Essay Topics For the Handmaids Tale - How to Structure Your Essay About the Book

Essay Topics For the Handmaid's Tale - How to Structure Your Essay About the BookWhat essay topics for the Handmaid's Tale are most likely to appear in a college-level composition or research paper? I have heard of some memorable ones, but when I got ready to write my own, I didn't know where to begin. The Handmaid's Tale, which is based on a novel by Margaret Atwood, is an astonishingly good piece of speculative fiction; it is the first novel that I've read that has left me feeling inspired to take action.I remember that I was struck by the first paragraph of the book when I read it for the first time: 'Here is the situation. A few decades ago, a North Carolina fundamentalist movement built a massive wall around the future American Republic from the other side of the country. This wall was strong enough to stop any outsiders and powerful enough to control those inside. For years, the Republican party in the country served as a government within a government, with a totalitarian lead er ruling from the top.As a consequence, not a lot of people outside of the North Carolina religious community were familiar with what was happening. In fact, the North Carolina authorities made it illegal for people outside the wall to know anything about what was going on in their midst. No one could hear what they were doing, because the guards took care of that.The book then recounts the story of Offred, who has been selected as a handmaid in this state, and how she must learn to embrace her wild child tendencies before she is executed. How will she learn? We are introduced to passages that tell us, in general terms, what the various types of work may be. The entire project seems to be rather large, and almost comical, in its complexity and scope.It seems to me that the essay topics for the Handmaid's Taleshould include the range of jobs for which the women are likely to have expertise. There are almost certainly several aspects of work that would be unfamiliar to someone outsid e of the political movement to which they belong. Thus, the issues surrounding sexual relationships are of particular importance. My plan for the essay would include five parts, each of which would discuss a single topic.Part One would discuss the society, including any information about its basic ideology. Part Two would cover legal aspects of the society, including issues of equal rights for men and women. Part Three would deal with economic issues, including any information about economics.Part Four would be devoted to the political situation in the Handmaid's world, including information about the various political parties, what they stand for, and who their leadership is. Part Five would be about the culture, including ideas about religion, literature, music, art, and film. Finally, Part Six would address the economics, including some economic analysis of the world, and how such analysis would be presented.The essays in this course will deal with the topics of The Handmaid's Ta le, but they will do so in a way that's more comprehensive than simply summarizing the plot. The material will include a variety of detailed examples of material from the story and will give an insight into the workings of such an exceptional culture.