The Handmaid’s Tale: Language and Oppression
It is commonly known that language, along with the ability to read and write, is vital to one’s ability to thrive and contribute in a society. Without it people are left restricted and deprived of the power it can give, and are susceptible to the influence of those who control this ability. The fiction novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, by prize winning author Margaret Atwood reflects this idea in a futuristic, dystopian, and theocratic United States where dangerously low reproduction rates has lead to the use of sexual slaves known as Handmaids, who are assigned to bear children to the elite couples of Gilead who cannot conceive on their own. Throughout the book, Atwood uses language and neologisms to guide readers to understand themes of oppression.
As the novel begins, readers are introduced to the Republic of Gilead and how they use language as a tool in the oppression of the citizens. This new government redefines and manipulates words, and uses biblical terms to permeate every aspect of life in order to enforce a kind of power-relation over its people. This use of religion is evident in some of the authoritative roles that men have such as “Angels”, “The Eye of God”, or “Guardian” which the protagonist Offred highlights in the text when recalling events at the Red Center saying, “The Angels stood outside it with their backs to us. They were objects of fear to us, but of something else as well” (Atwood 4). This referring of Gilead’s soldiers as “Angels”, which emulates the biblical meaning of one who is a messenger of God and someone who is a person of exemplary conduct and virtue, shows how these Soldiers are not only there to perform physical duties but how their name [Angel] serves as a type of mental rhetoric, to emphasize the idea that the people of Gilead are supposed to look up to them in ways of which they should aim to follow and obey. Through the use of a new vocabulary, Atwood shows readers how language is a form of power and that Gilead uses language as a form of control over its people's thoughts and actions. This interpretation allows readers to determine the ways in which language can envelop people within a theocratic system.
As the book continues, readers are exposed to the control of the Gileadites through the regulation of speech and language. This regulation allows Gilead to mobilize language to instill fear, paranoia, and intimidation in its people, as it is clear that biblical vocabulary is embedded into even the most simple of communications. It can be seen at work in the conversations exchanged between the characters in the book when Offred and Ofglen take their daily walks to the store, “ ‘Blessed be the fruit’, she says to me, the accepted greeting among us, ‘May the Lord open’, I answer, the accepted response”(Atwood 19). In another instance when Offred and Ofglen are talking, Ofglen uses the phrase, ‘Under his Eye” (Atwood 48) which instills fear into them when they hear it. The women self-censor their own speech and actions even when no one is around, due to Gilead’s use of language as surveillance and the worry that they are being watched somehow by a higher authority. With the concern of being watched or reported by those around them along with the constant threat of death or torture if caught speaking against the regime. This aids the Republic in the oppression of its people through the confines of officially sanctioned language.
Advancing the theme of oppression by the regulation of language is the symbolism used in the stores individuals are allowed to shop at. In the book Critical Insights: Margaret Atwood, director of Catholic Studies at Loyola University in Chicago, Michael P. Murphy, wrote a chapter called “Hanging onto Words: Language, Religion, and Spirituality in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale” where he points out the use of speech as a constraint on the Gileadites. In this chapter Murphy states, “ The Handmaids in the novel are spiritually assailed by the regime of Gilead because communication is acutely regulated, reading is illegal, and speech is ‘amputated’ (Atwood 201)”. He points out that language is the “chief” of all human signs by not only binding a species together, but reveals what “theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar calls the ‘mysterious more’ that attends human existence”( Adriano 231). During one of Offred and Ofglen’s excursions, they stop at Soul Scrolls, which Offred goes to describe as a, “… a sign of piety and faithfulness to the regime…” (Atwood 167). Instead of sending letters or messages amongst one another in their society, since reading and literacy is forbidden, the Gileadites are instead encouraged to purchase and send prayers out to show their devotion to God and the regime. This encouragement to send prayers of what they wish instead of using their own free will to communicate their desires, shows how those without an authoritative power role, especially women, are subjugated and deemed inferior through the practice of this oppressive language. Gilead’s main motive in using language to oppress its people is to create a worldview that brings together religious and social ideas. Therefore, Gilead’s vocabulary shapes the beliefs of its citizens and defines what people can say or do in order to buttress its totalitarian order.
Atwood also goes on to show how language can be used to oppress a group of people by utilizing a new theocratic vocabulary that strips its people of their individuality. In the Republic of Gilead, the use of labels to categorize members of the society is prominent. Names have been stripped away and people are solely identified by their occupation. Women are only known by their gender roles as Wives, Econowives, Daughters, Marthas, or Handmaids. On the other hand, men are classified by their military rank as Commander, Angel, or Guardian. In an academic journal, “The Handmaid’s Tale as a Scrabble Game”, by former professor at University of Louisiana Lafayette Joseph Adriano he talks about the significance of words for those in Gilead. Adriano goes on to say how people are typically very particular in the way you spell their name, since it is usually the first thing they learn to spell and is who they are. The name therefore “casts a spell” for who that person is and their prophecy. Adriano states, “The Handmaid’s Tale not only had her name misspelled; she’s had it erased by the state… Names and words are her only weapon against the state. As the state attempts to erase her identity by renaming her…” (adriano 1). Gilead takes away the power of one’s name by stripping away their identity by not only renaming them, but also through the clothes they wear along with the names of and types of stores they are allowed to go to. This use of language by labeling destroys a sense of unity between the people by putting them against one another, and tears down one’s morale and emotional state as they start to lose who they were and begin to become what their labels are in order to survive. Supported by Gilead’s female oppression, Atwood is able to reveal the power names have in controlling one’s internal and external perceptions. This also shows how Atwood is conveying how words and related ideological constructs can constrain and determine an individual’s thoughts. With this, Gilead is able to tighten its oppressive “grip” on its people by getting rid of the possibility for people to form connections and be able to rise up against the regime.
The Handmaid’s Tale reveals how language can be used as a persuasive technique used to intimidate individuals into certain practices or beliefs, commanding the way in which individuals behave or perceive themselves. Due to the fact that Gilead chooses to replace and create words in society with biblical language as well as using names to confine individuals to specific identities dramatically affects the members of society by creating paranoia and forcing them to conform to the totalitarian regime. With the Gileadites relinquishing their power of speech to the power of the state, they unknowingly are surrendering so much more.