The Handmaid's Tale - Social Groups

Social Groups

In this novel characters are segregated by categories and dressed according to their social functions. The complex sumptuary laws (dress codes) play a key role in imposing social control within the new society and serve to distinguish people by sex, occupation, and caste.

Read more about this topic:  The Handmaid's Tale

Famous quotes containing the words social and/or groups:

    “...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me when I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor—they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.”
    —Albion Fellows Bacon (1865–1933)

    “The awareness of the all-surpassing importance of social groups is now general property in America.”
    —Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)