Atwood obviously had her own opinions about religion that she was trying to convey throughout the book. The entire ceremony was a slap in the face to some of the rules that the bible states people should follow. The ceremony was rape. Plain and simple. She did not want it to happen, she did not desire for or long for it, it was something that was expected from her from her society. “If he were better looking would I enjoy this more?” (95) She brings up the fact that it was not rape because she signed up for it but what other choice did she have? This excuss was just another way for her to justify in her mind a ceremony that she knows is wrong. Also if she did not sign up for what she was doing she would not have been able to have children, which was a gift from God to the women of the world.
It is interesting that the entire room is described to be white. White is usually a symbol of purity and cleanliness, and what was happening in the room was quite the opposite. It is justified to be pure of sin because the Wife was present. This is obviously part of Atwood’s satire because the way she set up the situation is not how the bible intended it to be. She made sure that the childbirth scene was as painful as she could make it because she wanted to emphasize that because of woman’s sin, we now have to deal with a painful childbirth. The worst part about the women in the The Handmaids Tail is that they go through all of that work, with no baby to lighten them of the pain.

“I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.” (263)

This quote can represent every women in this book, and also portrays how corrupt their society really is. Moria had the “shame” that Offred is talking about. Moria wanted to make love not go through a ceremony. Moria wanted to be able to talk to her girlfriends, not have so many restrictions. This is the shame. If Moria had none of this shame she would have been ignorant like many of the other Handmaids. However how many shameless characters were there really in the entire book? Janine on the outside seemed to follow all of the rules without thinking twice about going against society. However there were rumors going around that it was her doctor that had gotten her pregnant. So how shameless was she? The men of the society always had Jezebel to look forward and Serena Joy wanted to get Offred pregnant so that she did not have to go though another ceremony with her. Each character is at a different level of ignorance, and the ones with the most lust in their lives seem to be the happiest. The society may not have many uprisings, however through all of the secrets and lies; it is already on its way to corruption.



The Handmaids Tail is my favorite book that we have read so far. I liked the fact that we finally read a book that was in the point of view of a woman. Sometimes it is easier to visualize the story and why the main character does certain actions and makes certain decisions simply because she is a woman. I also am interested in women’s history. And although this is far from women’s history the book dealt primarily with a society focused on keeping women safe from harm. Although the women were indeed safe, their dignity was stripped from them, which made for a good plot. Although the story had an interesting plot, some of the underlying messages that Atwood was trying to get across got very irritating. Some of the shots that she took at Christian faith was repulsive. For example, the box that wrote down the prayers made the reader think about if prayers are just words said aloud with no higher being listening, just as there was no one reading the paper prayers. A message such as that was not something a agreed with, however the overall message that one cannot mix church and state was a good message. There must be limitations to the mixing of church and state or else it will end up being a society like Gilead.