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No novel may have as clearly exemplified the profound impacts of oppressing an individual’s freedom of speech as effectively as Margaret Atwood’s, ’The Handmaid’s Tale’. Despite much of Atwood’s story encompassing the various mechanisms ‘The Republic of Gillied’ used to oppress, degrade, and dehumanize its populace. Atwood’s depiction and philosophical stance of the controlled use of language in Gilead society is a decisive demonstration of not only the status quo being revoked but further it being turned into a frightening system of oppression. Atwood explores this via her depiction of the disturbing implications suppression has on the protagonists, ‘Offred’s’ psychological and mental outlook, and further emphasizes the disturbing toll It takes on her physical behavior and perspective of Gilead society. Moreover, Atwood details the removal of literacy freedom as a catalyst for these results, by suggesting the forced deprivation of knowledge, restricts not just Offred’s but an individual’s autonomy, identity, and aptitude, deteriorating and subduing any individual. Thus, Atwood explores a myriad of ways in which the suppression of both written and spoken language demonstrates the most powerful form of oppression.
As a constant remark throughout the entirety of the novella, Atwood makes profound references to the dehumanizing nature and explicit language the Commanders, aunts, and wives use to devalue and restrain the handmaid’s behaviors and actions. This idea is clearly illustrated early in the novel as Offred reflects on her time with Aunt Lydia at the red center, stating, “We are hers to define. We must suffer her adjectives.” By Atwood coupling the terms ‘define’ and ‘suffer’ she effectively makes notes that that language directly contributes to power and the results cause the powerless to “suffer”. Without language, an individual is easily ‘defined’ by those in power’s language and must ‘suffer’ the resulting objectification and defamation. Moreover, the handmaid’s inability to rebut results in their near complacency and acceptance of the normalization of abuse and devaluing and simultaneously keeping the oppressed masses in their place. Atwood further explores this idea of normalizing abuse and objectification in the context of language, by suggesting Handmaids as property. The name ‘Offred’ is truly a combination of the terms ‘of’ and ‘Fred’ the resulting implications of such deem the handmaids as property, “a sea of names”. Stripping them of permanent individual names deprives them of their individuality, limiting their ability to act independently and consequently alters their identity, behavior, and humanity to be more fitting to their role in society and making their abuse rationalized. Ultimately it is the dehumanizing and abusive use of language that most prominently suppresses the handmaid’s ability to configure their own identity and is quintessential in normalizing the subsequent abuse and oppression.
However, Atwood does not merely suggest that the suppression of spoken language is the most influential system of oppression, she moreover indicates written language or more specifically the reduction of such to describe the extent of language as the most influential system of oppression. Initially, Atwood details the reality of written language in Gilead society, a “temptation” and a banned commodity, “too much” for the handmaids and reserved for merely the elites. Resultingly, Atwood alludes to the threat of this “temptation”, suggesting, that reading allows for the development of knowledge, perspective, and understanding, effectively expanding the way we think. However, if women are denied the right to record or observe history, they’re limited in their ability to think, preserve ideas, and differentiate between societal normalities, allowing for the more effective and efficient installation of oppressive ideologies and the new status quo. This is most notably detailed in the scene in which Offred observes a group of Japanese tourists, her sentiment, ‘We are fascinated but also repelled. They seem undressed. It has taken so little time to change our minds about things like this.’ this emphasizes the reality of this observation, the Gileadean government does not want women to be educated or thoughtful rather they desire them to be obedient and submissive and via suppression and oppression of written language the citizens of Gilead are more easily objectified and climatized to their society. Fully, it is evident that via the suppression of written language the ability of the leading body to oppress is not only amplified but the mere act of such is a clear and powerful act of oppression.
Yet Atwood’s most profound description of the oppression of language may best be detailed by the perspective and construction of the entire novel itself. At the concluding moments of the narrative, Atwood indicates to the readers that the story is a ‘reconstruction’, created from a series of tapes, “unnumbered and arranged in no particular order”. The suggestion of such alludes to the oppression of perspective found in the narrative. It is not Offred to give the story nor a handmaid but a third party, who arbitrarily organizes the events of the story. The profound effect of this impacts a multitude of factors. By refusing Offred the right to narrate her own story, her suffering, perspective, and emotion are never truly encapsulated, she is permanently oppressed, unable to give her true perspective her story is, “in fragments, like a body caught in the crossfire.” by Atwood oppressing the perspective of the story she intends to symbolize the importance of the language of the narrative depicting the resulting oppression, objectification, and dehumanization language as the main focal point and reducing the influence of the events themselves and the reader has no true ability to legitimize the events. Finally, it is Offred herself who states, “All I can hope for is a reconstruction” This is the ultimate symbolism of her oppression as she recognizes the inability herself to tell her story, the concoction of the oppression of speech and writing accumulating together to make it mandatory for her story if at all to be told by someone else. It is as such, that by Atwood suggesting the story is a mere reconstruction she insinuates the language of the narrative is an assumption of the truth consequentially never allowing Offred to use her language to illustrate her suffering, oppressing her and her story forever.
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