Representation of Different Social and Cultural Forces in...

Representation of Different Social and Cultural Forces in The Handmaids Tale by Atweeon and Hard Times by Dickens â€Å"Masses of labourers, organised like soldiers, are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker and above all by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself†, Karl Marx in his Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848 here highlights the state portrayed through Charles Dickens’s ‘Hard Times’. Margaret Atwood highlights the similarity with her book saying â€Å"it is a study of power, and how it operated and how it deforms or shapes the people who are living within that kind of regime†. Defined as an act that prevents the natural or normal expression, activity or development;†¦show more content†¦Atwood, in the 1980’s aimed to write about â€Å"what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusion† (Atwood), therefore offering a vision; a warning. Atwood’s writing stems from social movements familiar to herself – the treatment of women from the 196 0’s liberation movements and civil rights appear dominant in her novel; population control also takes a major theme. Dickens, in 1854 likewise attempted to offer a vision; a vision that challenged the utilitarian philosophy of the time in Industrial Britain. From the 1820’s-1850’s â€Å"Benthamism represented of the prominent exemplar of scientific and materialistic reasoning with respect to social and government activity†[ii]. Benthamism, named after the work of Jeremy Bentham sought to develop a scientific legislation to effect social progress – it has been directly linked by many critics to the instigation of social reforms in industrial Britain such as the reforms act of 1832. Dickens’ novel is therefore a product of this period; a â€Å"novel that uses its characters and stories to expose the massive gulf between rich and poor and to criticize the unfeeling self-interest of the middle-upper classes†[iii]. From a Structuralist out look using binary opposites, Dickens highlights the battle between utilitarianism and individualism, similar to Atwood who, following a binary