Margaret Attwoods novel “Tjenerinnens tale” (eng. “The Handmaid’s Tale”), is not a simple novel. It is painful to read and it has many layers. Superficially, it can be understood as Sandra Bruflot portrayed it, right enough, with the base in the TV series “A Handmaid’s Tale”, which is based on the book:
“A society where fertile women are being kidnapped, abused and raped during ovulation in order to carry forward children for couples who are unable to have children. The women are shared out to each family, and are forced to bear forth children that they later have to deliver. Try to oppose this they are tortured, sent into labour camps to die, or are killed”.
Tjenerinnens account , however, has a deeper plan. The starting point for the book is “The second sex”, a philosophical work written by Simone de Beauvoir, where she, among other things, holds that moderskapet to preclude that the woman can be free – that the woman’s womb makes the woman to a livegen.
The Attwood makes in the novel is to show a society on the brink of annihilation, and how this community as a result of this, no longer accepts the fertile woman as a free individual.
Before Gilead was There, saw the community falling fertility rates, frequent dødfødsler, high spedbarnsmortalitet and frequent occurrence of severe and deadly birth defects in nyføde. These newborns are referred to in the novel as “Ubarn”.
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the Community also suffers from the shortcoming of many other resources. Infertile women are pure expenditure items, and is defined therefore as “Ukvinner” unless they are willing to serve as “Aunts”-guardians of the fertile women. Other “Ukvinner” sent to the colonies to clean up toxic fallout or – at best – to grow the food society needs.
The same fate meetings tjenerinnene, the day they are no longer able to have children. Society has no use for older and infertile women. The fertile women are divided into two groups: Økonokoner, which by being god-fearing, fearsome, and faithful married already is under control. These women will have to be at ektemennene, as long as they accept that their fate is to bear children, to be her husband’s submissive, and live in obedience.
The rebellious women – the divorced, the remarriage, samboerskene, ekteskapsbryterskene that have entered into a relationship to married men, the lesbians – as Gilead is called “kjønnsforrædere”, and the unmarried alenemødrene given the choice between becoming tjenerinner or to be sent to the colonies. These women have lived in an understanding of freedom, and must therefore be regulated far stricter than the obedient økonokonene.
Fertile women, as well økonokoner as tjenerinner, be considered and treated as a mere resource community owner in the community. A økonokone that violates the law in any way, may be punished with to get the choice to become a handmaid, or to be sent to the colonies. Product tjenerinnene can produce is so important that it must be taken care of by the most resourceful – kommandørfamiliene. The product – children – are the alpha and omega for the community to Gilead to be able to survive and continue.
Gilead is governed by old testament laws. In The old testament we find a solid hold to the idea that the woman is samfunnseiendom, and that the woman should be managed – of the men. The woman is short and good for a important for the community, that she can raw of himself. Her body and her life is not her own, for she cannot be set free – as she could the find to go her way, refuse to have children, or have children with a man from another community.
Gilead is perhaps an impossibility, but the thought behind the novel “Tjenerinnens tale”, is in the very highest degree vital.
the Community has at any time gone far in controlling the woman’s sexuality, and life. Shame and the application of fault has been the effective weapon to regulate the woman. And there was also the shame of the organization dignity grip to, then they should give their response to the commemoration in front of the castle Tuesday.
the Beast lives in the best of health. Without a child, dying humanity out. A society must, at any time, have a certain number of fertile women, and these women have to give birth to children for society to be maintained, survive, and continue. Society is, ultimately, depending on the women’s uterus – an organ that is located on the inside of the female body.
The fertile woman is society’s most important resource. This was recently demonstrated, when Erna Solberg in his nyttårstale motherly encouraged women to have more children. Because the society she leads, need that birth figures go up. It doesn’t matter what else we create values – unless we maintain a sufficiently high fødselsrate, visit the community in the stand.
Women can røves . Women are raped. You kill all the men in a society, you can use the women who is again to strengthen your own community. No women are so hated, as women who are located with, and get children with a enemy. This we saw recently in krigsoppgjøret after the second world war, with the battering of the so-called “tyskertøsene”, where the mother’s “sin” also hit her children, in both the first and the second generation.
The fertile woman as a resource, are favored with freedom. Up to a limit. The limit goes by the uterus. The woman’s uterus, or rather what is in the womb of her, has never been something society has accepted as only her own case.
We have had abortforbud. We have had nemnder. We eventually got a abortlov. Sector in particular, has fought against this abortloven from the first day. They don’t seem to have given up. It seems that there is a huge distance between Erna’s friendly recommendation to have more children, and Kjell Britain Ropstads claim that pregnant women will have an abortion, ought to adopt away these children in pure solidarity with childless women, not to talk about Ropstads assertion that “if you manage to carry forward one, so do you well to carry forth two”, but the whole idea is the same: Women have to give birth.
the Difference lies in the fact that it may seem as if forces in the Sector still believe that it is to bear, is woman’s primary role. In Gilead, it is called “to embrace his biological destiny as a woman”.
Tjenerinnekostymet is a subdued but the strong protest against a premise that still underlies when abortloven, or bioteknologiloven to be discussed: the Woman is only free to a certain extent – she can’t be alone with raw over her own uterus, and thus also not of his own life.
In the abortdebatten be often the fetus before the woman. Chew a little on that: the Woman, the babies, adults individual, shall be set aside for the unborn fetus. We allow that, we reduce at the same time effectively the woman to a clean produksjonsdyr. Set the woman free! Give her the same obvious right to rule over his own body and his own life, as he always had.
himla pissed off noise must the government and Ropstad withstand Comment
