'Religion as a Tool of Control Essay\r'

'â€Å"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the punk of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the mint” (Marx 260). This statement implies that faith is a powerful construct that encourages raft to accept their conditions instead of revolting against their plight. indeed in the wrong hands, it can be depraved to justify countless atrocities and so be utilise as a bill of oppression. In her unexampled, The handmaiden’s Tale, Marg atomic number 18t Atwood portrays a dystopian baseball club, a put on republic c all in alled Gilead, whose rulers use the power of religious belief to authorize their terrifying personal agenda.\r\nShe satirizes the political system that uses reliance to validate its mandate, and justify its more questionable laws. to a lower placestandably the use of religion for political pop the questions is star of the rudimentary themes of the novel; Atwood takes a set of fundamentalist a pparitional beliefs followed by certain fringe elements in coeval society and takes them to their logical end to highlight their confessedly despotic nature. In Gilead, politics and religion go hand in hand. The Sons of Jacob use religion and mental tactics to control the grasses and bend them to their will.\r\n so the republic makes extensive use of unearthly terminologies for face domestic servants are called â€Å"Marthas” referring to a domestic persona in the bible, the soldiers are called â€Å"Angels” bit the local patrol are the â€Å"Guardians of the Faith”. The ruling government gloweringicials are called the â€Å" commandants of the Faithful”. Even the names of shopping stores abide scriptural references like All Flesh, Milk and Honey, Loaves and Fishes. The purpose of this extensive use of biblical language is to victimise the people of Gilead into believing that their rulers enact the will of matinee idol Himself.\r\nMoreover t he government only adopts certain aspects of Christianity while it shuns those that it finds inconvenient. For example Aunt Lydia, a teacher to the handmaids, says â€Å"I’ve learned to do without a lot of things, you vanquish too attached to this material world and blockade religious values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. delightful are the meek. ” (Atwood 110) at this point in the novel Offred nones that Aunt Lydia says nothing about inheriting the Earth. hence the republic apply religious justification to carry docile behavior from the handmaids.\r\nTherefore religion is utilize as a powerful political tool in Gilead. Women play a very express mail role in Gilead’s society; biblical allusions are used to weaken their status. A Commander makes the pursuance speech at the women’s prayvaganza. â€Å"let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. solely I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over the man, solely to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, accordingly Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman cosmos deceived was in the transgression.\r\nNotwithstanding she shall be saved by childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and righteousness with sobriety. â€Å"(273) Therefore, by drawing an interpretation from a exclusive biblical story the role of women is limited to reproduction. Moreover, in order to prevent the women from getting libertarian, secular ideas mass censorship takes place in Gilead. The country is concussion off from the outside world as it does not even allow international television to be broadcasted; Offred notes this while watching the television â€Å"Serena clicks the channel changer.\r\nWaves, black zigzags, a garble of sound: it is the Montreal Satellite post being blocked. â€Å"(101) Furthermore all books deemed heretical by the republic are burned and women are not allowed to allege at all, the bible is kept under lock and key so that the Commanders can read out only those parts that are visit by the government. Offred’s commander reads out the following passage from the bible on the day of the periodic ceremony â€Å"Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the proceeds of the womb?\r\nBehold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear yield upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. â€Å"(112) This biblical tale, narrated in the novel by the Commander, forms the reason of the concept of a handmaid which is why it is given up special significance in Gilead and it is also some other one of the archaic stories from the bible that are used to en rend exceedingly questionable obligations on women. thereof the women of Gilead are subjugated by a distort version of Christianity.\r\nReligion is supposed to emancipate man. But The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a society in which it is used to shackle people, to brainwash them, to force them to conform to a li festyle permitted by their government. Margaret Atwood compares the people living in Gilead’s repressive society to rats trapped in a maze, she points out â€Å"A rat in a maze is drop by the wayside to go anywhere as long as it stays in the maze”(363). In accompaniment those that rebel to the established norms are dealt with harshly; they are punished at a seudo-religious ceremony called the Particicution, where they are lynched to death by a mob of women for incorrect crimes they did not commit. Regarding this, the dissident handmaid, Ofglen remarks â€Å"He wasn’t a rapist at all, he was a political. He was one of ours. â€Å"(350) What this entails is that the society in the novel is highly autocratic and it does not allow the freedom of expression, in fact it uses idolise to control its citizens and induce their piety, as Offred notes â€Å"We must look good from a outmatch: picturesque, like Dutch milkmaids on a wallpaper frieze.\r\nSoothing to th e eye, the eyes, the Eyes, for that’s who this show is for. We’re off to the Prayvaganza to demonstrate how obedient and pious we are. ” (266) This highlights the peoples’ inherent paranoia, the fear of being found unfaithful, that has been slowly cultivated into their police van and minds. Truly the establishment defiles the avowedly spirit of religion by going against its very essence: the spiritual liberation of mankind.\r\nThe use of religion for political purposes is one of the central themes of the novel; Atwood takes a set of religious beliefs followed by certain fringe elements in present-day(a) society and takes them to their logical end to highlight their true despotic nature. In conclusion, Margaret Atwood portrays a horrifying jumpstart reality in which religious fundamentalists dominate and religion comes to dictate every aspect of human life. The national of religion carries a lot of significance in the novel; in fact the novel serves as a warning against the extremist views held by numerous modern think tanks.\r\n'