The Handmaids Tale versus I Will Keep Broken Things Essay

People require energy to function. Energy is provided by fuel. For humans, fuel is not simply food and water, but rather, love and a sense of meaning. This is the truth; life is not complete without love. In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, handmaid is the name given to a women placed within a Commander’s home for the purpose of reproduction. Offred is the narrator of this dystopian society, and she bears the burden of being separated from her husband and daughter to fulfill her new role in society. In â€Å"I Will Keep Broken Things† by Alive Walker, a woman conveys her emotions through an incredibly fractured poem. She is broken, and suffers from loss, as she produces imagery of an urn (Walker 4-5), and refers to memories, as if the†¦show more content†¦Similarly, the narrator of the poem cherishes: â€Å"The memory/Of/Those/Long/Delicious/Night/Swims/With/You;† (Walker 39-48). This memory has become broken because it is shared between t wo people, one of which is no longer present. It becomes a lock with two keys, one of which is missing. This excerpt gives insight that the narrator is suffering a loss related to a relationship of some kind, presumably romantic, as suggested by the use of the word delicious. Despite a loss of such close proximity, the narrator can take this memory and cherish it. She must come to the realization that this memory remains the same, despite a newly acquired absence. The memories of these two characters are not altered by the present, and can still be used to bring happiness through reflection and joyful revelations of the past. Offred and Walker’s narrator both use memories as motivators. For as long as somebody is thinking of someone, they are not truly gone. A life devoid of love creates a period of vigorous mental instability and often opens eyes and promotes changes in lifestyle and perspective. This transformation is almost never a smooth one, and somebody travelling down a pathway can easily lose their way and travel off the beaten trail. Where they end up is always relative to their situation. For instance, as their journey