Dystopian governments often work hard to erase identity through specific social constructs; they work to force the people they govern to conform to a “cookie cutter” mold. In literature, this shaping is often fought by a person within society, and that struggle leads to at least one person becoming a more extreme individual, as V in V for Vendetta, Moira in The Handmaid's Tale, and I-330 in WE all. . In old dystopian novels, the narrator is often not that individual but someone close to the person fighting the mold. In novels that have a more young adult and teen-focused audience, the main character becomes the character struggling with government-restricted identity. Finding the struggle for individualism and freedom in identity is a common theme across The Handmaid's Tale, WE, and V for Vendetta. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The government control of women's rights and identities in The Handmaid's Tale, along with Moira's extreme defiance of this control, gives the reader the idea that identity is a key concept within the dystopia that Moira calls home. The government of the Republic of Gilead continually tries to take away the “old” identities of women and give them “new” identities. By changing their names, giving them jobs or titles, assigning them colors related to these jobs, and taking away their rights, the Republic of Gilead is brainwashing and forcing these women into an established and controlled identity structure. In her life before Gilead, the main character's name was June, but while in the Republic of Gilead it is Offred. With this name, the government essentially named it Fred's (the Commander) property. The Republic of Gilead began eliminating women's rights after the suspension of the Constitution. Once they gained control, women lost the right to have money, to hold a job, and eventually lost the right to read and write. By losing these rights, women also lost their sense of character because they could no longer identify themselves through their success, their intelligence, and their financial security. Although there were several subtle statements from the government, the forced change of identity did not become apparent until the jobs or the titles and colors of these titles were established. Giving women titles like Handmaid, Martha, Wife, and Housewife forces them into the idea that these are their identities; the colors red, green, blue and multicolor are part of that new identity. Women become Handmaids while still fertile. Once their fertility ceases, they become Non-Women and live in "colonies". Marthas are women who cook and clean homes and Wives are women who appear to have been in some sort of power or married to a man of power before the Republic of Gilead took over. Econowis are often despised, almost second-class women because “they are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can” (Atwood, page 24). These titles and roles are basically the only identification of these women in the Republic of Gilead. Identity formation in the Republic of Gilead makes many women uncomfortable, but none seem angrier than Offred's friend Moira. Moira is the citizen of Gilead society who cannot, and will not, fit into the government's model of identity. The Republic of Gilead adheres to an extremist form of fundamental Christianity, in which homosexuality is a sin. Moira is not the “ideal” woman from the start, as Moira is a lesbian. Because it still isfertile and can have children, she is forced to be a handmaid because being a lesbian in this society is impossible. Moira is taken to the Red Center where the "Aunts" continually try to brainwash all fertile women into feeling that these roles and this society is the best. By brainwashing these women, the government was able to take control of their identities and shape them because “thoughts shape identities more than appearance…” (Eisiminger 4). The aunts showed pornographic videos so the Handmaids could see “what [men] thought of women back then” along with Unwoman protest documentaries in which women “wasted their time like that, when they should have been doing something useful” ( Atwood 118). After arriving at the Red Center, Moira tries to escape. The first time she is unsuccessful and is subsequently tortured. The second time, Moira managed to dismantle a bathroom, capture and threaten an aunt, steal her uniform, and simply walk out of the Red Center like she knew what she was doing. This escape, and the unknown possibility of success outside the Red Center, leaves Offred with hope that she will have courage and remember her life before. Moira's ability to retain part of her former identity, despite becoming a prostitute at Jezebel, tells the reader that some identity is better than none. In the dystopian novel We, Yevgeny Zamyatin had the government mostly succeed in removing individual identity, except for one code, Cipher I-330. Within Cipher D-503's journal, the reader begins to see the unfolding of a society where the government has removed all ideas of individuality and identity. In this One State society, D-503 perfectly explains what the One State's goals are while speaking in a new cipher, I-330. D-503 seems to believe entirely in the idea and goal of the One State, that “…No one is ever 'one', but always 'one of'. We are so identical...” (WE, page 8). By removing all individual identities and giving them the same mechanical identity as the government, the One State makes ciphers believe that the mechanized identity of the government is theirs and that they do not have one of their own. The One State and the Benefactor instigate the Table of Hours to prevent the growth of the imagination, which can develop and foster mechanical identity. Preventing the progress of imagination within society becomes the key to halting the growth of identity. Yang Jianfang believes that, “…the more central an identity is to an individual, the more likely this identity is to impact cognitions, feelings, and actions…” (Jianfang 167). These feelings, cognitions, and actions all relate to imagination, as imagination is sometimes found to create these feelings and cognitions that influence actions. Within the Time Table there are two personal hours, leaving everything else on the scheduled day. D-503 hopes for the removal of these Personal Hours. He “believes that sooner or later, one day, we will find a place in the general formula for these hours too, one day all 86,400 seconds will be counted in the Table of Hours.” 13). By removing these two hours, the government would take away all freedom. Within these personal hours, a cipher can draw, write, meet another cipher, walk or run wherever he pleases. Ciphers can also lower the blinds in their rooms to have sex with another during these two Personal Hours; these are the only times the shutters can be lowered and both figures must have Single State permission. If a code does anything other than have sex, the curtains cannot be drawn. This obvious lack of privacy encourages a sense of unity but onelack of identity. These ciphers have nothing of their own, nothing that they can hide from other ciphers as something personal. By giving the codes a name made up of combined letters and numbers, the government has also found another way to successfully remove individual identity. Skip Eisiminger states that “…all names are intrinsic parts of the identity of their bearers and deserve respect” (Eisminger 2). Indeed, the government's lack of respect for code names and identities exemplifies the government's negative feelings about the idea of ​​individual identity. D-503 identifies himself more as a machine than a human because he is given the name of a machine. The sense of identity is still rooted in the subconscious of these codes, as D-503 shows even though he finds identity and individualism disturbing. Many of the female codes that D-503 comes into contact with are described by D-503 using their names. D-503 describes O-90 as having soft edges, roundness, and a half-moon like mouth. These adjectives are related to his name where the letter “O” is circular and round. D-503 also gives the I-330 sharp, angled and hard characteristics like the letter "I" in its name. As small as these identifying characteristics are, they show that even a brainwashed cipher like D-503 still has a sense of identity in his subconscious. These successes in One State identity removal are countered by the I-330 code in several ways. Many of his choices are self-defeating and seem very small, but his use of the D-503 shows that his goal is to get rid of the One State, thus restoring an individual's sense of identity. D-503 is always told to meet I-330 at the Old House, often during times when he should be somewhere else according to the Time Table. During his time there, D-503 sees I-330 wearing the Ancients' clothing and drinking and smoking like the Ancients did. By making her own choices, I-330 identifies herself as a rebel. Her goal to use D-503 to bring down the One State is a fight that, while unsuccessful, keeps I-330 going and makes her an individual with an identity and an imagination. Within V for Vendetta, government control over identity is distant. less rigid than within Us, but still equivalent to control over individualism and identity. Government control through concentration camps and regulations and controls outside of concentration camps limit the amount of individuality and identity afforded to futuristic Britons. Most of the men and women taken to these concentration camps are homosexuals and radicals who oppose the government. The threat of concentration camps causes many people to become the government's ideal citizens. To help keep people within this “ideal” model of distinction, the government began to institute controls through the use of eye, ear, mouth, and curfews. By imposing a curfew, the government could control the movements and activities of the population. Additionally, the government has used the news to help keep knowledge limited to citizens. The “mouth” of government, or television, was used to provide only the knowledge that citizens felt they needed to hear. By turning the bombing of Parliament Houses into a “planned demolition undertaken at night to avoid traffic congestion…[and the fireworks] a bizarre effect of the explosion” (Moore and Lloyd 17) the government could keep tabs on and suppress any idea of ​​revolution or revolt. By using the mouth and television to provide citizens with approved information, the government can alter the..