About the fact that we always assume that things such as totalitarian governments, stripping us of our rights, and fundamentalist control could never happen to us, but this shows us that there is always a possibility and we should not be so naive. Total trust in governmental rulers is never a good idea, and this novel demonstrates it well. Atwood gives us key aspects and hints as per the events leading up to it, and small hints which people did not take notice to, as they trusted the stability of the system and did not actually want to address the fact that things were going downhill. Abuse is masked as protection in Gilead. This is the sort of fundamental mental manipulation which is used in Gilead to make people form a trusting bond between the aunts, within the school. The reference to Jezebels can be seen in the Bible

“There is more than one kind of freedom… freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.”

“Through the centuries, the name Jezebel came to be associated with false prophets. By the early 20th century, it was also associated with fallen or abandoned women.[16] In Christian lore, a comparison to Jezebel suggested that a person was a pagan or an apostate masquerading as a servant of God. By manipulation and/or seduction, she misled the saints of God into sins of idolatry and sexual immorality.[17] In particular, Christians associated Jezebel with promiscuity. In the Middle Ages, the chronicler Matthew Paris criticised Isabella of Angoulême, the queen consort of John, King of England, by claiming that she was ‘more Jezebel than Isabel.’[18] In modern usage, the name of Jezebel is sometimes used as a synonym for sexually promiscuous and/or controlling women,[19] especially as a racist stereotype of Black women, the Jezebel stereotype.[20]”

 

 

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