Sussman, 116). This history of abuse indicates that civil liberty violations will likely be a reality if the governmental actions are not carefully constructed with safeguards. From the critical standpoint, the US Patriot Act evidently lacks these safeguards. According to professor Chimerinsky, â€Å"some loss of freedom may be necessary to ensure security; but not every sacrifice of liberty is warranted . . . The central question must be what rights need to be sacrificed, under what circumstances, and for what gain† (Congress Hearings, Lexis-Nexis, 2001). From the very beginning, the Act does not define what a â€Å"suspected terrorist† is, or how the government may go about suspecting someone of terrorism. Potentially, this lack of transparency gives the government an opportunity to use the norms of the Act virtually on every American. The US Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as â€Å"the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives† (28 C. F. R. Section 0. 85). However, this definition is rarely adhered to in practice. Title 2, section 201 of Patriot Act, entitled â€Å"Authority to Intercept Wire, Oral, and Electronic Communications Relating to Terrorism† amends Section 2516(1) of title 18, US Code. It allows any criminal violation relating to chemical weapons or terrorism to authorize eavesdropping on the perpetrator. Section 215 also gives the United States government the right to gain â€Å"access to records and other items under the foreign intelligence surveillance act. † This includes everything from dental records to fingerprints and criminal history. Perhaps the most menacing part of the Patriot Act, however, is Title V, entitled â€Å"Removing Obstacles to Investigating Terrorism,† which features sections which allows DNA identification of terrorists and other violent offenders, forces local law enforcement to relinquish control and all data over to federal law enforcement, allows disclosure of educational records, and allows disclosure of information from NCES surveys. Not only these provisions make the Act to be unjust and inappropriate, but they also violate all the norms established by the US Constitution regarding civil rights and liberties. Guaranteeing the security of the United States is the most fundamental governmental objectives and intelligence surveillance plays a critical role in the protection of national security. However, protecting civil liberties is of great importance, and that is why the issue of surveillance went through years of debate. The values of the Constitution of the United States have united the country for more than 200 years. The framers designed the Constitution to protect civil liberties in times of war as well as in times of peace. It necessary to remember that the Constitution was designed at the time when America won the Revolutionary War; the time that was not comfortable or easy, and enemies posed a real threat. However, protecting civil liberties remained a central goal. Similarly, the current threat of terrorism cannot now be used as justification to disregard civil liberties provided by the Constitution. American ideals and values must be respected to maintain the strength of the United States. Commitment to the principles of the Constitution in the face of terrorist atrocities will serve justice and demonstrate the strength of the United States to the world. Even before September 11th, the government acknowledged that terrorists hope to provoke responses that undermine the Constitution of the United States. For instance, a report published before the Patriot Act argued that counterterrorism policies must be effective, but must also respect the democratic traditions (Bernstein, 29). Meanwhile, the Patriot Act could have profound implications on the democracy of the United States. Privacy involves the relationship of the individual to the state, the most fundamental aspect of a government. Since the beginning of the United States, â€Å"Americans have been committed to the idea that people have the right to control how much information about their thoughts, feelings, choices and political beliefs is disclosed† (France M. et al, 83). Privacy acts as the boundary that provides protection from the outside world and maintains human dignity. Privacy works to shield minorities and outsiders from persecution, something America prides itself in providing. â€Å"By reducing our commitment to privacy, we risk changing what it means to be Americans† (France M. t al, 84). The analysis of the Act’s sections depicts whole unconstitutional character of this controversial bill. For instance, Section 218 blurs the essential distinction between criminal and intelligence surveillance. It requires only that â€Å"a significant purpose† of a search or wiretap be â€Å"to obtain foreign intelligence information† (Hearings, Lexis-Nexis, 3162/218). The addit ion of the word â€Å"significant† eliminates the previous FISA civil liberty safeguard that separated criminal surveillance from intelligence surveillance. Now the Patriot Act allows a search to be performed under the previous surveillance guidelines even if the motivation is to get criminal evidence, not foreign intelligence information. In contemporary context, this change allows the FBI to conduct secret searches or to secretly record telephone conversations without probable cause when their primary purpose is to obtain criminal information, not to gather foreign intelligence (ACLU, 2005). As a result, Section 218 threatens the civil liberties of Americans who pose no terrorist threat. Moreover, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution requires the government to prove to a judicial officer that it has probable cause of a crime before it conducts an invasive search to find evidence of that crime (US Constitution, AM IV). Before the enactment of the Patriot Act, if the primary purpose was a criminal investigation, the law enforcement officials had to first prove the higher standard of probable cause. Investigating criminal activity cannot be the primary purpose of surveillance. However, the change made by Section 218 authorizes unconstitutional activity by impinging on the Fourth Amendment protection that requires probable cause. Section 218 now provides law enforcement officials with a tool to avoid probable cause when conducting criminal investigation surveillance. As long as law enforcement officials can find some aspect of the surveillance relating to intelligence gathering, the surveillance is now very likely to be allowed even if the surveillance is primarily conducted for criminal investigation purposes. Form the critical standpoint, the word â€Å"significant† is not enough of a safeguard to protect the probable cause requirement for criminal investigations. Prior to the Patriot Act, the statutes that governed the use of pen registration and trap and trace devices were structured according to the understanding that the telephone was the predominate method of communication across a distance. To obtain a court order, the law enforcement officer needs to attest that the information to be obtained is â€Å"relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation† (18 U. S. C. , 3123 (a), 2001). In order to have access to the contents of the telephone communication, the officer had to prove probable cause, that is, that a crime has occurred, is occurring, or will occur (18 U. S. C. S. , 3122, 1993). Therefore, previous policy somehow limited the access law enforcement officials have to obtain call content. Not only has the Patriot Act simplified the procedure of obtaining court orders, it also extends the rights of law enforcement officers to access everything from hard-wire telephones to Internet communications. Now, Section 216 gives law enforcement agents access to â€Å"dialing, addressing, routing or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted,† once they have obtained pen register and trap and trace orders. In addition to the outgoing dialed telephone numbers and the origin of the incoming telephone calls, pen registers and trap and trace orders now give access to much more information contained in an electronic communication: the routing, addressing and signaling information of an electronic communication. Taking into consideration that in the US modern history, the FBI has repeatedly abused its powers, the Patriot Act jeopardizes significantly Americans’ right to privacy as well as other civil liberties. For example, during 1960s the FBI has investigated people because of ethnic background or political viewpoint, both of which unjustly invade the sacred American right of individual privacy. Reasons why the government, blindfolded congressmen and other officials allow the possibility for infamous historical incidents and violations to happen again remain unclear. For now, the only thing which is clear is that my personal privacy as well as privacy of my family and friends is under constant threat. Quite possibly, my email correspondence with my foreign friends or relatives is under careful watch of FBI or other Homeland Security agents. My educational records along with other private information are easily accessible for unclear and non-transparent purposes. And although my correspondence, my online diaries, weblogs, email, etc do not represent any threat for the United States, there is no justification and reasons for why they should be available for surveillance. Finally, the US Patriot Act is apparently neither effective vehicle to protect citizens from terrorism nor it conforms to the Constitution. Practically, it impedes your, my, their civil liberties. The Government should have first determined and analyzed the barriers inhibiting effective use of existing policies that protect against terrorism, and only then utilize such aggressive control over our liberty.

Good Usage is Simply Correct Grammar Essay example -- Teaching Writing

Good Usage is Simply Correct Grammar What is good use? Does it even matter? Those are not easy questions to answer. Is good use just simply using correct grammar or is everyone who is using it just trying to speak above everyone else? What I mean by "trying to speak above others" is using large words, which you normally would not use, just to sound more intelligent than you actually are. I think the type of usage a person uses depends on the audience, the topic, and why the person is writing. Why does good usage have to involve more than just those items? My answer to that question is that it does not. There are, in fact, many different types of good usage. There is good usage for friendly letters, resumes, cover letters, applications and etc. For instance, I would not write a letter to a friend and use the same type of language I would use in a paper for a professor. The letter would be more casual while the paper would be much more formal. If I wrote the personal letter in a formal way the reader would take one look at the letter and think I was just trying to impress someone. However, that does not mean that I am not using good usage in that letter. I still use correct grammar, check the punctuation, and check the spelling. That is what I consider good usage to be. As long as I still do those items isnà ­t that okay for a friendly letter? My friend reading that letter does not want to have to look up every other word in the dictionary. Now let's say I was writing a resume cover letter. I would not write something like à ¬Hey, Ià ­d be a good asset to your companyà ®. Instead I would write something to the effect of à ¬I feel I could be a desired asset in your companyà ®. I would choose the second statement because it sounds more... ...ing to say here? Basically, I am saying that good usage consists only of using correct grammar (paragraphs, punctuation, spelling, etc.) and has absolutely nothing to do with knowing all those "75 cent" words. People do not want to listen to other people trying to act smart and show off. Why does it matter? People need proper usage to get employed, receive good grades, to even get acknowledged in the "real world," and just simply to be accepted. Should good usage matter? This is tricky because it should not matter how proper people can speak as long as they do not sound "dumb as a rock" (if they are not) and they are able to perform their jobs well. Yet, we should not be running around saying sentences like "I ain't got no pen so I ain't gonna do my homework" because this is not even close to correct grammar which is my definition of what good usage really is.

An Analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood Context Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 18, 1939. She published her first book of poetry in 1961 while attending the University of Toronto. She later received degrees from both Radcliffe College and Harvard University, and pursued a career in teaching at the university level. Her first novel, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969 to wide acclaim. Atwood continued teaching as her literary career blossomed. She has lectured widely and has served as a writer-in–residence at colleges ranging from the University of Toronto to Macquarie University in Australia.Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in West Berlin and Alabama in the mid-1980s. The novel, published in 1986, quickly became a best-seller. The Handmaid’s Tale falls squarely within the twentieth-century tradition of anti-utopian, or â€Å"dystopian† novels, exemplified by classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orw ell’s 1984. Novels in this genre present imagined worlds and societies that are not ideals, but instead are terrifying or restrictive. Atwood’s novel offers a strongly feminist vision of dystopia.She wrote it shortly after 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 religious conservatives who criticized what they perceived as the excesses of the â€Å"sexual revolution† of the 1960s and 1970s. The growing power of this â€Å"religious right† heightened feminist fears that the gains women had made in previous decades would be reversed. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood explores the consequences of a reversal of women’s rights.In the novel’s nightmare world of Gilead, a group of conservative religious extremists has taken power and turned the sexual revolution on its head. Feminists argu ed for liberation from traditional gender roles, but Gilead is a society founded on a â€Å"return to traditional values† and gender roles, and on the subjugation of women by men. What feminists considered the great triumphs of the 1970s—namely, widespread access to contraception, the legalization of abortion, and the increasing political influence of female voters—have all been undone. Women in Gilead are not only forbidden to vote, they are forbidden to read or write.Atwood’s novel also paints a picture of a world undone by pollution and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears about declining birthrates, the dangers of nuclear power, and -environmental degradation. Some of the novel’s concerns seem dated today, and its implicit condemnation of the political goals of America’s religious conservatives has been criticized as unfair and overly paranoid. Nonetheless, The Handmaid’s Tale remains one of the most powerful recent portrayals of a totalitarian society, and one of the few dystopian novels to examine in detail the intersection of politics and sexuality.The novel’s exploration of the controversial politics of reproduction seems likely to guarantee Atwood’s 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 Britain’s Booker Prize for literature in 2000. Plot Overview Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving.Offred serves the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, a former gospel singer and advocate for â€Å"traditional values. † Offred is not the narrator’s real name—Handmaid names consist of the word â€Å"of† f ollowed by the name of the Handmaid’s Commander. Every month, when Offred is at the right point in her menstrual cycle, she must have impersonal, wordless sex with the Commander while Serena sits behind her, holding her hands. Offred’s freedom, like the freedom of all women, is completely restricted.She can leave the house only on shopping trips, the door to her room cannot be completely shut, and the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police force, watch her every public move. As Offred tells the story of her daily life, she frequently slips into flashbacks, from which the reader can reconstruct the events leading up to the beginning of the novel. In the old world, before Gilead, Offred had an affair with Luke, a married man. He divorced his wife and married Offred, and they had a child together. Offred’s mother was a single mother and feminist activist. Offred’s best friend, Moira, was fiercely independent.The architects of Gilead began their rise to power in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against women—when pollution and chemical spills led to declining fertility rates. Using the military, they assassinated the president and members of Congress and launched a coup, claiming that they were taking power temporarily. They cracked down on women’s rights, forbidding women to hold property or jobs. Offred and Luke took their daughter and attempted to flee across the border into Canada, but they were caught and separated from one another, and Offred has seen neither her husband nor her daughter since.After her capture, Offred’s marriage was voided (because Luke had been divorced), and she was sent to the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, called the Red Center by its inhabitants. At the center, women were indoctrinated into Gilead’s ideology in preparation for becoming Handmaids. Aunt Lydia supervised the women, giving speeches extolling Gilead’s beliefs that women shou ld be subservient to men and solely concerned with bearing children. Aunt Lydia also argued that such a social order ultimately offers women more respect and safety than the old, pre-Gilead society offered them.Moira is brought to the Red Center, but she escapes, and Offred does not know what becomes of her. Once assigned to the Commander’s house, Offred’s life settles into a restrictive routine. She takes shopping trips with Ofglen, another Handmaid, and they visit 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 â€Å"Ceremony,† in which the Commander reads to the household from the Bible, then goes to the bedroom, where his Wife and Offred wait for him, and has sex with Offred.The first break from her routine 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 risky—she could be sent away 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 play Scrabble (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 â€Å"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 nighttime conversations begin to touch on the new order that the Commander and his fellow leaders have created in Gilead. When Offred admits how unhappy she is, the Commander remarks, â⠂¬Å"[Y]ou can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. †After some time has gone by without Offred becoming pregnant, Serena suggests that Offred have sex with Nick secretly and pass the child off as the Commander’s. Serena promises to bring Offred a picture of her daughter if she sleeps with Nick, and Offred realizes that Serena has always known the whereabouts of Offred’s daughter. The same night that Offred is to sleep with Nick, the Commander secretly takes her out to a club called Jezebel’s, where the Commanders mingle with prostitutes. Offred sees Moira working there. The two women meet in a bathroom, and Offred learns that Moira was captured just before she crossed the border.She chose life in Jezebel’s over being sent to the Colonies, where most political prisoners and dangerous people are sent. After that night at Jezebel’s, Offred says, she never sees Moira again. The Commander takes Offred upstairs after a few hours, and th ey have sex in what used to be a hotel room. She tries to feign passion. Soon after Offred returns from Jezebel’s, late at night, Serena arrives and tells Offred to go to Nick’s room. Offred and Nick have sex. Soon they begin to sleep together frequently, without anyone’s knowledge.Offred becomes caught up in the affair and ignores Ofglen’s requests that she gather information from the Commander for Mayday. One day, all the Handmaids take part in a group execution of a supposed 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 new Ofglen meets her. This new 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 found out about Offred’s trip to Jezebel’s, and s he 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 really Mayday members who have come to save her. Offred leaves with them, over the Commander’s futile objections, on her way either to prison or to freedom—she 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 significance of Offred’s story, which has turned up on cassette tapes in Bangor, Maine. He suggests that Nick arranged Offred’s 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 Handmaid’s Tale. Offred belongs 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 â€Å"Of. Offred remembers 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 pervade 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 relationship with Offred, secretly playing Scrabble with her in his study at night.He often 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 the epilogue that the Comm ander was actually involved in designing and establishing Gilead. Read an in-depth analysis of The Commander. Serena Joy – The Commander’s Wife, Serena worked in pre-Gilead days as a gospel singer, then as an anti-feminist activist and crusader for â€Å"traditional values. In Gilead, she sits at the top of the female social ladder, yet she is desperately unhappy. Serena’s 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 – Offred’s 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 att empts and finally manages to get away from the Red Center. However, she is caught before she can get out of Gilead. Later, Offred encounters Moira working 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 â€Å"Red Center,† the re? education center where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids. Although she appears only in Offred’s flashbacks, Aunt Lydia and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Aunt Lydia’s 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 i n the ideology, hear Gilead’s words echoing in their heads. Nick – Nick is a Guardian, a low-level officer of Gilead assigned to the Commander’s home, where he works as a gardener and chauffeur.He and Offred have a sexual chemistry that they get to satisfy 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, Gilead’s secret police, or as a member of the underground Mayday resistance, or both. At the end of the novel, Nick orchestrates Offred’s escape from the Commander’s home, but we do not know whether he puts her into the hands of the Eyes or the resistance.Ofglen – Another Handmaid who is Offred’s shopping partner and a member of the subversive â€Å"Mayday† underground. At the end of the novel, Ofglen is found out, and she hangs herself rather than face torture and reveal the names of her co-conspirators. Cora – Cora works as a servant in the Commander’s 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 deformed—an â€Å"Unbaby†Ã¢â‚¬â€and there are rumors that her doctor fathered the child. Janine is a conformist, always ready to go along with what Gilead demands of her, and so she endears herself to the Aunts and to all authority figures.Offred holds Janine in contempt for taking the easy w ay 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 Offred’s husband. When Gilead comes 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 shared is prohibited in Gilead, and Offred’s memories of Luke contrast with the regimented, passionless state of male-female relations in the new society.Offred’s mother – Offred remembers her mother in flashbacks to her pre-Gilead world—she 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 stamp out. Aunt Elizabeth – Aunt Elizabeth is one of t he Aunts at the Red Center. Moira attacks her and steals her Aunt’s uniform during her escape from the Red Center. Rita – A Martha, or domestic servant, in the Commander’s household.She seems less content with her lot than Cora, the other Martha working there. Professor Pieixoto – The guest speaker at the symposium that takes place in the epilogue to The Handmaid’s Tale. He and another academic, working at a university in the year 2195, transcribed Offred’s 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 sense of humor—a graveyard wit that makes her descriptions of the bleak horrors of Gilead bearable, even enjoyable. Like most of the women in Gilead, 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 fails, she submits outwardly.She is hardly a feminist champion; she had always felt uncomfortable with her mother’s activism, and her pre-Gilead relationship 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 feminism won and now pays the price. The Commander The Commander poses an ethical problem for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offred’s Commander and the immediate agent of her oppression. As a founder 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 Offred’s evenings with the Commander in his study offer her a small respite from the wasteland of her life.At times, his unhappiness and need for companionship make him seem as much a prisoner of Gilead’s strictures as anyone else. Offred finds herself feeling sympathy for this man. Ultimately, Offred and the reader recognize that if the Commander is a prisoner, the prison is one that he himself helped construct and that his prison is heaven compared to th e 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 doesn’t seem to care that they put Offred at terrible risk, a fact of which he must be aware, given that the previous Handmaid hanged herself when her visits to the Commander were discovered. The Commander’s moral blindness, apparent in his attempts to explain the virtues of Gilead, are highlighted by his and Offred’s visit to Jezebel’s. The club, a place where the elite men of the society can engage in recreational extramarital sex, reveals the rank hypocrisy that runs through Gileadean society.Offred’s 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. â€Å"How easy it is to inve nt 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 he, like the Nazi guard, is a monster. Serena JoyThough Serena had been an advocate for traditional values and the establishment of the Gileadean state, her bitterness at the outcome—being confined to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a Handmaid—suggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes might not enjoy getting their way as much as they believe they would. Serena’s 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 moment in Serena’s 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 Offred’s pregnancy: she gets to raise the baby. Furthermore, Serena’s offer to show Offred a picture of her lost daughter if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has always known of Offred’s daughter’s whereabouts. Not only has she cruelly concealed this knowledge, she is willing to exploit Offred’s loss of a child in order to get an infant of her own.Serena’s lack of sympathy makes her the perfect tool for Gilead’s 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, Moira’s relationship with Offred epitomizes female friendship. Gi lead 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 Offred’s 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 Gilead 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 escapes—taking off her clothes and putting on the uniform of an Aunt—symbolizes her rejection of Gilead’s 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 one’s fate that most of the Handmaids adopt.When Offred runs into Moira, Moira has been recaptured and is working as a pro stitute at Jezebel’s, 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. Women’s Bodies as Political Instruments Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically ecreased birthrates, the state’s entire structure, with its religious trappings and rigid political hierarchy, is built around a single goal: control of reproduction. The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete control of women’s 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. Des pite all of Gilead’s 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 novel’s 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 seeks 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 needs of the new society’s elite.Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles. Whereas men are defined by their military rank, women are defined solely by their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. Stripping them of permanent individual na mes strips them of their individuality, or tries to. Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the terms â€Å"Unwomen† and â€Å"Unbabies. † Blacks and Jews are defined by biblical terms (â€Å"Children of Ham† and â€Å"Sons of Jacob,† respectively) that set them apart from the rest of society, making their persecution easier.There 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 â€Å"Prayvaganzas,† â€Å"Salvagings,† and â€Å"Particicutions. † Dystopian novels about the dangers of totalitarian society frequently explore the connection between a state’s repression of its subjects and its perversion of language (â€Å"Newspeak† in George Orwell’s 1984 is the most famous example), and The Handmaid’s Tale carries on this tradition. Gilea d maintains its control over women’s 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 saying that it is â€Å"truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. † Offred’s complacency after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the truth 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 Gilead’s existence by willingly participatin g 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 similar 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, keep a close eye out for rebellion, and generally serve the same function for Gilead that the Jewish police did under Nazi rule. Atwood’s 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 ar e recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Rape and Sexual Violence Sexual violence, particularly against women, pervades The Handmaid’s 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 protected 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 bare hands a supposed rapist (actually a member of the resistance). Yet, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebel’s, 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 compe ls Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. Religious Terms Used for Political Purposes Gilead is a theocracy—a government in which there is no separation between state and religion—and its official vocabulary incorporates religious terminology and biblical references. Domestic servants are called â€Å"Marthas† in reference to a domestic character in the New Testament; the local police are â€Å"Guardians of the Faith†; soldiers are â€Å"Angels†; and the Commanders are officially â€Å"Commanders of the Faithful. All 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. Politics and religion sleep in the same bed in Gilead, where the slogan â€Å"God is a National Resource† predominates. Similarities between Reactionary and Feminist IdeologiesAlthough The Handmaid’s 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 Offred’s 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 also uses the feminist rhetoric of female solidarity and â€Å"sisterhood† to its own advantage. These points of similarity imply the existence of a dark side of feminist rhetoric. Despite Atwood’s gentle criticism of the feminist left, her re al 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 Gilead’s 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 America’s first religious and intolerant society—the Puritan New England of the seventeenth century. Atwood reminds us of this history with the ancient Puritan church that Offred and Ofglen visit early in the novel, which Gilead has turned into a museum. The choice of Cambridge as a setting symbolizes the direct link between the Puritans and their spiritual heirs in Gilead. Both groups dealt harshly with religious, sexual, or political deviation. Harvard UniversityGilead has transformed Harvard’s buildings into a detention center run by the Eyes, Gilead’s secret po lice. Bodies of executed dissidents hang from the Wall that runs around 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 caste’s 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 the ir 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 Gilead’s secret police. Both their name and their insignia, a winged eye, symbolize the eternal watchfulness of God and the totalitarian state. In Gilead’s theocracy, the eye of God and of the state are assumed to be one and the same. Chapters 1–3 Summary: Chapter 1 The narrator, whose name we learn later is Offred, describes how she and other women slept on army 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, quietly exchanging names with the other women. Summary: Chapter 2The scene changes, and the story shifts from the past to the present tense. Offred now lives in a room fitted out with curtains, a pillow, a framed 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 â€Å"Marthas,† wear green uniforms. â€Å"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 Offred’s 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 cou ld have been in Offred’s situation. Offred wishes she could alk to them, but Marthas are not supposed to develop relationships with Handmaids. She wishes that she could share gossip like they do—gossip about how one Handmaid gave birth to a stillborn, how a Wife stabbed a Handmaid with a knitting needle 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 Commander’s Wife but does not see her.The Commander’s Wife has a garden, and she knits constantly. All the Wives knit scarves â€Å"for the Angels at the front lines,† but the Commander’s 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 remem bers arriving at the Commander’s house for the first time, after the two couples to which she was previously assigned â€Å"didn’t work out. † One of the Wives in an earlier posting secluded herself in the bedroom, purportedly drinking, and Offred hoped the new Commander’s 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. â€Å"It’s 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 program that aired when Offred was a child. Analysis: Chapters 1–5The Handmaid’s Tale plunges im mediately into an unfamiliar, unexplained world, using unfamiliar terms like â€Å"Handmaid,† â€Å"Angel,† and â€Å"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 Offred’s memories of the Marthas’ gossip and her first meeting with the Commander’s 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 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. Offre d likens the gym to a palimpsest, a parchment either erased and written on again or layered with multiple writings. In the gym palimpsest, Offred sees multiple layers of history: high school 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 atmosphere 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 sexual—Cora comments that she could have done Offred’s work if she hadn’t gotten her tubes tied, which implies that Offred’s function is reproductive. Serena Joy’s coldness to Offred makes it plain that she considers Offred a threat, or at least an annoyance. We do know from Offred’s name that she, like all Handmaids, is considered state property.Handmaids’ names simply reflect which Commander owns them. â€Å"Of Fred,† â€Å"Of Warren,† and â€Å"Of Glen† get collapsed into â€Å"Offred,† â€Å"Ofwarren,† and â€Å"Ofglen. † The names make more sense when preceded by the word â€Å"Property†: â€Å"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 novel’s style, which is charac terized by considerable physical description. The narrator devotes attention to the features of the gym, the Commander’s house, and Serena Joy’s pinched face.Offred tells the story in nonlinear fashion, following the temporal leaps of her own mind. The narrative goes where her thoughts take it—one moment to the present, in the Commander’s house, and the next back in the gymnasium, or in the old world, the United States as it exists in Offred’s 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 4–6 Summary: Chapter 4 As she leaves the house to go shopping, Offred notices Nick, a Guardian of the Faith, washing the Commander’s car. Nick liv es above the garage. He winks at Offred—an offense against -decorum— but she ignores him, fearing that he may be an Eye, a spy 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 isn’t strictly orthodox.Ofglen says that she has heard the war is going well, and that the army recently defeated a group of Baptist rebels. â€Å"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 nervous 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 sex-starved 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 â€Å"Handmaid† used. Summary: Chapter 5 In town, Ofglen and Offred wait in line at the shops. We learn the name of this new society: â€Å"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 s treet. 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 â€Å"[i]n 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 or fruit mark the stores, rather than lettered signs, because â€Å"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 Lydia’s 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 everyday l ife 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 guilty 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 take a photograph, but Offred says no.Many of the interpreters are Eyes, and Handmaids must not appear immodest. Offred and Ofglen marvel at the women’s 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 nearby 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 authorities hang the bodies of executed criminals as examples to the rest of the Republic of Gilead. The authorities cover the men’s 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 Luke’s, 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 4–6 The theocratic nature of Offred’s 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 official 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 â€Å"Gilead† refers to a location in ancient Israel. The name also recalls a line from the Book of Psalms: â€Å"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 Gilead’s state religion. In Chapter 2, Offred describes her room as â€Å"a return to traditional values. † The religious right in America uses the phrase â€Å"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 Handmaid’s Tale explores the political oppression of women, carried out in the name of God but in large part moti vated by a desire to control women’s bodies.Gilead sees women’s 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 reading, which is forbidden. Women are not even allowed to read store signs. By controlling women’s minds, by not allowing them to read, the authorities more easily control women’s bodies. The patriarchs of Gilead want to control women’s bodies, their sex lives, and their reproductive rights.The bodies of slain abortionists on the Wall hammer 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 horrifying 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 Handmaid’s 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 fictional 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 7–9 Summary: Chapter 7I would like to believe this is a story I’m tel ling. 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 waking 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, holding 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 writi ng 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 â€Å"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 miscarriage—one that came too early to know whether it was an â€Å"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 Commander’s home, Ofglen says â€Å"Under His Eye,† the orthodox good-bye, hesitating as if she wants to say more but then continuing on her way. When Offred reaches the Commander’s 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 Serena’s singing career ended, she became a spokesperson for respecting the â€Å"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 tried to assassinate Serena but killed her secretary instead. Offred wonders if Serena is angry that she can no longer be a public figure, 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 remember s 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 appreciate 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 Commander’s 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 freshly scratched into the floor of the closet: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.Offred does not understand 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, gue ssing, â€Å"[t]he 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 7–9Atwood suggests that those who seek to restrict sexual expression, whether they are feminists or religious conservatives, ultimately share the same goal—the control of sexuality, particularly women’s sexuality. In the flashback to the scene from Offred’s 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 feminists, 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-porn ography crusades that preceded the fall of the United States. Gilead actually appropriates some of the rhetoric of women’s 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 rings in Offred’s 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 Offred’s psyche throughout the novel, and the novel’s 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 daughter’s disappearance, Offred often seems to draw on a partial o r 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 trauma—thinking 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 â€Å"you. † She could be talking to God, Luke, or an imaginary future reader. â€Å"I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling,† Offred says. â€Å"Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance . . A story is a letter. Dear You, I’ll say. † In the act of telling her imagined audience about her life, Offred reduces her life’s horror and makes its oppressive weight endurable. Also, if she can think o f 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 women’s 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 thumb by making their lives miserable. In many ways, she treats Offred far worse than the Commander does, which suggests that Gilead’s oppressive power structure succeeds not just because men created it, but because women like Serena sustain it.Nolite te bastardes carbo rundorum—the Latin phrase scrawled in Offred’s closet by a previous Handmaid—takes on a magical importance for Offred even before she knows what it means. It symbolizes her inner resistance to Gilead’s 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 Offred’s resistance comes to seem perfectly appropriate. Chapters 10–12 Summary: Chapter 10 Offred often sings songs in her head—â€Å"Amazing Grace† or songs by Elvis.Most music is forbidden in Gilead, and there is little of it in the Commander’s 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 their summer dresses. Offred thinks about how Aunt Lydia would describe t he 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 â€Å"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 cushion 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 doctor’s office, Offred undresses, pulling a sheet over her body. A sheet hangs down from the ceiling, cutting off the doctor’s view of her face. The doctor is not supposed to see her fac e 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 â€Å"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 â€Å"Unwomen. † Offred also feels frightened, she realizes, because she has been given a way ou t. Summary: Chapter 12It is one of Offred’s required bath days. The bathroom has no mirror, no razors, and no lock on the door. Cora sits outside, waiting for Offred. Offred’s own naked body seems strange to her, and she finds it hard to believe that she once wore bathing 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 Offred’s then-five-year-old child from her, and three years have passed since then.Offred has no mementos of her daughter. She remember

Advantage and disadvantages of social networking Essay

Since the advent of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, there has been much debate on their benefits and detriments. While social networking sites are a useful tool in our increasingly connected world, they can also adversely affect our development and the nature of our social interactions. Hence, it is important to first identify their advantages and disadvantages to effectively use them. Social networking sites offer a medium for people to keep in touch with their acquaintances and maintain constant contact with their friends. This increased connectivity opens new paths for relationships to be built and bonds to be strengthened. In this way, social networking sites help to complement and enhance a person’s social experience. Sites such as Facebook and Tumblr allow people to find out more about their friends’ interests, as well as their personal lives, which can lead to more fruitful conversations and discussions, leading to better and stronger relationships. Read more: Essay on social media advantages and disadvantages Additionally, social networking sites help people to share their thoughts and feelings with one another. Twitter is an example where this sharing of thoughts is facilitated in an innovative way. Displaying trends allow people to find out about current events and keep up with the news. By linking Twitter to other social media like Facebook and Instagram, it opens more possibilities for sharing and learning. Moreover, social networking sites can help bolster productivity by acting as a medium for people to discuss freely and share ideas, especially when face-to-face meetings are difficult to organise. Online discussions also allow information to be processed easily, are generally more orderly, and can be stored safely. Social networking also provides opportunities for studies such as surveys to be conducted easily. Hence, social networking sites can be used as a tool to boost productivity. On the other hand, social networking sites deprive us of face-to-face interaction, which is detrimental to the development of social skills, especially for adolescents. By removing opportunities for direct social contact, our ability to interpret expressions and decipher tones decreases,  affecting future interactions with others as well as our relationships. Lack of face-to-face interaction can also affect our emotional health as we require the intimacy and affection of fellow human beings to achieve emotional stability. Use of social networking sites also results in more opportunities to fall prey to scams and other online threats. Certain sites can be utilized by hackers to introduce viruses in various ways, or by scammers to con unsuspecting victims. Social networking make victims feel safe as they believe themselves to be surrounded by friends, making it easier for them to fall prey to such threats. Furthermore, social networking has increased cases of cyber-bullying, especially prevalent among youths, which causes harm to victims and in extreme cases, can lead to depression and lead to suicide. The perpetrators of these acts can remain anonymous in an online setting and can continually harm and threaten victims, causing much distress. Evidently, such dangers cannot be taken lightly. In conclusion, social networking sites offer great benefits when effectively utilized, but as with all tools, it inherently possesses some risks and problems which must be mitigated. As social media continues to evolve, we can only hope it changes for the better and continues to enhance our social lives.