The article ‘Talking Back’ from Bell Hooks was very inspiring to read. It dealt with the freedom of speech of black women. The author talks about her own experiences as a suppressed girl that wasn’t allowed to talk back. Even in her young years she was fascinated by the vivid discussions the women around her used to have. She was never free to participate in these talks unless she wanted to be punished. The article deals with the struggle between being who you want to be and being who you are. Bell Hooks tells us about her path of becoming a writer. It wasn’t easy and some of experiences strongly relate to the ‘Handmaid’s tale’.
Having an opinion was forbidden in both stories, saying what you think was a crime. The black women have similar rights as the handmaids in Handmaid’s Tale. Bell Hook’s voice had been suppressed at a young age, and Offred in Handmaid’s tale can’t even speak to the people she’s living with, without fearing that she might be caught and punished. The article says: ‘safety and sanity were to be sacrificed if I was to experience defiant speech’, showing at what point people tried to shut her mouth. When Bell Hooks did talk, it was empowering to her just like Offred feels liberated when she talks to Olfgen for the first time on their shopping tours.
There are little details in the article that reminded me a lot of the Handmaid’s tale. In ‘Talking Back’ it says that talking means disagreeing even if you’re just expressing an opinion. It was impossible for Offred to ‘talk back’. It wasn’t her right to express her opinion and feelings. Every act of rebellion would end in a painful torture sessions. She also says that if she had been a boy, she might have been allowed to talk. Even in Handmaid’s tale it was preferable to be a boy because at least you wouldn’t get raped once a month. Bell Hooks also mentioned that she used to hide her writings under her bed, in pillow stuffings among faded underwear. This doesn’t exactly happen like this in the Handmaid’s tale but even Offred hid everything she wrote since it was forbidden to women to write.
The article Sins of Silence also reminds me of the Handmaid’s tale. Mai Kao Thao talks about her childhood and her relationship with her mother. Her mother told her to be a good, obedient woman, and smile silently as she swallows the bitterness that others give her. She told her that silence is power, that she had to be wordless, humble, obedient. A perfect Hmong woman. Just as Offred she got punished with harsh reprimands and scorching displeasure whenever she talked back of offered an opinion, and so she was silent. Emotionless. On the other side, just like Offred, she was filled with anger, dissatisfaction and anxiety, and above all emptiness. Her silence had killed her Self. She also suppressed her ideas of independence, as Offred doesn’t believe that there is a way out, that there is any way to escape. Hope for women in a regime like such, isn’t evident. I hope that things change for the better for the women that are still living this hell of a silent world.
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