Category: The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: Power Dynamics and Demoralization

Introduction:

In political terms, power is the ‘ability to control the behavior of people and/or influence the outcome of events.’ according to study.com. Typically, power is asserted to those of a higher rank on the hierarchy. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, there was a two-level hierarchy prevalent throughout the entire novel. Men were on the top, and women were on the bottom. The power gap between the two hierarchical levels was absurd, making it unfair and extremely difficult for the protagonist, Offred, to live a regular life. As the plot deepened, Offred quickly lost more and more of her basic human rights. Men began using language as a way to oppress women, women were stripped of their own freedom and dignity, and worst of all, it was nearly impossible for them to gain power and equality.

Language as a Tool of Oppression:

Language can be a very powerful thing if it is used in the right way. It can be used persuasively to alter people’s thoughts and opinions and can even be used to assert dominance or a feeling of dominance over other people. However, it can also be used for the opposite intentions. If someone gives themselves a sense of dominance over another person, the other person will feel low and powerless. The scary thing is that it does not only have to affect one person. It can harm a mass group of people, too, which is exactly what happened in The Handmaid’s Tale. In the novel, language was used to oppress women.

The Republic of Gilead- the country where The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in- created its own vocabulary, which restricts women from having their own thoughts and reading, similar to “Newspeak” from George Orwell’s 1984. After forbidding women from having jobs, Gilead created a system that refers to people based on what their job title is. Men are referred to by their rank in the military, and women are defined by whatever role they have, Handmaid’s, Wives, Marthas, or Econowives. By referring to women by their gender roles, their real, unique names were lost, which takes away their own identity and individuality.

Handmaids were given new names that were combinations of the word “Of” and their commanders’ names. For example, the protagonist was referred to as “Offred” throughout the novel, as her commander’s name was Fred. “My name isn’t Offred. I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others, but what I tell myself is wrong. It does matter.” Without the simple human right of a name, it was hard for Offred to even consider herself a ‘person.’ Not only did it create a mental stigma that women have against themselves, but it also further led men to think it is okay to treat women like half of a human.

The constant feeling of worthlessness asserted by those generalized names has led Offred to be unhappy with herself, which is shown in the following quote: “My nakedness is strange to me already. My body seems outdated. Did I really wear bathing suits at the beach? I did, without thought, among men, without caring that my legs, my arms, my thighs, and back were on display and could be seen. Shameful, immodest. I avoid looking at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest, but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.” Gilead created these titles in an effort to make women feel subhuman.

Stripping of Rights and Identity:

Not only did Gilead try to mentally dehumanize Offred and the other women of Gilead, but they also physically stripped women of their freedom. The men of Gilead seek total control over women. Women were not allowed to own property, have a job, spend money, read, and much more. Offred was even forced to wear a red dress, just like all the other handmaids, so it was nearly impossible for handmaids to stand out from one another, which is exactly how Offred feels in this quote: “So now that we don’t have different clothes, you merely have different women.” The only way to tell women apart was by their faces. Women were also no longer different from any other woman. Instead, they all fit under one big umbrella term: female. Similar to times of slavery, Offred was owned by her commander. She was forced to obey and follow through on all of the commander’s orders.

“He doesn’t mind this, I thought. He doesn’t mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other’s anymore. Instead, I am his.” This quote was when things first began falling apart, and Offred was stressing about becoming someone’s property. Every asset Offred had in the world she lived in before was gone in the blink of an eye. She was fired from her job and lost all the money in her bank account. It all happened so quickly that she was not even aware until her friend, Moira, told her: “They’ve frozen them, she said. Mine too. The collective’s too. Any account with an F on it instead of an M. All they needed to do was push a few buttons. We’re cut off. But I’ve got over two thousand dollars in the bank, I said, as if my own account was the only one that mattered. Women can’t hold property anymore, she said. It’s a new law. Turned on the TV today?”  The Republic of Gilead gave women about as many rights as a pet.

The Elusive Quest for Power:

Just as it seemed that it couldn’t get much worse than that, it was also nearly impossible for Offred to regain power. The reason behind this is that Offred is in the same boat as all the other women living in Gilead, so in order to gain power, she would have to be ‘special’ and extremely different from the rest of the women. However, it may be hard for Offred to stand out from the rest because they do not have the freedom to choose what they want to wear or have their own name. As explained in the previous paragraph, “You merely have different women.” Gilead oppressed women and stripped them of their identity.

This action, along with many others, made both men and women feel like women are not ‘humans.’ “It’s strange, now, to think about having a job. Job. It’s a funny word. It’s a job for a man. All those women having jobs: hard to imagine now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions. It was considered the normal thing. Now it’s like remembering the paper money when they still had that.” This would make it very difficult to get the men to listen to Offred because they do not even value her as a human. She is not even allowed to have a job. Even if Offred somehow did get their attention, the men control everything anyway, so it would be up to them if Offred could gain power or not. Because women were thought of so lowly, the chances that Offered gained power were not too high.

Conclusion:

Demoralization is the action of ‘depriving (a person or persons) of spirit, courage, discipline.’ according to dictionary.com. The demoralization of women was very frequent in this novel, as Offred and many other women were oppressed by demoralizing words and titles, stripped of their basic human rights and freedom, and lastly, it was very improbable for Offred to gain power in the position she was at in the novel.

References:

1. Study.com. (n.d.). What is Power in Politics? – Definition, Types & Sources. Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-power-in-politics-definition-types-sources.html
2. Atwood, M. (1985). The Handmaid’s Tale. McClelland and Stewart.
3. Orwell, G. (1949). 1984. Harcourt Brace & Company.
4. Demoralization. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/demoralization

Sexism, Feminism, and Symbolism in The Handmaid’s Tale: A Comparative Analysis

Sexism and Stereotypes in Oryx and Crake

No matter which way a person may look, films and other sorts of media will find a way to be sexist towards women. Sure, there may be upcoming films with a female lead, but there will always be a character in that film who will try to bring the female down by making sexist comments. In Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, sexism is one of the biggest themes, with women throughout the book having stereotypic features, beautiful faces with amazing-looking breasts, and being known to work in the adult industry. In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, females in the totalitarian universe have little to no freedom while having to serve a dominant male. My paper will primarily focus on the allegorical, symbolic, metaphoric, and allusion of both sources. Why are women viewed the way they are? How is it that we have come so far to achieve women’s rights, yet films and works of literature do not reflect that?

Objectification and Stereotyping of Women

In this essay, I will be focusing on the feminist/ sexist perspective on the books Oryx and Crake & The Handmaid’s Tale (both written by Margaret Atwood) and the television show The Handmaid’s Tale. Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes, while feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory or, more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature. Sexism is the prejudice or discrimination based on sex/ behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex.

Oryx’s Tragic Backstory

In the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, females live in a society that is predominantly male-dominated. Women are looked down upon and seen more as prizes/objects. In fact, Atwood had written the book Oryx and Crake during the second wave of feminism in 1960-1970. She suggests that society should stop thinking about pornography as entertainment and hereby highlights the importance of asking critical questions such as “Is pornography a power trip rather than a sex one?” An instance of women being portrayed as weak in the book is Jimmy’s mother. He enjoyed causing chaos, and as a result of his ‘tantrums,’ it caused him to treat his mother with less respect. “When he cannot receive praise, he will cause a reaction from his mother until he pushes her to a breakdown.”

Other instances of women having been overly sexualized (by exaggerating female body parts) or given the stereotypical persona include the main characters’ teacher. She was given the nickname Melons mainly because she had a large set of breasts. The main character or the classmates couldn’t be bothered trying to remember her real name since he was focused on her chest. Another example is that Jimmy (the main character) believes that the women at his workplace can only offer their bodies and not their intelligence, even though the women are scientists. The protagonist of the book seems to be judging women solely based on their physical appearance and not on their personality. “He considers women to be objects that he can choose from rather than an equal person to himself.”

The Handmaid’s Oppression and Symbolism

Relating to only caring about the female physical attributes, one of the main examples of women being objectified in the novel is Oryx’s backstory. She was brought into the adult industry at a very young age, approx. Eight years-old. She had gotten to that point because she was reluctantly sold to a man in exchange for money and as a ‘source of income.’ She worked to sell flowers out on the streets. Her boss had given her a device that would keep an eye on her at all times.

One day during her shift, a strange man had taken her up to a hotel suite to do some inappropriate actions. Thankfully, because of the device, her boss came in just before anything illegal would happen, but sadly, because the stranger gave the boss money so no information would be leaked, the boss had let this scenario happen multiple times to gain more money. After that day, she realized that everything could be sold, from flowers to bodies.

Time passed, and the boss’s business had been sold, and all of the girls working had been sold to 4different distributors to work in different fields. Oryx and other girls had gotten jobs to work in the adult film industry. She had shot pornographic videos that were uploaded onto the web and were found by Jimmy and Crake.

The Handmaid’s Tale is meant to portray the dissolution of the United States, in which a civil war is fought in order to make women ‘malleable to men’s desires. They must submit to their socially determined roles or be seen as ‘demons” (Callaway). In the post-war totalitarian society, women are stripped of their rights. They’re converted to the religious-based ideas of the new society, where they will be Handmaids. Because the handmaid’s actual name is taken away, it is replaced with the word “of” followed by the name of the Handmaid’s Commander (for example, Commander Name: Luis Handmaid’s name: Ofluis). Women who have intercourse have to execute it emotionless with high-powered men in order to provide society with children.

The women are oppressed by being put into different colored dresses that are meant to represent their social status. The Handmaids wear red dresses that are designed for adultery, and their clothing reflects that and symbolizes all blood; blood is not only life but death. The Daughters wear white until marriage, which symbolizes innocence and purity. The Wives wear blue, a color associated with Mary, the Madonna, symbolizing their ultimate role as mothers – but pure mothers, ones who have not conceived themselves but rear the children anyway.

The Aunts represent themselves as motherly mentors to the Handmaids, guides on the path to successful assimilation into Gilead. Handmaids are personal affronts to the Wives; they are continual reminders of the Wives’ failures to conceive.

References:

1. Atwood, M. (2003). Oryx and Crake. McClelland & Stewart.
2. Atwood, M. (1985). The Handmaid’s Tale. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
3. Callaway, A. (2017). ‘This Is Not a Day Care’: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and the Coming-of-Age Dystopia. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 42(4), 977-1001. DOI: 10.1086/690950
4. Gammon, L. (2019). Re-reading Margaret Atwood’s ‘Oryx and Crake’ in the Era of CRISPR-Cas9: Constructing Gene-edited Bodies and Social Identities. New Genetics and Society, 38(2), 187-207. DOI: 10.1080/14636778.2019.1572549

Religious Symbolism and Structural Parallels in The Handmaid’s Tale and Romero

Religious Themes and Symbolism in Romero and The Handmaid’s Tale

It is interesting to compare and contrast the films Romero and The Handmaid’s Tale through the structure of religion. The two films draw a comparison and similarities between elements that are significant to what David Chidester explains about normal religion. David Chidester states that “religion is about sacred symbols and systems of sacred symbols that endow the world with meaning and value.” Both films also develop an idea of religion as a guide to express values and resolve issues through biblical beliefs. In addition, the motto “REALLY BAD” also implies that religion exists as a language, letting people begin a debate that is very apparent in our world. Each film displays progressing dominance through courage, violence, and religious beliefs.

Religion as a Tool for Guiding Values and Resolving Issues

Each person’s religious beliefs differ due to the different values that people believe in. Religion is often viewed as a group of people who have shared beliefs and live their lives with a deeper meaning. Shared beliefs come in the form of worship and are something that happens regularly throughout society. In the film Romero, the main character displays courage by speaking out against his government in hopes of stopping the violence among his people.

Archbishop Romero also showed compassion for his fellow Salvadoran people through his inspired faith. The film paints Romero as a conservative bishop who sides with the religious and political aspects. When his friend Rutilio Grande, along with an old man and a young boy, gets assassinated by the soldiers, this changes Romero’s overall viewpoint. He becomes determined to do what he can to save his people through his beliefs and what he thinks may fix things. An important context in the movie was how religious it was.

The people used important, powerful figures within the Church to feel protected. Although the Salvadoran government could not protect its people, they still listened to Romero due to his platform, and they believed in his Church. During this hard time, everyone remained faithful to their Church even though they knew that the government was against them. It was kind of like their faith in God was being tested, but they remained strong even when the Church was vandalized. Likewise, The Handmaid’s Tale displays the same sense of shared beliefs that come in the form of worship.

Within the film, the nus refer a lot to the Old Testament in a way to justify many of Gilead’s characteristics. In the film, Offred’s job as a Handmaid is based on the biblical precedent of Rachel. These films display how their faith is tested as well because the women have been stripped away from their freedom and personal identities. The Handmaids undergo a series of life-threatening situations that test their beliefs while seeking religious guidance. It gets to the point of whether God hears their cries. The two films display a fuck you to religion because of what they have been put through.

Religious Identity and Endurance in the Face of Adversity

On the other hand, the film Romero poses a promotion of peace through the Church. Archbishop Romero is all for his community and spreading the common good in a positive way. He basically took the opportunity to risk everything for his people and prove that he was willing to go the extra length for what he stood for. He had a bold vision of preaching the Gospel of the Bible. He also denounces injustice even if it means dying. This can be seen when Archbishop Romero risks his life after the soldiers vandalize the Church.

Romero walks back into the Church with no fear, even after being shot while at the ground of the altar to pick up important glass pieces. Just as Jesus did, he sacrificed his own life for his Church. However, the film Handmaid’s Tale displays a constructive role of government within the Church. The Church uses its platform to manipulate the handmaids into thinking they have been disobeying God with their lifestyles. They use their roles in a negative way to purify the Church. With a bold vision for preaching the Gospel, denouncing injustice, and maintaining a firm perseverance, willing to accept the cost, even if it means death.

Religious Symbolism as a Source of Power and Manipulation

In the movie Romero, violence is often used to react to certain situations to resolve issues or stop one from achieving their goals. This reaction often begins from the act of cultural differences. In the same way, violent behavior is displayed through the reoccurring murder acts that occurred within El Salvador. They presented how the government basically used its power to prevent the Salvadoran people from traveling to the voting polls simply to prevent them from speaking up for themselves during the election. The soldiers shot at the buses, which eventually busted the tires to prevent the people from traveling across town. The military used their power as an advantage since they knew they could do anything and had full control over the El Salvadoran people.

Throughout the film, a series of killings took place, which was a huge way the government could punish the people for rebelling against them. In like manner, in Handmaid’s Tale, the nuns placed fear among the Handmaids to show that they have higher authority by treating them as nothing more. The nuns used abortion and fertility in a negative way to brainwash the handmaids into thinking they have been living a sinful life. The nuns use biblical and religious texts to imply that there is a higher power that determines their fate.

Like Romero, The Handmaid’s Tale shows how one group uses their dominance over the other. The handmaids had the fear of standing up for themselves because of what may have happened to them if they disagreed. Towards the end of the movie, Offred takes the chance of rebelling against and murders the commander to win her freedom and escape. This shows how heroic she was to be able to win her freedom back.

Apart from violence, a series of cultural differences determines how people live and practice their lifestyles. The overall argument is that regardless of what values a person believes in, they will still get killed. Although one specific group believes one thing, that does not mean another group may believe in the same thing. The movie Romero presented how people were political prisoners. Their roles were between priests and Salvadoran people against government officials. They were not allowed to speak up for themselves, and they were viewed as disrespectful for simply speaking up for themselves. However, the movie Romero’ is completely about the prosperity and relationship between the government and the Church.

While the government remains oppressive and abusive towards the citizens of El Salvador, they turn to the Church for help against the continuous abuse of the government. Higher officials basically overrule and make decisions for the people because they are of lower class. On the contrary, The Handmaid’s Tale displays these economic differences through gender roles. The handmaids basically had no voice because they were women. They were expected to follow what the bible said they should do, which was birth children. The culture varies in different things, such as clothes, religion, and beliefs. Culture is the identity of a group of people living in a specific time, and they follow a set guide.

Many religious aspects are evident in each person’s definition of religion. Each person’s faith is also different. Religion can be defined as a group of people who have shared beliefs and feel their life has a purpose. Shared beliefs were put into action in the form of worship, which was very apparent in these two films. I also think these two films express how religion is a threat. To conclude, the motto, “REALLY BAD,” is a continuing array of debates that will continue to happen because there will always be one group that will be against religion and certain beliefs.  Just as David Chidester asserts that sacred symbols are becoming a really big factor in the lives of people because they use these symbols as a way to become physically closer to God.

References:

1. Chidester, David. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa. University of Virginia Press, 1996.
2. Romero. Directed by John Duigan, performances by Raúl Juliá, Richard Jordan, Ana Alicia, and Eddie Velez, Paulist Pictures, 1989.
3. Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Vintage Books, 1985.

Societal Reflections in “The Handmaid’s Tale”: Unveiling Parallels

Abstract:

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, is a novel that brings up questions about women’s rights, freedom, and oppression. Atwood gives you a look into a society run by men in a place called Gilead. This novel helps shed some light on how Gilead and our society today are similar in many ways. Atwood also uses the different roles in this novel to help the readers have an understanding of what category or usefulness women have in a society based on men’s beliefs.

Gilead: A Contradictory Society of Men and God

Atwood makes a society that is run by men but also by God. Gilead is supposed to be run by God’s word, but yet the people of Gilead are contradicting his word and punishing their people. Obviously, the book is more intense than the society that we live in today, but it reflects a lot of the same issues in our society, just in a more dramatic way. Women today still deal with the fear of walking alone and men raping them. Also, women aren’t treated as complete equals to men in our society today; Men are still often paid more at the same job as a woman. We have more freedom, as in the novel, but as a whole, women are still restricted to certain things that men are not.

Loss of Power and Identity: Handmaids’ Plight

This novel shows the lack of power and freedom that the women of Gilead have. The women here have their names, kids, husbands, wives, homes, power, jobs, money, lives, and much more all taken from them. In this novel, they have women called handmaids, that are women who travel from house to house and basically get raped every month that they ovulate in the hope of giving a commander and his wife a baby.

These handmaids are to go by their commander’s name, so the main character of the book, June, now known as Offred, describes the ceremony or rape as, 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. This showing that the act of the ceremony is involuntary, which would be defined as rape in our society. Also, the fact that the handmaids go by their commander’s name shows that the men have power over the women in this society.

Control over Women’s Bodies: A Reflection of Reality

In The Handmaid’s Tale, men have power over women’s bodies. They control when they have sex, how they have sex, and what happens to the mother and the baby. In Gilead, killing a baby would be the worst thing that you could do, and you would be punished and killed for it. This relates to the society that we live in today because men in the government control what rights women have over their bodies and their babies.

Men have the right to change the law and punish women who want to end a pregnancy without the women having any say in it.
Another reality that forms from The Handmaid’s Tale is the homophobic views. In the book, they would punish the gays and send them to the toxic wasteland for them to die, or they would hang them. In today’s society, it might not be as harsh, but gays are still publicly shamed and not accepted completely by society. It wasn’t until recently that gays had the right to marriage.

Homophobia and Victim-Blaming: Perpetuating Prejudices

The book also has a part where Janine is telling all the other handmaids that she got gang-raped. And as they were all sitting there listening to her story, one of the Aunts said, “But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up a plump finger. Her fault, her fault, we chant in unison. Who led them on? Aunt Helena beams, pleased with us. She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson.” This shows that in the book, they shamed the girl for sexual assault, constantly reminding Janine that it was her fault. This happens in our society today, often times the girl that gets raped or assaulted is told that she must have dressed a certain way or given the wrong impression.

Manipulating Faith: Distorting Beliefs for Control

The society, Gilead, is supposed to be run by God’s word, and often times, when people think of God, they think of positive things and forgiveness. But yet, this society is so negative and far from forgiving. This is because the society is really run by chosen pieces of the Bible chosen by the commanders. Which, in reality, isn’t run by god at all, more the men. They use the bible and God as a distraction to the women to feel somewhat equal so that they don’t want to fight back or rebel.

For example, Offred states, “If you have a lot of things, said Aunt Lydia, you get too attached to this material world, and you forget about spiritual values. You must cultivate poverty of spirit. Blessed be the meek. She didn’t go on to say anything about inheriting the earth.” Showing that the Aunts always would just use partial verses from the bible instead of adding the full verse to show the right side of things. This creates a false image of God to the women of Gilead, so it makes it look like the commanders aren’t the bad guys and that they are just pursuing God’s plan.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel that brings light to the everyday reality that we live in today. In Gilead and today’s society, it shows men the true power that they have over women’s rights and freedom. This novel also gives the readers a deeper understanding of what oppression is and how serious it can get. This novel creates a false sense of what a good society should look like. When reading The Handmaid’s Tale, it might seem as if they live in a harsh society, but we are living in that same society every day.

References:

Atwood, M. (1985). The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor Books.

Analyzing Women’s Plight in The Handmaid’s Tale: Dehumanization and Oppression

Women’s Role in Enforcing Patriarchal Control:

There is always a possibility that in a male-dominated society, women are the ones who impose and control the rules set out by them over women. In her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood portrays a dystopian society of Gilead in which the male-controlled society restricts women’s individuality and power, erases their identity, and forces them to comply with imposed rules. Women are sexually and psychologically exploited, manipulated, and controlled by assigning them socially restricted roles. Although the Republic of Gilead’s totalitarian power structure and control are composed and imposed completely from the top by men, it is women in the position of power that maintain the structure of this society and control over women.

Women’s Roles and Stripped Identity:

With the social division of women comes the status structure that aims to strip away women’s power and create tension that would lead to the disunity of women. The physical and psychological oppression leads women to personal dissociation from female beings, loss of their identity and individuality, and lack of compassion for other women. With the loss of identity and individuality comes the dehumanization of women as they detach from their bodies and lose their empathy for each other.

The Status Structure and Imposed Roles:

The Gilead’s status structure takes all power away from women, with the exception of the Wives and the Aunts, and assigns women into socially restricted groups and roles associated with them. Firstly, the women are grouped into a few categories: Wives, Aunts, Handmaids, Marthas, and Unwomen, stripped of their names and forbidden to read and write. While Offred, a Handmaid, recalls their planned escape with Luke and her daughter, she also reflects on her name, “My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter.” Offred’s name is taken after the Commander, Fred, to whom she is assigned. Offred tries to convince herself that her actual name does not matter anymore as her identity is stripped away, and only her body has a function assigned to it. She is no longer a person but an object for the use of others. Without her real name, she starts losing her identity and individuality. Striping the Handmaids of their real names is a powerful way to take away their individuality, identity, and power and make them feel unimportant.

Manipulation and Division Among Women:

Secondly, the women with some power create tension between women to ensure that they are not united and thus easy to manipulate to fulfill Gilead’s agenda. During one of Aunt Lydia’s lectures, she condemns the women who did not try hard to conceive the babies, “Some women believed there would be no future; they thought the world would explode. That was the excuse they used. They said there was no sense in breeding. Aunt Lydia’s nostrils narrow: such wickedness. They were lazy women, … They were sluts” (Atwood 113).

Aunt Lydia’s comments are meant to impose upon the Handmaids the ideas and beliefs of Gilead, specifically to ingrain the importance of their breeding role in society. At the same time, they meant to limit the Handmaids from forming their own opinion about other women and invoking hate against them. In the Red Centre, the aunts are indoctrinators of the status structure whose role is to train and brainwash the handmaids to obey and fulfill their duties as well as mentally separate them by encouraging a betrayal. In essence, women become a tool for men to control other women.

The Outcome of Oppression:

The physical and psychological oppression leads women to personal disassociation from female beings, loss of their identity and individuality, and lack of compassion for other women. For instance, the women in Gilead are only valued for their ability to conceive and bear a child. Otherwise, they are stripped of their gender identity and become worthless. The fertile women, the Handmaids, are obligated to fulfill the maternal duties that are placed upon them. This biological oppression is their destiny, and they cannot escape it. Just before one of the meetings with the Commander, Offred reflects on her purpose in life: “We are for breeding purposes …There is supposed to be nothing entertaining about us, no room is to be permitted for the flowering of secret lusts…We are two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.’ Offred comes to realization and acceptance of her maternal or breeding role that is imposed on her and the fact that she cannot escape her destiny.

She compares herself to the two-legged womb that is ready to conceive and become a vessel through which she would fulfill her biological destiny of caring for and delivering children for some of the high-ranking, barren families. Offred becomes complacent not by choice but by her destiny and detaches from herself and her emotions. By doing so, she loses her identity and individuality. In addition to the biological, psychological oppression takes a toll on the handmaids’ which in turn negatively impacts their feelings and compassion for other handmaids.

During confession or so-called Testifying time at the Red Centre, Janine, one of the handmaids, testified that she was raped by the gang and had an abortion when she was only fourteen. After her confession, Aunt Helena asks the handmaids a series of questions that are meant to blame Janine for being raped. In response, the other handmaids unanimously contemn her while knowing that testifying was a powerful way to break women, “For a moment, even though we knew what was being done to her, we despised her. Crybaby. Crybaby. Crybaby. We meant it, which is the bad part. I used to think well of myself. I didn’t then.”

The following week, right at the start of Testifying, Janine blames herself for being raped. The unanimous response to Janine and her acceptance of fault demonstrates that psychological pressure placed on the handmaids is very effective. Women become submissive to their new role as Handmaids, and in doing so, they no longer have compassion for other women. They accept and internalize their oppression and respond in the manner expected from them, not necessarily in the way they feel about it.

Although Offred acknowledges that for that very moment, they all consciously despised Janine, she also acknowledges that she is no longer the person that she used to be (Atwood 72). It is evident that in response to psychological oppression, women disassociate themselves from female beings, lose their identity and individuality, and no longer stay united and supportive of each other. The systematic subjection of women to Gilead’s class structure results in women’s acceptance of external oppression. By accepting it, women become internally oppressed as well.

Dehumanization and Empathy Loss:

When stripped away from their identity and individuality, women become dehumanized and have no empathy for other women. For instance, by referring to herself as the national resource, Offred emphasizes that she is no longer a human being with free will but the property of the state. She reduces herself to only a body while she is naked in the bath and reflects on how she viewed her body before Gilead and now, “I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will… Now, the flesh arranges itself differently.

I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.” Offred views her body before as an extension of herself. Now, she no longer exists, but only her physical body is important, with the womb being a central object. As much as she is aware of her changing sense of herself, her thoughts and reflections show that she has internalized Gilead’s attitude towards women as objects for bearing children. Another form of dehumanization that is placed on the Handmaids is subjecting them to a monthly ceremony of sexual intercourse with the Commander with the premise of conceiving a child for his family.

The Handmaids to the Commanders are not asked to consent to sexual intercourse with him as sexual coercion is institutionalized in Gilead. At the most fertile time of her menstrual cycle, Offred is prepared for and takes part in the ceremony. While the Commander’s wife holds her hands, the Commander performs his sexual act, “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” (Atwood 94). Through ceremonial rape, women are oppressed and dehumanized as their reproductive organs become the property of the state with the sole purpose of producing a child.

During the ceremony, Offred disassociates herself from her body. She uses vulgar and ordinary language to describe the intercourse between herself and the Commander, which proves that there is no emotional connection between the two of them. By distracting herself and disassociating from her body, she can fulfill her reproductive role. Furthermore, she does not blame anyone but herself for what happened to her at that very moment, claiming that she signed up for it, although the alternative was to be sent away to work in servitude in the agricultural and polluted areas. The Commander’s wife, Serena Joy, might feel humiliated by watching her husband’s sexual intercourse with Offred as she asks Offred to leave the room right after the ceremony. She offers no sympathy or any mental support to Offred, which indicates a lack of empathy for other women.

References:

1. Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor Books, 1998.