Examine how Atwood and Chaucer expose corruption within society. This will involve a discussion of conditions both before and during the Gilead regime. Throughout your writing show how your reading has been illuminated by your response to Zephaniah/Larkin as well as other readings of the central text. Both Margaret Atwood and Geoffrey Chaucer highlight the corruption within society in their texts. Atwood, in The Handmaid's Tale, uses an alternative life condition, the dystopian regime of Gilead to represent a plausible society of political control, while Chaucer simply describes the worst of what he saw in 13th century society in "The General Prologue" at Canterbury Tales.One way that Atwood exposed the corruption within Gilead society would be the corruption of the leaders. This can be seen with Offred's commander, who is oppressive and limiting towards the population, especially women. The entire structure of Giliad ensures that each woman is dominated by a higher male figure. An example of where this can be seen is simply the way Serena Joy is addressed, as the "commander's wife". This indicates that she is possessed by the male commander and clearly shows the reader who has authority. It can also be seen in the way the Handmaids are called, with names like Offred and Ofglen. The names are formed by adding the preposition "of" to the respective commander's name, once again showing total control and ownership over a male. Atwood was trying to illuminate an extreme towards which the Western world may be heading, with sexism around certain professions, this is supported by literary critic Mary McCarthy who stated: “Atwood warns us by holding our current selves in a distorted mirror,” with politics bei...... middle of paper ......r in the thirteenth century, how he would have seemed like a good person who could help people redeem themselves and start over, but mixed with this false perspective Chaucer showed the true nature of forgivers. Another way Chaucer showed the divide between honorable and honest characters would be that extremely corrupt characters like the Summoner and the Pardoner we discussed get extensive descriptions in the General Prologue with both getting 45 lines of description while a genuinely pious character which actually has integrity as the Plowman only gets 12 lines. This is Chaucer showing that evil gets more attention than good, that people focus on the negatives rather than the positives, corrupt people get all the attention and are often the ones who get the profits and this would be Chaucer criticizing the society around him for this fact.