A Tale through the Eyes of a H

            A Tale through the Eyes of a Handmaid.
             With over six billion people on this earth, there can be over six billion perspectives on one issue. In literature, the point-of-view a story is told from can change the way a reader interprets it. In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the first person point-of-view allows the reader to identify with and experience what Offred, the narrator, feels.
             The first person point-of-view involves a character telling a story through their eyes. In the case of The Handmaid's Tale, Offred is a handmaid forced to endure the oppressions of a chauvinistic society. The women are secluded and raised for one purpose: breeding. The first person point-of-view allows the reader to experience the cruel, monotonous life Offred is chained to. Another publication describing discrimination is The Diary of Anne Frank. This story revealed publicly the harsh realism of the genocide of Jews during the Hitler regime. If the story had not been told through the eyes of a little Jewish girl, then the book most likely would not have commanded the sorrow and sympathy it received.
             While the first person point-of-view permits the reader to identify with one character, the third person point-of-view allows the reader to know what every character is thinking. If The Handmaid's Tale had been told in third person, the reader would know what the exiled Colonies contained and the intentions of the autocratic Commanders. It tells the viewer all the secret, underground stuff that Offred does not know. Third person is often incorporated to allow for dramatic and situational irony. However the third person point-of-view is often too distant. The reader would not be able to feel the misery that Offred endures. Second person often takes the effect of a how-to book or conveys revolutionary idea. This is also the rarest point-of-view used. Second person point-of-view also takes away the gloomy aura in which the first person point-of-view expresses.