The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984: Connections part 2

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale. pages 200-277

In "1984", "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Handmaid's Tale" all 3 protagonists represent the rebel archetype. The desire to rebel simply arises from the fact that their opinions do no coincide with those of the society's. In all three cases, the reason why the protagonists rebel is because they feel attached to the world that exists before the oppressive society that they are trapped in. But the reason why they feel attached to it varies for every protagonist.

In Winston's case, he feels attached to the world before, because of several blurry memories that he has of the world that exists before the Revolution. These memories consist of his mother, his sister, and a lingering feeling that things were not as grimy and people were not as reduced as they are under the ruling of Big Brother. It is because of this reason that he rebels against the party by committing "Thought Crime" and being with his girlfriend, Julia, despite the fact that any relationships are strictly forbidden by the party.

Similarly, Offred also rebels because she feels attached to the past just like Winston does. She is haunted by the memories of the world before,and of the things that she possessed and the freedom that she had then, which she no longer has. It is because of gaining a momentary state of freedom, that she eagerly accepts when the Commander demands to secretly meet her every evening, and to commit illegal acts such as playing Scrabble, reading magazines, and using hand creme.

Montag, though, is slightly different from these two characters. Despite the fact that he has not resided in the society that exists before books are burned, he begins to question his values when a girl named Clarisse tells him about a time when things were different, a time when firemen put out fires rather than initiated them. This opens his mind, and it connects him to the past world where books existed. It also makes him question what information books contain that make them such a "threat" and cause them to be burned immediately after being discovered by the firemen. This is one of the reasons why Montag rebels by reading books. Through such an act, he discovers that books contain valuable life lessons, that are compacted together into one manual.