Throughout history, many governments, political figures, religious groups, and other organizations have used language to influence the population of every geographic area. Understanding that language and how it can be used to not only influence decisions, from simple choices like what to have for dinner to life-changing choices like who will be president, can help you understand major social structures like economic, religious, educational, and social. political classes. Understanding how the same language can be used to remove basic constitutional rights while convincing the general population that it is better for them or will keep them safe can prevent this from happening in “real life.” In Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, religious, political, and legal language was used to transform a relatively normal society, similar to that of any city in the United States, into a patriarchal, puritanical, socialist society where fertility was a commodity, women were little more than slaves, the rich men ran everything, while the poor fought the battles. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One of the fundamental uses of language is communication. If an individual cannot communicate, they are lost in a dark and sad place where nothing makes sense. In fact, some argue that true language is what distinguishes humans from the rest of the animals. Thinkers like Blake and Lacan have gone further and argue that language not only gives us the ability to think, but also the ability to create (Wiggins). Every man, woman and child sees the world around them through a special type of filter called perception. The trick is to filter those perceptions and find the true meaning behind the chosen language. This is exactly what deconstructionists do. They sift through language in literature and observe the original meaning of words, changes in usage over time, and the perception created by the context in which words are used (Tompkins, Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction, Postmodernism (1955 -Today)). In short, they study changes in the denotation and connotation of written language and use their findings to analyze literature and find its deeper meaning. People use language to communicate their perceptions of the world around them. In a sense this is a form of creation because what one person perceives will not be the same as what the next person perceives. Writers are the creators par excellence, according to Blake and Lacan, because they use language not only to demonstrate their perceptions of the existing world around them, but also to create new worlds within the existing world (Wiggins). If this concept is true for writers, let's think for a moment about those people who are writers par excellence. These are the people who use language to change our perception of the world around us. These are advertisers, politicians, lawyers, ministers or priests – the people who can make us believe that up is down and black is white. What could a charismatic leader of any kind do with a few well-chosen words? Well, Hitler started a world war, OJ Simpson walked, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves – the list goes on. The point is that people will live or die based on a few well-chosen words. In Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale this is exactly what was done. The language was used to convince a large enough population that small losses of freedom withwhich they had always coexisted with were a positive thing in light of the civil unrest, so that when the large losses were implemented they didn't really question it. It was done subtly and brilliantly over a period of time so that the initial outrage over one loss faded, and when that loss became the accepted norm, another was enacted. Once major reforms had been implemented, language was used to largely control the population, to convince them that the new society was the right society, to convince them that it was the safest and most natural way to live. The most obvious change in this society was that people became commodities. For some reason, environmental changes in Gilead (Atwood's name for the society in question) became increasingly difficult to conceive, and birth defects in the offspring of those who could conceive became more widespread. And so anyone who could have a normal, healthy child became precious. While it might seem like this affects women more than men (after all, women conceive and carry), this has not been the case. Men were obligated to participate in trying to conceive as much as women. Fertility was the real commodity, coincidentally fertility resided in people. For women, fertility meant becoming property in the true sense of the word. A fertile woman was rented out to families who could afford her, but could not have children. That woman up to a certain point was used to conceiving, carrying and breastfeeding a child. Once the child was deemed healthy, he was given to the wealthy couple to raise as their own and the woman went to another couple to do so again. Language played an important role in convincing these women that it was their obligation to move forward and accept it as the norm. Paradoxically, a cross between biblical and political language was used for this purpose. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” (Atwood) was a misquote of a biblical reference and something Karl Marx said in his “Critique of the Gotha Programme”. It served to underline what was a socialist point of view that each person should give to the whole society according to, in this case, their own abilities. This was a socialist view as Marx, who borrowed it from the French socialist Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc, believed that skill was the true commodity and that people should use their abilities to benefit all of society rather that benefit only themselves (Marx). . However, it was also biblical. The actual quote from the Bible reads: “every man according to his ability” Acts 11:29. It was in reference to a group of besieged people that Jesus' disciples gave help, according to what they could give. Again, this concept refers to giving what you can to those in need. And so, language is used to create a class of people who are commodities, just as slaves were in our history. Of course, the same language may also have been used to influence the class structure of those who were unable to conceive. Gilead had a military system of government. The leaders belonged to the upper class, those who could afford an education. The lower or uneducated classes became infantrymen. Of course these were only the men. Women led none other than the other women in their family. If ability is used to designate place in society, then it only makes sense that those who are more educated have positions of power. This is historically comparable to military service from the beginning. The upper class, those with money, could purchase a rank in any given armyat the beginning of the history of military service. Even in modern military history there is a form of classism. Those who are wealthy can go to college or university and enter military service as officers – without the “foot soldier” years. Those who are not wealthy or who cannot go to college for any reason fall into the lower ranks and are at higher risk. Indeed, as one upper-middle-class woman pointed out, “people like us don't have kids in the military” (Daly). Language is used here to position men based on their rank in society. The men in power, those mentioned by Atwood, were “commanders” and the foot soldiers were “angels” and “guardians of the faith”. The angels are the soldiers, the guardians are the police and menial jobs. Of course some lower class men went into home military service – Nick, who looked after the commander's car and drove him is one example – and some became government spies called "eyes", but for the most part all that the reader sees is the military hierarchy of commanders, guardians, and angels The women of Gilead were reduced to one of five classes, all but one of whom were not permitted to read or write. Aunts are the only women in this society allowed to read or write because they must report and educate the rest of society regarding their place in it (Atwood). They are the teachers, the educators, those who have the task of re-educating those who must be adapted to the new norms of society. The women of the upper classes are simply wives, they are married to the commanders. Lower class women who have husbands are called “eco-wives” who have to do everything in the house (Atwood). Lower class, but unmarried women become "Martha". Marthas work in commanders' families. They are the servants, the maids and the cooks. Their name comes from the name of Lazarus' sister who served Jesus (The Holy Bible ESV), implying that such service to commanders and their wives is similar to service to Jesus. Childbearing women are called "handmaids" (Atwood) in biblical reference to women washing the feet of the Lord's servants (The Holy Bible ESV). These women do not really belong to the upper or lower class, but to a class of their own. They get respect because they provide children for upper-class families, but they have no rights. They are even stripped of their names and called a name that reflects the service they serve, such as "Offred" who was the handmaiden belonging to Fred's (Atwood) family. Of course, in every social structure there are those who protest the changes. Usually these are disenfranchised people, people who do not fit into the social structure as well as we would like. In Gilead, as in all societies, these were the people who did not fit into what was considered the norm. These people were given a generic name, not one that described them as a person, but one that made them less of a person, so that it would be easier for leaders to remove them from the rest of society. “Non-women” (Atwood) are women who are unable to bear children, but do not do housework or are not wives of any class. They are protestors, subversives who do not accept the new society. These women are collected and sent to a place called the Colonies which resembles a situation similar to that of Australia when it was used as a prison. Women who are fertile but who are subversive or undesirable due to sexual orientation are sent to a government-run brothel used by upper-class men for entertainment. Subversive men, doctors who performed abortions or homosexuals are executed and hung on the wall for all to see. Looking at language.