Religion as a Tool of Control Essay

â€Å"Religion is the murmur of the abused animal, the core of a merciless world, and the spirit of heartless conditions. It is the opium of the people† (Marx 260). This announcement suggests that religion is an influential idea that urges individuals to acknowledge their conditions as opposed to rebelling against their predicament. In reality in an inappropriate hands, it very well may be debased to legitimize innumerable barbarities as be utilized as a device of abuse. In her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood depicts a tragic culture, an anecdotal republic called Gilead, whose rulers utilize the intensity of religion to approve their unnerving individual plan. She ridicules the political framework that utilizes confidence to approve its command, and legitimize its increasingly faulty laws. Plainly the utilization of religion for political intentions is one of the focal topics of the novel; Atwood takes a lot of fundamentalist strict convictions followed by certain periphery components in contemporary society and takes them to their legitimate end to feature their actual authoritarian nature. In Gilead, governmental issues and religion go connected at the hip. The Sons of Jacob use religion and mental strategies to control the majority and curve them to their will. Subsequently the republic utilizes strict wordings for instance residential workers are called â€Å"Marthas† alluding to a household character in the book of scriptures, the officers are called â€Å"Angels† while the nearby police are the â€Å"Guardians of the Faith†. The decision government authorities are known as the â€Å"Commanders of the Faithful†. Indeed, even the names of shopping stores have scriptural references like All Flesh, Milk and Honey, Loaves and Fishes. The motivation behind this broad utilization of scriptural language is to hoodwink the individuals of Gilead into accepting that their rulers order the desire of God Himself. Additionally the administration just embraces certain parts of Christianity while it evades those that it finds badly arranged. For instance Aunt Lydia, an instructor to the handmaids, says â€Å"I’ve figured out how to manage without a ton of things, you get excessively joined to this material world and overlook profound qualities. You should develop neediness of soul. Favored are the submissive. † (Atwood 110) now in the novel Offred takes note of that Aunt Lydia says nothing regarding acquiring basically everything. Accordingly the republic utilized strict avocation to request submissive conduct from the handmaids. Hence religion is utilized as an amazing political apparatus in Gilead. Ladies assume an extremely restricted job in Gilead’s society; scriptural inferences are utilized to debilitate their status. A Commander makes the accompanying discourse at the women’s prayvaganza. â€Å"Let the lady learn peacefully with all coercion. Be that as it may, I endure not a lady to instruct, nor usurp authority over the man, yet to be peacefully. For Adam was first framed, at that point Eve. Furthermore, Adam was not bamboozled, yet the lady being misdirected was in the offense. Despite she will be spared by childbearing, in the event that they proceed in confidence and noble cause and sacredness with temperance. â€Å"(273) Therefore, by drawing a translation from a solitary scriptural story the job of ladies is restricted to proliferation. Additionally, so as to keep the ladies from getting libertarian, common thoughts mass oversight happens in Gilead. The nation is cut off from the outside world as it doesn't permit worldwide TV to be communicated; Offred takes note of this while viewing the TV â€Å"Serena taps the channel changer. Waves, hued crisscrosses, a distortion of sound: it is the Montreal Satellite Station being blocked. â€Å"(101) Furthermore all books esteemed sinful by the republic are singed and ladies are not permitted to peruse by any means, the good book is held carefully guarded with the goal that the Commanders can peruse out just those parts that are recommended by the legislature. Offred’s officer peruses out the accompanying section from the book of scriptures upon the arrival of the month to month service â€Å"Give me kids, or, in all likelihood I kick the bucket. Am I in God’s stead, who hath retained from thee the product of the belly? Observe my house keeper Bilhah. She will prove to be fruitful upon my knees, that I may likewise have kids by her. â€Å"(112) This scriptural story, described in the novel by the Commander, frames the premise of the idea of a handmaid which is the reason it is given uncommon importance in Gilead and it is additionally another of the bygone stories from the book of scriptures that are utilized to authorize exceptionally flawed commitments on ladies. In this way the ladies of Gilead are oppressed by a distorted variant of Christianity. Religion should free man. Be that as it may, The Handmaid’s Tale portrays a general public where it is utilized to shackle individuals, to indoctrinate them, to compel them to fit in with a way of life allowed by their administration. Margaret Atwood looks at the individuals living in Gilead’s abusive society to rodents caught in a labyrinth, she calls attention to â€Å"A rodent in a labyrinth is allowed to go anyplace as long as it remains in the maze†(363). Actually those that renegade to the set up standards are managed cruelly; they are rebuffed at a seudo-strict function called the Particicution, where they are lynched to death by a crowd of ladies for bogus wrongdoings they didn't submit. With respect to, the protester handmaid, Ofglen comments â€Å"He wasn’t an attacker by any means, he was a political. He was one of our own. â€Å"(350) What this involves is that the general public in the novel is profoundly despotic and it doesn't permit the o pportunity of articulation, in truth it utilizes dread to control its residents and prompt their devotion, as Offred notes â€Å"We must look great from a separation: pleasant, similar to Dutch milkmaids on a backdrop frieze. Calming to the eye, the eyes, the Eyes, for that’s who this show is for. We’re off to the Prayvaganza to show how loyal and devout we are. † (266) This features the peoples’ intrinsic neurosis, the dread of being discovered unfaithful, that has been gradually developed into their souls and brains. Really the foundation debases the genuine soul of religion by conflicting with its very substance: the profound freedom of humankind. The utilization of religion for political objects is one of the focal topics of the novel; Atwood takes a lot of strict convictions followed by certain periphery components in contemporary society and takes them to their sensible end to feature their actual authoritarian nature. Taking everything into account, Margaret Atwood depicts an astonishing exchange reality wherein strict fundamentalists overwhelm and religion comes to direct every part of human life. The subject of religion conveys a ton of noteworthiness in the novel; in reality the novel fills in as a notice against the fanatic perspectives held by numerous cutting edge think tanks.