Two Tales of Oppression

TWO TALES OF OPPRESSION
To be oppressed is to be kept down by severe and unjust use of force or authority, and the arbitrary and cruel exercise of power is what we call oppression. Anyway one words it, to be weighted down in mind and in body is cruel and unjust. As Florynce R. Kennedy puts it, “There can be no really pervasive system of oppression… without the consent of the oppressed”. The book The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone” are two places where this quote is prominent in the lives of two women denoted in each of the stories. Both of these stories encompass the motif of oppression first through stripping the women of their identities, then through limiting their interaction with the outside world, and finally by forcing them to conform to new, and different norms.
The Handmaid’s Tale is a set between the 1980’s, and 1990’s in the futuristic Republic of Gilead. After conservative...