The Handmaid's tale. Public beatings and public hangings are common in Gilead - why? Discuss the function of violence in the novel.

Public beatings and hangings were a way to instill fear in certain groups of people or to the general population. It was a way for authority figures at the time to control those who wanted freedom or equal rights from oppressing laws. Servants or field workers were often beaten to teach them a lesson, to discipline them and to show those who witnessed it that they would bear the same fate if they disobeyed the rules.