I first read Margret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale, in a literature class in high school and after years of reading other classic western novels like The Scarlet Letter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or The Great Gatsby, it would become one of the greatest pieces of literature that resonated with me throughout my college years. I would re-read Atwood’s work and reinterpret a scene where the main character, Offred, is taken to a brothel night club for a theatre class in oral interpretation of literature. With three years of college behind me at the time, I read the story of Offred with a new perspective, as a woman.
The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a futuristic dystopian society where the American government has been overthrown and in its place a totalitarian theocracy known as the Gilead has taken power. This society believes the roles of women should be as in the home and bearing children, eliminating any and all rights women once had in contemporary American society. Extreme retaliation is used against those who rebel. The narrator is a female, who is name Pre-Gilead era is unknown, but her name as a Handmaid is Offred (of-Fred). The tale of Offred is recounted from the beginning of the Pre-Gilead days where her freedoms as a woman were taken from a theocratic dictatorship through her days with her Commander. We follow her as she transforms into a handmaiden and her journey into the Commander’s home so she can be put to use, for child-bearing purposes. Throughout the novel, Offred’s past life tells us of her relationships, family, and existence in a gender-equal society, often flashing back to illustrate the takeover of the government and the roles her acquaintances played.
An excerpt from Margret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
In Gileadean society, men and women are sorted into specific roles. Husband aligned with the theocratic regime, serve as the Commanders, who were responsible for the creation of this traditionalist society after a period of severe sexual liberation and feministic empowerment movements. Each commander is assigned a Handmaid for baby making since environmental poisoning (pollution) have caused fertility levels to drop during this time in society. The Handmaids are usually women who are fertile and have been converted at a Reeducation Center to conform to religious and traditionalist values to become a subservient woman. Those who do not comply are persecuted and made an example of.
The entire novel is an audio diary (found tape recordings of the Gilead days) of Offred which preserved her thoughts because women were forbidden to read and write at the time. She has used the tapes as a medium of communication, to inform those who would become Handmaids after Offred and the future generation of the importance of the women and men who came before her and fought to expand the independence of women.
Scene from 1990 film interpretation of The Handmaid's Tale
This week, I have turned to this novel one more time, in wake of the results of the presidential election of this past Tuesday and after stumbling upon an insightful article by Adi Robertson. Atwood wrote her novel in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and conservative values had resurged upon the world of politics after two decades that promoted a sexual revolution, the advancement of civil rights for minority groups, and the rise of a new misunderstood pariah, HIV/AIDS. The days of Reagan Republicanism are looked at with a sort of fondness by conservatives and right-leaning politicos, but in the eyes of women who had fought to have the same rights and equal representations like their fathers, brothers, husbands, and male counterparts, Ronald and Nancy’s administration halted any illusions of a feminist agenda in American politics. Pro-choice and the wage-gap were seen as positives, that would help the American woman become devoted to her role as homemaker, wife, mother, and subordinate.
Today, we stand at a similar point in history. Republicans control all three branches of government and a man more dangerous than the president-elect, will become our Vice President come January. In four years’ time, I don’t expect to be enrolled in a Reeducation Center where I will learn how to become a passive childbearing female to a theocratic elite, but I am aware that roadblocks will arise in the world of female rights. Planned Parenthood will be continuously attacked by Republicans, as an institution that “promotes infanticide”, and ignored for the generous services (like birth control, STD testing, and breast cancer screenings) it provides for women like me. The LGBTQ community along with minority groups like Hispanics and Muslims, will perhaps attempt simulate into a more conservative American society in fear of retribution that will occur on a local, not federal level, which occurs in the novel as many characters must choose the roles they will undertake to avoid execution. Others will threaten to flee to Canada or Europe, like Offred and her family attempted to. In all, we will all wade it out and hope for the best for this country we all call home.
