Handmaids Tale - Power and Control

The Handmaids Tale is a poetic tale of a woman's survival as a Handmaid in the male dominated Republic of Gilead. Offred portrayed the struggle living as a Handmaid, essentially becoming a walking womb and a slave to mankind. Women throughout Gilead are oppressed because they are seen as "potentially threatening and subversive and therefore require strict control" (Callaway 48). The fear of women rebelling and taking control of society is stopped through acts such as the caste system, the ceremony and the creation of the Handmaids. The Republic of Gilead is surrounded with people being oppressed. In order for the Republic to continue running the way it is, a sense of control needs to be felt by the government. Without control Gilead will

In Gilead, women are treated like objects and all of their rights are taken away from them. They cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might cause them to become rebellious or independent, and undermine the men, or the state. Even the shops where the handmaids go to buy food do not have names on for them to read, just pictures. The only thing important about a woman now is her ovaries and her womb, as they are reduced to just their fertility.

Offred recalls an outfit she wore, similar to Unwomen, (before Gilead), that allows her to truly recognize her mother’s beauty regardless

The most blatent form of control would of course be the punishments given for resistance and the retribution given out for disobeying the state. These, in Gilead, are really rather harsh and such things as homosexuality can resut in death, under the term "Gender treachery." This is positively appalling to any civilised person believing in equal rights and death is almost absurd for such a non-crime. It seems that the society has medieval tendencies, which can be expected seeing that it's main doctrine is taken from the most ancient book, the Bible. Still obviously this is no excuse for such barbaric acts in a modern society.

Fear is power. Fear is ever-present in Gilead; it is implemented through violence and force. It is through fear that the regime controls the Gileadian society. There is no way Offred, or the other Handmaids can avoid it. What used to be Harvard University, a

The setting of The Handmaid’s Tale – known as Gilead – is a totalitarian government, originally based on Old Testament patriarchy. This structure forbids rival loyalties or parties, so all loyalty must be for the group of men that

of the veil is to conceal and hide women as well as to prevent women

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the Gilead regime oppresses women in many different ways; they take complete control over their bodies, they

In the republic of Gilead, there are many rules and restrictions within all levels of the community, wives, econowives, common men and handmaid’s included, which limit the goings-on of the people. These rules were all created by the men in charge, going by the name of ‘The sons of Jacob’ and are forcefully implemented by the angels, the male soldiers and ‘protectors’. The roles of those in charge all belong to a

The Handmaid's Tale, a film based on Margaret Atwood’s book depicts a dystopia, where pollution and radiation have rendered innumerable women sterile, and the birthrates of North America have plummeted to dangerously low levels. To make matters worse, the nation’s plummeting birth rates are blamed on its women. The United States, now renamed the Republic of Gilead, retains power the use of piousness, purges, and violence. A Puritan theocracy, the Republic of Gilead, with its religious trappings and rigid class, gender, and racial castes is built around the singular desire to control reproduction. Despite this, the republic is inhabited by characters who would not seem out of place in today's society. They plant flowers in the yard, live in suburban houses, drink whiskey in the den and follow a far off a war on the television. The film leaves the conditions of the war and the society vague, but this is not a political tale, like Fahrenheit 451, but rather a feminist one. As such, the film, isolates, exaggerates and dramatizes the systems in which women are the 'handmaidens' of today's society in general and men in particular.

The laws of Gilead dehumanizes women and takes away their rights as citizens to society. Gilead wasn’t always like that until the revolution overcame the town and took away women's rights. “In Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, women are totally under the control of male members of the patriarchal society; she describes a patriarchal society and reflects the political ideology in America of that time.” Women are downgraded without any authority and control by men. “Women are like birds that are kept in cages to stop them from flying. And the authorities make women believe that this society is very secure for them and they are protected in this way of living. They also make women believe that the new way is a better freedom and God will save them if they follow.” They are taking the laws made by Gilead and comparing

In “The Handmaids Tale”, author Margaret Atwood vividly illustrates the repulsive society of Gilead, that is strictly regulated by a Theocracy. In a Theocracy both religion and the government is one entity that rules under the teachings of the Bible and God. In Gilead, every inhabitant has an occupation based on gender and class that they must entirely devote themselves too. The authoritarian rule of Gilead disciplines many characters into being docile, obedient and submissive in consequence of modified communication. Gilead is able to drastically change and maintain order in this society by the manipulation and alteration of phrases. Through the perception of color, defined phrases and biblical ceremonies is that Gilead is able to suppress an entire society. Gilead imposes compliancy to a Theocracy by the use of the colored uniforms, defines freedom, biblical references and objects such as a wall.

With these changes to society, members often felt bounded by Gilead and the ability to control one’s thoughts appears impossible, as Aunt Lydia tells Offred, “The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you” (Atwood 23). It appears that Aunt Lydia believes that Gilead is an internal part of each individual and therefore, it is always helping to ‘shape’ one’s thoughts and actions. Gilead’s justification of why women don’t need an education is that since a woman’s purpose in society is to bear children and raise them, they no longer require an education to perform such duties. The male population of Gilead did not lose the same rights that the women lost, however, males still have restricted freedom and restricted access to materials (books, magazines, etc). The restrictions placed on women’s and men’s lives in Gilead appear to match a characteristic of a dystopia. Since men and women don’t receive the same education in Gilead due to the restrictions on freedom, it would be improper to consider Gilead a utopia.

This is exemplified when Offred hears Aunt Lydia say, “Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary” (Atwood 33). The repetition of ordinary is used to reinforce how harsh realities (e.g. public execution) are perceived and justified as normal by the citizens of Gilead; however, in Offred’s previous life, she would have been repulsed to see a public hanging of an innocent person. With Aunt Lydia’s presence and words casting a shadow in Offred’s mind, she begins to have a sense of normalcy about life in Gilead. The Aunt Lydia’s words are so powerful and influential that Offred begins to transform her way of thinking, which mirrors the lack of individuality that she displays. Not only can Offred not think for herself, but her vision is also controlled by Gilead. For instance, Offred and other handmaids must wear white wings, which are a headdress to restrict their vision. This is shown when Atwood writes, “There remains a mirror, on the hall wall. If I turn my head so that the white wings framing my face direct my vision towards it…[I see] myself in it like a distorted shadow” (9). The white wings are symbolic of her not being able to see reality and only what Gilead wants her to see; therefore, her vision is restricted and so are her thoughts. Furthermore, her vision is not

Though the English language has its roots in a male-dominated society where the true meaning of words are now taken for granted. In The Handmaid’s Tale, language facilitates power. In order to effectively rule over class and gender the level of censorship on literature and control of discourses runs high. Atwood uses word choice to expose the shocking structures of the Gilead society and how faulty its foundations are as it was built upon gender inequality. The repercussions of gendered language are evident throughout the novel, implying that the sexist structure of Gilead is a result of oppressive language modern Americans accept and use in every day talk.