Basic Information
Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale from the years of 1984 to 1985, and since its publication the book has never been out of print. She was born on the 18th of November,1939 in Ottawa, Canada (Atwood, par. 4). Being the daughter of a forest entomologist, she spent her childhood in the woods of northern Ontario and Quebec before moving to Toronto at age seven (British Council, par. 1). She attended Leaside High School, and at sixteen decided to become a writer. She earned her bachelors from Victoria College, University of Toronto in 1961, and completed her masters in 1962 at Radcliffe College. She also studied for two periods of time at Harvard University (Advameg, par. 2). Atwood has been a full time writer since 1972, writing a plethora of novels, short stories, essays, poems, scripts, and articles (British Council, par. 1). Atwood has written such novels as The Edible Woman (1969), Surfacing (1973), Lady Oracle (1977), Life Before Man (1980), Bodily Harm (1982), the Handmaid’s Tale (1986), Cat’s Eye (1989(, The Robber Bride (1993) and many more. She has had her books adapted for screen, stage, and television, most recently being the Handmaids Tale on hulu, receiving its second season. She received Britain’s highest literary award in 2000, the $47,000 Booker Prize, donating the prizes money to environmental causes (Advameg, par. 11).
The Handmaid’s Tale tells the story of Offred, a second class citizen for the sake of reproduction called a Handmaid, owned by the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, in the Republic of Gilead, a country that has replaced what is now America. Because of low birthrates caused by pollution and chemicals, she has to have a sexual ritual called the Ceremony with the Commander and Serena Joy monthly with hopes of conceiving a child. She does not have any freedom, as women are not allowed to read, vote, even going to the market she is watched by secret police. This was written from the years of 1984 to 85, the tale end of the second wave feminist movement, which primarily focused on peace, equality in schools and the workplace, access to birth control and an end to violence against women. It ended with the creation of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) in Canada, to guarantee new rights gained by women. VOW focused on nuclear disarmament, collecting baby teeth and testing them for Strontium 90, which comes from an environment after nuclear testing (Strong-Boag). They protested against the Vietnam War, which continued into more peace protests into the 80’s. Feminist media once again bloomed to life, including The Handmaid’s Tale. Women’s studies was introduced, as well as more women being found in history, psychology and languages as their perspectives were being taken seriously (Strong-Boag). Outfit styles changed for women, becoming less rigid with different hem lines, hairstyles, tights and boots. Household labor remained in the court of women, and they largely remained in traditional women’s jobs, with low wages. Male domination in employment and education began to change with reforms. Their was a movement for autonomy of the body, with women demanding birth control and the rejection of violence. In 1969, birth control was removed from the criminal code (Strong-Boag). The grand feminist movement of the 1960s-80s mixed with nuclear war and the Vietnam war were the backdrop for the creation of Atwood’s novel.
Literary Techniques
The Republic of Gilead is a society that has taken the place of the United States of America. We are not explicitly told the city or state our narrator, Offred is in, though we know she is in what was Cambridge, Massachusetts when she is serving the Commander as the wall she goes to when she is sent to the market is the remains of the Harvard University wall. Not much has physically changed, the majority of the housing and shops are similar to how we have seen them, if not a little more primitive. The government of Gilead is totalitarian, based around control of women by men and the following of sections from the Bible. Due to the control of this government, women are no longer allowed to read, vote, hold jobs, have money, or independent property and many are captured and sent to ‘reprogramming’ at the Red center. The forced loyalty of its people is not to be ignored, resistance is not an option, “The Republic of Gilead…knows no bounds. Gilead is within you,” (5.2).
In addition to women having a lack of autonomy and education, there is the subject of reproduction. The population of Gilead is declining rapidly due to many men and women becoming infertile, though men are not legally recognized to be infertile, as the responsibility of conceiving falls on females. Fertile women who have broken the law, called Handmaids, are taken to reprograming to be taught how to serve within the home. Their purpose is to assist higher class families (class status is gained through leadership in the often reference ‘war’) who cannot conceive through a ritual called “the Ceremony” where the commander they serve has sex with them monthly. Handmaids are not allowed to marry and are given two year assignments, renamed as ‘Of (commander’s name)’. This is all according to Gilead’s law of Biblical origin, where the suggestions of Genesis 30:1 “Give me children or else I die” is the primary political code, and all means will be taken to achieve that no matter the cost. Within this religion, other religion was abolished in the overthrow, by the Sons of Jacob, who overthrew the original US government to put the Republic of Gilead in place.
There are also complex dress codes, dictated by sex, occupation and caste. Caste and class partially dictate your location in the Republic of Gilead. Black people, otherwise known as Children of Ham, are sent to the National Homelands in the Midwest, taking them out of the society Offred is in and the reproducing population as a whole. Jews are forcefully emigrated back to Isreal, though they are often dumped into the sea. Catholics refusing to convert are killed or sent to the Colonies. The Colonies are a horrible place where everyone wears grey dresses and “nonpersons” such as sterile unmarried women are sent. Within the society of the handmaids tale, men wear military uniforms the majority of the time. There is a war supposedly raging beyond the city limits but the narrator has never seen it, only heard about it through TV. Women who are not “non-women” are divided into different social levels and dress. Wives of Commanders are the top social status for women, who wear blue. Daughters of Commanders, both adopted and legitimate, wear long white dresses until they are married, which is arranged. Handmaids dress in long red dresses, and have long bonnets to cover their face. Aunts train the Handmaids, and dress in brown. They are the only class of women who can read. Marthas are old infertile women who do domestic work, dressing in green. Men are divided into far less categories. Commanders of the Faithful, commonly just called commanders, who have a wife, a Handmaid, Marthas and Guardians. They wear black. Eyes are the secret police of Gilead. Angels are soldiers who fight in the aforementioned wars and guard the training facilities for handmaids. Guardians are soldiers who are unsuitable for other work and wear green. In the world of Gilead, the rules, the codes, and the doctrine are too be followed, or you face banishment. There is no escape.
Our protagonist is our narrator, a woman now called Offred. She is a Handmaid, one of many in the story, telling us about her life through the present as well as flashbacks before she was taken to the reeducation center. We know very little about her, we are not revealed her true name because it is forbidden. She tells us her age, thirty three, that she has brown hair, she is 5’7”, and she has ovaries that function. That is the little physical description we have about her, aside from the standard Handmaid’s uniform. This is due to her limited freedoms as a handmaid, unable to even look at herself in the mirror. She is slightly rebellious, but not reckless with her life. She thinks about theft, but refuses. Her key moment of rebellion is making eye contact with a Guardian, which is forbidden. Before the take over of Gilead, when she was free, she dressed how she wanted and loved who she wanted. She was a wife and a mother, married to Luke and having an unnamed daughter with him, who were captured before they could escape into Canada. She is an everywoman in a society that has conditioned her to be so, conditioned her to be nothing more than a container for her sex organs, hoping to get pregnant.
The antagonist is the society of Gilead itself, perhaps even Gilead’s national version of God, as all they do is in His name. But the antagonist can be found in character standing for the society of Gilead for their own benefit who come into contact with Offred, such as Aunt Lydia or the Eyes. Her current assignment, the Commander and Serena Joy, put her into danger by asking her to betray the regime on two separate occasions, but betrayal of the regime in any sense could be seen as a victory in the totalitarian society. The society of Gilead has stripped Offred of her name, her family, her self worth, and her identity. The heavy lifting of this is primarily done by Aunt Lydia in the Red Center. Her words brainwash the women at the center, announcing the rules over and over, shocking and ordering maimings. She justifies the borderline slavery of the Handmaids, and asks they to have sympathy for the often cruel, infertile wives they are serving. She proceeds over the execution in the women’s Salvaging, showing her lack of empathy for her fellow human being and woman, just as Gilead would want.
Moira is a rebel that is later broken down by the society of Gilead. Offred know her from before Gilead, they had been friends in college. She’s a lesbian, a crime in Gilead, but refuses to listen to reeducation in the Women’s Center. She helps pull the women of the center together, smacking Janine and attempting to escape. She successfully escapes, but ends up working at Jezbel’s, a sex club, and is broken down with no more fire in her spirit, living as a prostitute.
The Commander is Offred’s master, a high status man who reads and is slightly rebellious to the government’s rules. He feels guilty about the previous Offred, who committed suicide, so he provides Offred with a lot more power than most Handmaid’s have. He has her read and plays scrabble with her, both very illegal, and shows his lack of belief in Gilead’s codes. He has Offred dress up in a way that is not allowed for Handmaids and takes her to Jezebel’s, a sex club, in secret. He hangs around with prostitutes before going upstairs to have illegal sex outside of the Ceremony with Offred. The Commander is rebellious to society in a way that is socially acceptable, mainly due to his status and sex.
Serena Joy is the Commander’s wife, an infertile woman who desperately wants a baby, no matter if it means breaking the law. She was a televangelist and gospel singer before getting married, and frequently quotes the bible in the home. She tells Offred to have sex with Nick, a servant, in an effort to get her pregnant, but becomes angry when she finds out the Commander has had Offred break the law, too. She is suffering as she has no role, a homemaker without a real home and a wife without a husband who cares about her.
Nick is the servant who Offred has sex with in an effort to get pregnant. He is instantly attractive to her and consistently rebellious, a sort of symbol of temptation. Her one time intercourse with him (advocated for by Serena) turns into a full blow affair, in which she tells him everything. She knowingly says this is stupid, but she trusts him. And trust she does. When the men in the van come to take her away at the end, Nick says to trust them, as they are from the rebellion group Mayday in disguise. What happens after that is unknown.
Within the Handmaid’s Tale, key themes surround women and their role in society come up, as an important piece of feminist literature is expected to have.