Stanley Caesar

ENG 2420

Professor Belli

11/13/18

Dystopian/Utopian

In the show, “ The Handmaid’s Tale”, which took place in the 1980s, but not exactly in the 1980s, but more of an alternative present day. It integrated a few additional notions of the way we live now. A dystopia is a community where there are a load of undesired wants occur and people are frightened about what goes in this small society. Once Alfred introduced herself while she was sitting in a small caged room, it gave me the idea that she was put somewhere that she did not want to be and had to obey by someone else’s rules. It was all in her tone with the way she talked about her life and where she had ended up. The difference between a Dystopia and Utopia is that in an Utopia, you are free to express yourself in your appearance while in a dystopia, you are forced to abide by the dress code depending on what your occupation is. Alfred felt because she resides in a dystopia now, she is not allowed to even say her real name, instead she has to live with a name that was given to her not at birth(5:00). –

The director made sure to make it known to the audience that nobody in this society is able to do anything of their wants. Alfred is forced to stay with this other female who is her “ spy” , and not her real friend. They never been acquainted with each other either. In a scene where Alfred and Martha is walking past a school full of kids dressed in the same exact clothing, Alfred gets a vision of seeing her and her family spending quality time at the beach, but it was just all of a dream (13:02). . That is what a dystopia does to one’s mind, it messes with you mentally and brainwashes your memories to forget them. A person with a pure mind and strong mindset will never forget their memories truly, so eventually, they become defiant with their doings. As watching through the show, I realized that men are allowed to dress how they desire, while women are forced to wear a long oversized dress with a white hat over their head to cover their hair. In the Jewish religion, the same concept is being taken and I see the comparison between the Jewish religion and a dystopia. Sexuality is not allowed in a dystopia either, “ Ofglen detected three bodies and noted one of them was a gay man and looked down upon it(15:42). As a society, it gives everyone the ability to see what is wrong in the society and I partially feel as if this was to go on as a social experiment for a targeted audience, it would give the world a good change in certain aspects.