SAMAR SINGH
Literature & Controversy
20 Oct 2018
Dr. Kahn
Midterm Research Paper
Offred’s “Freedom” in The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a 300 pages’ epistolary fiction which allows readers to induces the structure of an entire apocalyptic society, through the story of one character. Atwood derives and refers to a wide range of texts, ranging from contemporary novelists to the Bible to depict the novel. The novel takes place in the northern part of the USA sometime in the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the oppressive and tyrannous Republic of Gilead. In this research, I will touch upon a few of the aspects of how women lost their individuality in the Gilead society.
Atwood’s novel pictures a future where men have taken over society and made women inferior to them. The novel is about a woman that narrates her story and how she struggles in a society where women have lost their freedom. The protagonist in The Handmaid’s Tale is only known by "Offred", also her real name was never revealed. This is because Atwood did not want that character to be just another character, she wanted the readers to step into the Offred’s shoes and how she felt the sensation and the anguish that she experienced in the Gileadean Society. The women in Gilead are not considered as individuals but rather socio-political tools and possessions that men use to boost their standing in society and repopulate the race, though the suffering of females.
According to Offred, Gilead is described in a diversified way. She portrays Gilead within the framework of the discourse however also describing it in a critical way with ironic undertones. Furthermore, in her flashbacks, she depicts the society “before” the revolution, before the foundation of Gilead, which is crucial if one is to understand why Gilead exists. An essential part of the display of these two different societies is the way in which Offred highlights gender inequalities and power structures. This is most distinct in Offred’s portrayal of Gilead and subtler in the narrative of the society “before”. Although Offred seemingly describes the latter as better, however, the type of language she uses when re-counting her former life implies that is not necessarily the case.
In this Atwood's novel, women were conveyed that this society was made for their benefit, but, in fact, they are not benefitted in any way from the Gileadean society. Out of all the females, Handmaid’s are treated the worst and ranked the worse even though they are the most important because they ensure the survival of the human race by being child bearers. However, Handmaid’s would not last long, as the second generation of handmaids would be daughters of the Commanders, who would not accept such social status and for their daughters to be “baby machines” or be vessels. Essentially, Gileadean women are stripped of their names and identities in this unique society and are named after their commanders such as “Of Fred," "Of Glen," “Of Warren," “Of Charles," etc. because they are the property and belong to this individual, the commander from now on. It was by the mean of the centers, such as the Red Center, that the handmaids were driven into their contemporary mindset characters as the semi-brainwashed obedient breeding-slaves. As Offred puts it, “I should have felt evil; by Aunt Lydia's lights, I was evil. But I didn’t feel evil” (157).
The loss of identity was one of the many unjust practices that women had to deal with in the Gileadean society.
The regime in Gilead bends what’s the “truth” is to control women. “Each society has its regime of truth. Its ‘general politics’ of truth – that is, the types of discourse it accepts and makes function as true, the mechanism and instances that enable one to distinguish true and false statements” (Essential 131). In the case of Gilead is that certain statements, for example, women should not be permitted to dress the way they like lies within this “truth”. It would not be considered a “false” statement. In the society “before” as described by Offred, making such a statement would mean to challenge the official equality between men and women, this would not be within the “truth” of the generally accepted discourse. However, there is a problem. There are unspoken or unofficial “truths” which part of the discourse, which means that while a statement like the one above would be defying the official discourse of the society “before”, it has its roots deep within that very society.
Offred, the protagonist, also mediates worries about the male control over women, a display in one of her flashbacks: “I remember walking in art galleries, through the nineteenth century: the obsession they had then with harems […] studies of sedentary flesh, painted by men who’d never been there” (79). This is one of several of Offred’s flashbacks where she evaluates her former ignorant and perhaps the naive concept of the society “before” as something virtuous. This shows that she has apprehended that the way she lived her former life had contributed to the creation of Gilead. Since she allowed herself not to question the way women were exhibited and accustoming to that image in order to gain her personal success. Which is something that would probably not have been achievable if she had questioned the official “truth” of women.
Offred's mother serves as a mouthpiece for a different sort of feminism. Offred's mother marched for abortion rights, the banning of pornography, and many other women's issues before the institution of the new regime. When she was young, Offred remembers being embarrassed by her mother's activities. Her mother would lecture her for being ungrateful and complacent about her rights. Only post-Gilead does Offred realize how complacent she truly was. Offred didn't realize that her job or her right to own property could be taken away. She now understands how the lack of rights changes one's perspective.
To sum up, The Handmaid’s Tale is a bleak message, but one that it portrays clearly. In fact, a rather dreadful story by Atwood, where no woman is thriving. We see many female figures who extant in such a rash society, Offred’s mother who ends up in the colonies, Moira in a brothel, Serena Joy as a miserable housewife, and Ofglen who ends up killing herself. Ironically, Offred, the protagonist who tried the least to improve her situation, is the most successful as she manages to escape and tell her story. Offred finds herself a safe house somewhere to hide, and the only two societies she has ever resided are where women were in one way or another oppressed, be it by the course of sexual violence, language, knowledge or power.
Works Cited
Atwood. Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Great Britain: O.W Toad, 1986.
Foucault, Michel. Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984. Ed. James D. Faubion. London: Penguin, 1994.
Hammer, Stephanie Barbé. “The World as It Will Be? Female Satire and the Technology of Power in ‘The Handmaid's Tale.’” Modern Language Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, 1990, pp. 39–49.
Greene, Gayle. “Choice of Evils.” The Women's Review of Books, vol. 3, no. 10, 1986, pp. 14–15.