The Handmaid's Tale
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| An American paperback edition | |
| Author | Margaret Atwood |
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| Cover Artist | Tad Aronowcz, design; Gail Geltner, collage (first edition, hardback) |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | McClelland and Stewart |
| Released | 1985 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 324 (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7710-0813-9 (first edition, hardcover) |
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985. The novel, set in Cambridge, Massachusetts,[1] explores themes of women in subjugation, and the various means by which they gain agency, against a backdrop of the establishment of a totalitarian theocratic state. Sumptuary laws (essentially, dress codes) play a key role in the form of social control in the new society.
The novel is commonly assigned in college-level English courses in the United States, usually in comparison with other dystopian-themed novels. In the UK it is frequently a part of A-level syllabuses, and in Canada and the United States, it is frequently used at the Grade 12 level. It is also part of the HSC syllabus in New South Wales, Australia as well as the TEE syllabus in Western Australia. The American Library Association lists it in "10 Most Challenged Books of 1999" and as No. 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000" due to a high volume of complaints from parents of pupils on these courses regarding the novel's anti-religious content and sexual references.
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[edit] Themes
[edit] Dystopia
A revolution has taken place and the United States has become a Christian dystopia. The Constitution has been abrogated, and a new order has been established: the Republic of Gilead. Gilead is ruled through biblical fundamentalism and rigid enforcement of social roles. Most citizens have been stripped of their freedoms. All religions, except the official state religion, have been suppressed. Those who do not conform to the new norms are pressed into service as handmaids and personal servants or deported to "the colonies" (regions where pollution has reached toxic levels) — if they are lucky. Political and religious dissidents, abortionists, and homosexuals are executed and hung at "The Wall" for public display. The government has proclaimed martial law owing to the destabilizing effect of "hordes of guerrillas" roaming the countryside, although the actual threat from the "guerrillas" may be greatly exaggerated.
In Gilead, many people are infertile for reasons explored only in the coda to the story. Widespread sterility may be owed to the ecological disaster that has made parts of the country uninhabitable and that might have involved nuclear-plant accidents and leakages from toxic-waste sites and stockpiles of chemical weapons. Fertile women who are not parties to state-approved marriages are forced to engage in sexual reproduction for the benefit of the upper classes. Single women who cannot reproduce are exiled. Although men may also be infertile, it is fundamental to the Gileadan worldview and power structure that they be regarded as beyond reproach. According to the state, the problem is not with the men, it is always with the women.
The title character is a woman who had married a divorced man before the revolution. As divorces are all retroactively declared void, she is designated an adulteress and faced with exile to the colonies unless she becomes a handmaid. She has proved her fertility by giving birth to a daughter, who is taken from her after she and her husband and child make a failed attempt to escape Gilead and cross into Canada.
The handmaids are women modeled after Zilpah and Bilha in the Bible, the slaves of the patriarch Jacob's wives Rachel and Leah. When the wives could not conceive, they had their handmaids lay with their husband to have children on their behalf. Like the biblical handmaids, the title character must lay with a man and, if a child is produced, it will be considered the offspring of the man and his wife. The title character's name is never given, but she is known as "Offred" or "of Fred" in reference to the man to whom she has been given.
Handmaids who cannot conceive within three placements are deemed barren and sent to the dreaded colonies with all the other "Unwomen" - so that many genuinely fertile Handmaids seek to impregnate themselves using alternative methods. For example, when Offred receives a medical check-up, the doctor offers to "do the job" for her. Similarly, Fred's wife Serena Joy sets Offred up with Nick the chauffeur, so that she may conceive and produce a child for Serena Joy and her husband and avoid deportation.
[edit] Subjection of women
In Gilead, women are stripped of their independence through the reversal of feminist accomplishments. They are no longer allowed to hold property, arrange their own affairs, make reproductive choices, read, wear make-up, control money, or choose their clothes. Women are segregated into categories, and dressed according to their social functions. Seven legitimate categories (Wives, Daughters, Widows, Aunts, Marthas, Handmaids, and Econowives), and two illegitimate functional categories (Unwomen and, secretly, prostitutes), are mentioned in the novel.
[edit] Socially accepted and promoted categories of women in Gilead
White women seem to be the default in the Gilead society. In the novel, the main non-white ethnic group mentioned is African Americans. Blacks, along with Jews, are quickly shuttled away per the fundamentalist Gileadan interpretations of the Bible. African-Americans are labelled as Children of Ham while Jews are called Sons of Jacob. The reproductive value of white women in America is privileged over that of others. This is an underpinning assumption of the book. Women in Gilead are categorized “hierarchically according to class status and reproductive capacity” as well as “metonymically color-coded according to their function and their labor” (Kauffman 232).
- Wives are at the top social level permitted to women. They are women married to the Commanders who are the ruling circle of the new military dictatorship. They are often infertile for unknown reasons, possibly related to an unexplored ecological disaster or effects of a bioweapon. Wives always wear blue dresses. After the death of her husband, a Wife becomes a Widow, and must dress in black. It is implicitly suggested in the novel that Widows are also being sent to the colonies.
- Daughters are the natural or adopted children of Wives, and, though this is not mentioned, perhaps also of Econowives. They wear white until marriage (at 14). The narrator's daughter has been adopted by an infertile Wife.
- Aunts train and monitor the Handmaids. In return they receive — relatively speaking — a degree of personal autonomy. It is a central organisational element of Gilead that women be used in the social repression of women. Aunts dress in brown.
- Handmaids are fertile women whose social function is to bear children for the Wives. Handmaids are subjected to a monthly reproductive ritual derived from the biblical story of Rachel and Leah's reproductive competition (Genesis 29:31–35; 30:1–24). Handmaids dress in a red habit with a white head-dress which obscures their peripheral vision. The Aunt system produces Handmaids, by reeducating fertile women who have broken Gileadean gender and social laws. Owing to the demands of Wives for fertile Handmaids, Gilead gradually increased the number of gender-crimes. However, the Aunt system attempts to promote the role of the Handmaid as an honorable one and seeks to legitimise it by removing any association with gender-criminality.
- Marthas are older infertile women whose compliant nature and domestic skills recommend them to a life of domestic servitude in the houses of the elite. There has been some conjecture that Marthas are African Americans, reflecting a long tradition of the American elite employing black slaves and domestic workers. However, since black people (referred to in the novel as the "Children of Ham") are described as having been relocated into bantustans, this is unlikely. Marthas dress in green smocks. The title of "Martha" is based on the Gileadite reading of the incident recounted in Luke 10:38-42, where Jesus visits Mary, sister of Lazarus, and Martha; Mary listens to Jesus while Martha is preoccupied "by all the preparations that had to be made."
- Econowives are women who have married relatively low-ranking men, meaning any man who does not belong to the ruling elite. Econowives are expected to perform all the female functions: domestic duties, companionship, child-bearing. The Econowife dress is multicoloured: red, blue and green to reflect these multiple roles.
The division of labour between women engenders some resentment between categories. Marthas, Wives and Econowives perceive Handmaids as sluttish, and Econowives also resent their freedom from domestic work.
[edit] Socially unacceptable categories of women in Gilead
Outside of society exist two further classes of women.
- Jezebels. Informally, the desires of Commanders for mistresses and sexual variety has resulted in a collective form of prostitution available only to them. The women who populate this system are informally known as Jezebels. This category includes some lesbians and attractive, educated women who were unable to adjust to handmaid status. These women are housed in the remains of a hotel and are also used by Commanders to entertain foreign dignitaries. Jezebels dress in the remnants of sexualized costumes from "the time before": cheerleaders' costumes, school uniforms, and Playboy Bunny costumes.
- Unwomen are sterile women, widows, feminists, lesbians, nuns and politically dissident women confined to the Colonies (both areas of agricultural production and deadly pollution). Handmaids who fail to produce a child within three chances are also sent here. Unwomen as a category embraces all women unable to fit within the Republic of Gilead's gender categories. Unlike members of society who transgress and break fundamental rules (who are murderously punished), unwomen are simply regarded as categorically incapable of social integration as their society rejects them utterly. Males who engage in homosexuality (or related acts) are declared Gender Traitors, and either executed, or sent to the Colonies to die a slow death. All those banished to the colonies, men or women, wear grey dresses.
[edit] "The Ceremony"
Human sexuality in Gilead is regulated by the stated belief that sex for pleasure is fundamentally degrading to women, though controlling women's sexuality is, at bottom, a means of denying them power and independence. Men are understood to desire sexual pleasure constantly but are obliged to abstain from all but marital sex for religio-social reasons. The social regulations are enforced by law, with corporal punishment inflicted for lesser offences and capital punishment sometimes inflicted by a group of Handmaids for greater offences. This latter ritual, known as particicution, is also a means of allowing the Handmaids to let off steam, particularly when the condemned is male.
"The Ceremony" is a non-marital sexual act sanctioned solely for the purpose of reproduction and unites Wives, Aunts, Marthas and Handmaids in an urgent mission. Sex acts that defile the Ceremony (for example, sex with a Handmaid for pleasure) are punished with death. It is unknown what social rules regulate sexual relations between men and their Wives, but Commander Fred's marriage clearly suffers from a high degree of personal and sexual alienation. The sexual position of Econowives is also uncertain, since the narrator has no interaction with them.
The Ceremony reenacts in rather literal fashion the biblical passage in which Jacob's infertile wife Rachel says to him "Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees" (Genesis 29:31–35; 30:1–24). The Gileadan variation on the passage has the Handmaid lying supine upon the Wife during the sex act itself.
Offred describes the ceremony:
| My red skirt is hitched up to my waist though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for. | ||
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— Atwood, pg.104-105
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Once a Handmaid is pregnant, she is venerated by her peers and by the Wives. After her baby is born, it is given to the Wife of her Commander, and she is reassigned to another household. The Handmaid's reward for giving birth is that she will never be sent to the Colonies, even if she does not conceive again. This suggests that there is some justice within Gileadean society and that there is, however small, some recompense for some women. However, these rewards may simply be a functional incentive for social cooperation, motivated more by a need to avoid disorder than by justice. Moreover, owing to the unidentified ecological disaster, approximately one quarter of all children born have physical defects. These are taken by the government, after which they are never heard of again. They are described by the handmaids as shredders, a dysphemism that implies their death and perhaps euthanasia.
[edit] Subjection of women in pre-Gileadian society
Via Offred's memories, the novel indicates that pre-Gileadian society was not a heaven for women. This society was late 20th-century America as Atwood envisioned it developing towards the year 2000. Women feared physical and sexual violence, and despite long-running feminist campaigns (approximately 1970–2000 within the text), they had not achieved equality. Feminist campaigners, particularly radicals like Moira (Offred's long-time friend) and Offred's mother were persecuted by the state. In addition, mass commercialization of sexuality had occurred and prostitution had reached a nadir of "fast-food" and "home delivery" sexuality. Women outside of prostitution in "the former times" were subject to a socially-constructed vision of romantic love that encouraged serial monogamy in favor of men's social and sexual interests.
Atwood is also mocking those who talk of 'traditional values'; for example, such leaders as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan who suggested that women should return to being housewives. Atwood was eager to demonstrate that extremist views might result in fundamentalist totalitarianism that targets even the holders of such views. Serena Joy, formerly a television Gospel singer and preacher of traditional values, has been forced to give up her career and is clearly not content. Her preaching has destroyed her own life.
On the other hand, in pre-Gileadean society and despite holding a University degree from an unspecified North American university, Offred was a menial white collar worker. Offred's coworkers were all women, but her boss was a man. Aside from having had to cope with oppressive cultural and social phenomena, women lacked full and meaningful control over their economic lives.
[edit] Social regulation of human sexuality
As The Commander explains, the Gileadian elite has formulated an explanation of the failure of society in "the former times": women were too available to men. Men's ready sexual access to women led to violence and abuse and a decrease of authentic feeling. Gilead's solution is to limit men's access to women until they have proved themselves within social-ideological terms. Fred (supposedly the Commander's proper name) sees no problem in the fact that women are in both cases treated as the property of men, in the former case as individual property and in the latter case as social property. Fred also makes it clear that women are considered to be intellectually and emotionally inferior; in Gilead, they are not permitted to read and female children are not educated, since the view is that allowing women to become literate was a great mistake of the past.
[edit] Sumptuary laws
The sumptuary laws of Gilead are complex. All lower status individuals are regulated by sumptuary dress laws. Women, in particular, are divided into castes by their dress. Men too are regulated but equipped with military or paramilitary uniforms: constrained but also empowered. Only rare civilians (increasingly persecuted) and Commanders seem to be free of sumptuary restrictions. This freedom itself is indicative of power.
Additionally, those punished with death are dressed for the occasion: priests in long, forbidding robes and doctors in consulting gowns.
[edit] Plot
The story is told from the perspective of Offred, a Handmaid. "Offred" is a patronymic which describes her function in the Republic of Gilead; Offred belongs to (or is "of") her Commander, Fred. Offred's real name is not revealed. (In fact, no character is given a surname, something that enhances the somewhat other-worldly quality of the story.) Based on certain clues, some believe that Offred's real name is June (eg. at the beginning of the story, when Offred is in the gymnasium, she recites the names of all the girls; when she later speaks of all of these characters she does not include the name June. (In the 1990 film adaptation, Offred gives her real first name as Kate; however, this name does not appear in the novel.)
Offred's assignment to the household of the Commander is her third, after she has failed to become pregnant with her first two Commanders. If she fails with her current Commander, she will be transported to the colonies. We are given tiny hints as to Offred's opinion of one of her former Commanders, particularly during the Ceremony. This third assignment differs from her earlier experiences in that she is given, in various disjointed episodes, glimpses that all is not as it seems in the new world and that the people in her life, while paying lip service to Gilead's rigid mores, seek various means of expressing their individuality.
Offred initially becomes aware of this new viewpoint when Fred oversteps the bounds of her official role by ordering her to visit his study late at night to play Scrabble with him. He also obtains forbidden hand lotion for her and allows her to read books and magazines from the old days. On one occasion, he dresses her up in a sexy costume and smuggles her out to Jezebel's, a nightclub and brothel. He asks that she keep all this secret from his Wife, Serena Joy.
At the same time, Serena Joy is asking Offred to keep secrets from the Commander. Resentful of having been deprived of her formerly prominent role as a televangelist (loosely based on Tammy Faye Bakker, who, like Serena Joy, often cried and streaked her mascara on television) and right-wing lecturer (loosely based on Phyllis Schlafly, who, like Serena Joy, ironically traveled across the country telling women that they should stay home), she feels that the only thing that can give meaning to her life is a child. Since the Commander is likely to be sterile (his previous Handmaids did not conceive), Serena Joy suggests that Offred attempt to conceive a child with Nick, the chauffeur, later revealed to be a member of the underground Resistance.
Nick and Offred begin an emotional and sexual relationship which they continue until, in the final chapter, Offred is either caught or smuggled out of the household. By this time, Offred and Nick believe that she might be pregnant. Her fate is not made clear by the ambiguous ending, though since she was afforded an opportunity to make tapes describing her experiences, it seems likely that she was rescued by Nick and his colleagues and possibly was able to leave the country via the "Underground Femaleroad" mentioned in the appendix.
In fact, the appendix treats Offred's on-tape narrative as a historical document, discussed at an academic conference far in the future. In this respect The Handmaid's Tale is similar to Egalia's Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg, or God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert, and, to a different degree, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Despite the novel's ambiguity about Offred's fate and what may be considered evidence of continued sexist attitudes, the appendix does imply a 'happy ending'. Atwood seems to be saying, "this too shall pass" regarding not only her novel's totalitarianism but also the fundamentalist and fanatical elements of her own time.
Nevertheless, some critics have taken issue with a wholly optimistic interpretation of the appendix: it is arguable that the academic analyst of Offred's narrative indicates his adherence to an androcentric and dehumanizing grand narrative of major historical events rather than a focus on the very real human tragedies that befall the citizens of Gilead, (though Atwood is likely to have been commenting on certain preoccupations and approaches current in 1980's literary criticism and historical scholarship). Additionally, sexist and chauvinistic attitudes can still be observed (in, for instance, the lecturer's nickname for the "Underground Femaleroad" escape route: the "Frailroad").
The Handmaid's Tale is similar in theme to some of Margaret Atwood's other books (such as Oryx and Crake) with its post-apocalyptic atmosphere. It makes use of many contemporary motifs, such as the debate over the separation of church and state, the sexual roles of men and women in society, and ultimately the right to individuality within the confines of an increasingly authoritarian government.
[edit] Social critique
Atwood's tale comprises a number of social critiques.
It presents a dystopic vision of American society in the period 1970–1985, particularly in the period of backlash against feminism. This critique is most clearly seen in both Offred's remembrance of the slow social transformation towards theocratic fascism and in the ideology of the Aunts.
But Atwood also offers a critique of contemporary feminism. By working against pornography, feminists in the early 1980s opened themselves up to criticism that they favored censorship. Anti-pornography feminist activists made alliances with the religious right, despite the denials of some feminists. (see Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon). Atwood warns that the consequences of such an alliance may end up empowering feminists' worst enemies. Atwood also suggests, through descriptions of the narrator's feminist mother burning books, that contemporary feminism was becoming overly rigid and adopting the same tactics as the religious right.
Most obviously, Atwood critiques modern, fundamentalist, religious movements, specifically American fundamentalist Christianity, though there is a brief suggestion that she was also considering Iranian fundamentalist Islam. In the American case, a religious revival of the mid-1970s seemed to remain particularly influential in the early 1980s. Jimmy Carter, a US president during the period, had avowed his renewed and reaffirmed Christianity. Additionally, the religious right was growing as a power base through televangelism. In the book, Atwood pictures revivalism as a counter-revolutionary doctrine, opposed to the revolutionary doctrine espoused by Offred's mother and Moira, which sought to break down gender categories. A common Marxist historical reading of fascism states that fascism is the backlash of the right after a revolution has failed. Atwood explores this Marxist reading and translates its analysis into the structure of a religious and gender revolution. This is demonstrated in the quote "From each according to her ability... to each according to his needs" (1996, pg.127), a deliberate distortion of Marx's own phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" - the latter (whilst using the pronoun 'him') represents an ideological statement on class and society; the former, a stance taken by Gileadian society towards gender roles.
It is worth noting that during the Iranian revolution, an alliance of Western-educated intellectuals advocated modernism and Marxism but were defeated by other factions. Women played a key role in the revolution, and at the time The Handmaid's Tale was written, it was a common fear that Iranian women would be completely disempowered by their own accomplishment.
[edit] Key phrases
In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood takes pains to emphasize the effect of changing context on behaviors and attitudes. A key phrase "context is all" (1996, pg.154, 202) is repeated throughout the novel. The Scrabble game, for example, illustrates her point, since Offred describes it as once "the game of old men and women" (1996, pg.149) but now forbidden and therefore "desirable" (1996, pg.149). Offred also perceives the world differently in a society that is morally rigid. Revealing clothes and make-up were part of her former life; yet, when she encounters some Japanese tourists wearing these, she is intrigued by her feeling that they are inappropriately dressed.
[edit] Film adaptation
A 1990 film adaptation of the novel was directed by Volker Schlöndorff. It starred Natasha Richardson (Offred), Faye Dunaway (Serena Joy), Robert Duvall (The Commander, Fred), Aidan Quinn (Nick), and Elizabeth McGovern (Moira).
[edit] Stage and musical adaptation
A straight stage adaptation by Brendon Burns was toured by the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, UK in 2002.
There is also an opera, written by Poul Ruders, which premiered in Copenhagen on 6 March, 2000.
[edit] Biblical references
The primary biblical reference in The Handmaid's Tale is to the story of Rachel and Leah (Genesis 29:31–35; 30:1–24). While Leah was fertile and was blessed by God, Rachel was barren, meaning she could not have children. Rachel proceeds to compete in producing sons for her husband, by using her handmaids as property. Rachel takes immediate possession of the children produced by her handmaids. In the context of Atwood's book, the story is one of female competition, jealousy, and reproductive cruelty.
A similar story also exists in Genesis, where Sarah is infertile, and Hagar conceives on Sarah's behalf. The Sarah and Hagar story is considerably different from the Rachel and Leah story. This is mainly because of the active role played by Hagar, and Hagar's possession of her child. Due to Sarah's reproductive generosity, Sarah's fertility is restored by God at an advanced age. Atwood was aware of the similarity between these stories, and was using it to show the hypocrisy of Gileadean biblical interpretation: the biblical story showed a relationship between a wife and a handmaid which did not involve sexual and reproductive subjugation. Additionally, it was ultimately the choice of the wives in the Bible, whereas wives in Gilead (such as Serena Joy) are forced.
| Preceded by The Engineer of Human Souls |
Governor General's Award for English language fiction recipient 1985 |
Succeeded by The Progress of Love |
[edit] References in social science
- Stephen J. Ducat. The Wimp Factor. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. p. 110. ISBN 0-8070-4344-3
- Kauffman, Linda S. Gender and Theory. Blackwell, 1989. p. 232
[edit] External links
- Analysis, background, themes and quizzes on The Handmaid's Tale.
- The most honored novels: The Handmaid's Tale has received numerous honors and is near the top of the list
[edit] Notes
- ^ From the publisher: http://www.randomhouse.com/anchor/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385490818&view=rg
