- Text The Handmaids Tale (Atwood) What is the purpose of morality Essay

- Text The Handmaids Tale (Atwood) What is the purpose of morality What are the pros and cons What is morality - Essay Example Whether it results in the reinstatement of moral values to the creation of a better world is the matter of concern here. Based on the principle that â€Å"no society ever strays completely far from its roots† (Curious Pursuits, 91), Atwood has created a future society reviving the trends and practices of the Nineteenth Century Puritanism. The novel, which is the outcome of composite factors like vast and thorough reading of history, extensive travel, first hand experiences of real despotisms and experience acquired through a membership in the Amnesty International, perpetrates the author’s conviction that totalitarian regimes breed fear and silence. In such an atmosphere, morality is also a degenerative instrument of torture at the hands of the dictators. Morality, when enforced, becomes nothing but oppression and invariably fails to serve its purpose. The term morality implies the ability to discern right, good and virtue from their counterparts. Human beings are endowed with the ability to rationalize and the free will to face crucial situations in life demanding the exercise of these faculties. Every society has its set of standards in morality, so also each individual. Various factors like cultural parameters, contemporary trends and individual preferences play vital roles in deciding and setting up these standards. The revival of Puritanism in the novel, with its dictatorial enforcement of standards of living pose an outrageous, dismal and despicable picture of an impending possibility fulfilling a dystopia’s mission of warning the world. The simulated American theocracy in the novel is patterned after the Old Testament standards. In the imaginary nation ‘The Republic of Gilead’ which is the United States of America in the distant future, women are withdrawn from the public spheres and are categorized according to the duties they