Women in captivity in The Handmaid's Tale and Prisoner of Tehran

This essay examines how women are held captive and how they manage to survive in The Handmaid’s Tale and Prisoner of Tehran. The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel written about what might happen in the future and Prisoner of Tehran is an autobiographical text and contains events that have already happened. The first chapter in this essay analyses different themes of captivity in the two texts. The themes are political oppression, emotional captivity and the power of language. It is evident that the main characters live in conditions that make them physically and emotionally captive. They are separated from their loved ones and forced to live in brutal circumstances and by extremely oppressed rules. The second chapter, entitled ‘Means of survival’, focuses on how the characters are able to survive in an oppressed society. There are many resemblances in the texts when it comes to the theme of captivity and the main characters in the texts are strong enough to survive their oppressed lives with some help from memories, hope and friendship.Validerat; 20101217 (root