‘In the dystopian novel, women’s bodies are not their own.’ In the light of this comment consider how Atwood presents control of female bodies in The Handmaid’s Tale. Consider how your wider reading has enhanced your understanding of this novel.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985 during the second wave of feminism. This type of feminism focused on relationships, sexuality, domestic violence and marital rape, and these kinds of issues feature heavily in the novel. In several of her other works, female characters have been seen to live in worlds dominated by patriarchy, and Atwood has discussed women’s social oppression as a key theme in her writing. The dystopian society in The Handmaid’s Tale, brought about by religious extremism, controls how women have ownership of their bodies. Many women are ‘handmaids’ used for only one purpose: to have children. Any rebellion is punished by death or banishment, as is typical of the dystopian genre, and the society run by the Sons of Jacob movement views women’s bodies as their possessions, so they attempt to control them.
One of the ways the rulers of the society own women’s bodies is through the control of their sexuality. In The Handmaid’s Tale, sexual freedom is controlled in how Offred is told that she must only have sex with the man she has been ‘assigned’ to: the Commander. The lexical choice of the past tense verb ‘assigned’ has connotations of the women being seen as property, as well as having a complete lack of choice, and this shows how their bodies are not their own. Also, the use of past tense makes the ‘assignment’ more final and indisputable, a decision which is inescapable. This idea is reinstated by the past tense verb ‘issued’ in the quotation ‘he hasn't been issued a woman, not even one’. During the Ceremony in Chapter 16, the Commander’s wife ‘grips (Offred’s) hands’ and this means that ‘she is in control, of the process and thus the product.’ The dynamic present tense of the verb ‘grips’ emphasises the control the Commander’s wife has over Offred and how her body is not her own. Even in an act that is ‘supposed to signify that (they) are one flesh, one being’, there is a clear, almost ironic, divide between the two women. The noun ‘flesh’ suggests a sense of detachment from her own body, and a sense of gruesome dehumanisation as she is being seen as meat. This could also have biblical connotations to Genesis 2:24: ‘a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.’ Offred confirms the concept that she is detached from her body in the anaphora ‘one detaches oneself. One describes’. The Commander’s Wife also tells Offred to ‘get up and get out’, and this strict, harsh imperative could represent how much she resents Offred and how the Commander’s Wife owns her body. This idea occurs again in Chapter 21 when Janine gives birth, and the Commander’s Wife sits directly ‘above and behind’ her, supposedly displaying cooperation but instead the prepositions symbolise the status differences between the two women.
Despite this, in some cases the protagonists do take control of their own bodies. In Chapter 4 of The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred moves her hips in front of the ‘sex-starved soldiers’, something which would have been seen as rebellious in the Gilead regime. The sibilant and plosive sounds of ‘sex-starved soldiers’ sound harsh and cacophonic which could demonstrate how tightly controlled the members, and bodies, of the society are. The sibilance also makes the phrase sound more sensual, attaching a kind of shame to a woman taking control of her own sexuality. Offred also takes control of her body when she visits Nick in his room for her own purpose, for her own pleasure as an individual and not to please anyone else: ‘I went back to Nick…I did not do it for him, but for myself entirely.’ The stark clarity of this declarative sentence shows Offred’s certainty of her own desires and her self-awareness: ‘I talk too much. I tell him things I shouldn’t…I should know better.’ The repetition of the personal pronoun ‘I’ emphasises how self-indulgent Offred feels she is being, and keeps the attention of the reader on Offred for longer than usual. In other parts of the novel, she would talk briefly about herself and instead observe her surroundings, or talk in great detail about the people she knows, but during this extract she talks explicitly about herself and what she wants. The fact that Nick ‘talks very little’ and ‘seems indifferent’ reiterates this, although Offred feels strongly towards him.
In Chapter 13, Offred states that ‘I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . now the flesh arranges itself differently.’ The lexical choice of the noun ‘instrument’ could relate to the musical lexical field, and contrast with how detached Offred is now from her own body, or it could be interpreted as referring to a scientific instrument. The asyndetic listing here shows how boundless Offred used to think she was and how she felt in control of her body. Since the Gilead Regime, this has all changed, and now the government owns and restricts what her body can do: where it goes, what it wears, what it can say and what it’s purpose is. In the UK today, skirts were banned in one British school because ‘the girls have to walk up stairs and sit down and it’s a complete distraction”, and in The Handmaid’s Tale, the Handmaids have to wear a red gown so as to ‘keep (them) from seeing, but also from being seen.’ This works symbolically as it could mean that the Handmaids are stopped from seeing the truth about their existence as well as stopped from being seen as equals. Another character that tries to regain control of her body is Moira. As a lesbian, she is a rebel in the eyes of the regime, who is going against what the government has decided her purpose is: childbearing. Although she tries several times to escape the Red Center using her resourcefulness and independence, at the end of the novel she ends up in Jezebel’s , just like Offred. This signifies that despite having a fighting rebel spirit, a totalitarian society can break you down just as much as someone more passive, such as Offred.
In both texts, the characters’ bodies are controlled through their deaths. In Never Let Me Go, the characters know that they will eventually ‘complete’ after they have donated all of their vital organs. The euphemism of ‘complete’ softens the reality that the clones’ only duty and purpose is to donate their organs, just as in The Handmaid’s Tale, the Handmaids’ only duty is to have children. Kathy finds the thought of ‘living in a place…where you could commit suicide anytime you like just by touching a fence’ very strange and the the casual, informal language of ‘anytime you like’ contrasts with the taboo of suicide, emphasising Kathy’s wonder at the concept of having control over your own death. In the same way in The Handmaid’s Tale, ‘they’re removed everything you can tie a rope to’ and the vague, collective pronoun ‘they’ makes the distinction between her and the people controlling her death very clear. Both characters have had their right to control their own death revoked, and particularly in The Handmaid’s Tale, suicide could be seen as the only real form of rebellion the Handmaids have left. By removing the ability to do this, the Gilead regime has stamped out any possibility for rebellion, and any possibility of the women taking back ownership of their bodies. It’s also well known that suicide is considered to be a sin in the Bible, so this also links to the religious context of the novel. Despite this, Offred’s predecessor, hanged herself, and was immediately replaced by another ‘Offred’, showing that even though suicide is banned, it is swept under the rug and dismissed, with the person who has committed the act being replaced without a second thought. The preposition ‘of’ could, perhaps, link to the religious context of Eve being born ‘from Adam’, and Offred essentially belonging to the commander. ’ To summarise, the ruling societies manipulate the deaths of their citizens by removing the capability for them to commit suicide: just as their lives are also controlled, so are their deaths.
Finally, the dystopian societies display ownership of bodies through the control of fertility. The Handmaid’s Tale presents fertility as being the ultimate definition of your humanity. This is reflected in the Bible quote ‘give me children or else I die’ (Genesis 30:1) at the beginning of the novel and how women who can’t have children are referred to with the neologism ‘Unwomen’. The neologism ‘Unwomen’ is Atwood’s way of telling the reader that because of the negative prefix, women are not considered women if they are infertile. In June 2013, Arizona passed a national bill that banned abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy., and in El Salvador, women are locked up for having miscarriages because it is seen as manslaughter. This links to the idea of a woman’s main purpose being to carry children, and being blamed for something completely natural. Offred also refers to herself and other Handmaids as ‘two-legged wombs, that’s all. Sacred vessels,’ and the biblical adjective ‘sacred’ has religious connotations of something that is precious and religiously significant.
In contrast to this, in Never Let Me Go, bodies are thought to be disposable and far from sacred as science has taken over, rather than religion. The lives that the clones are modelled from are referred to as ‘technical necessities’, and Ruth describes them as ‘trash’, which has connotations of uselessness, irrelevance and having no purpose. This is supported in the extract when Moira is beaten and the soles of her feet are beaten. Aunt Lydia reminds the women that ‘hands and feet did not matter for their purpose’, which is reiterated in Chapter 17 when Offred states that ‘we are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important’. In both novels, it is only the insides of their bodies that have significance: whether the women in The Handmaid’s Tale are fertile and whether the clones in Never Let Me Go are able to donate all of their organs. For a 2016 audience, the thought of being defined by what’s inside your body could be unfathomable, but with Donald Trump now in power and hinting at an overturning of gender equality, and organ harvesting still continuing in China today, it may be reality.
In conclusion, The Handmaid’s Tale is speculative fiction where Atwood asks: what would happen if women’s rights were revoked? Is this what the result would be if Christian Fundamentalists got into power? The Catechism statement that ‘we are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of’ links to the idea that no-one’s body is their own, and this is reflected in the two novels as they both raise the question: who really owns our bodies? In The Handmaid’s Tale, men and religion control women’s bodies, whereas in Never Let Me Go, science and wider society does.
Both the novels serves as warnings of the implications of trying to control people’s bodies, as Ishiguro puts forward to the readers what the ethical implications of human clones could be, and whether they will truly benefit us as a society, or transform us into something far more unsettling. Atwood, on the other hand, makes readers see the importance of giving women freedom to control their bodies. We’ve already been through a past riddled with inequality so there’s no reason as to why it couldn’t happen again, perhaps even worse, and that’s what makes gender-based dystopians so horrific.