The whole book of The Handmaid's Tale summarized into the most important themes. All you need to study to ace The Handmaid's Tale. No need to worry about re-reading the whole book again because these notes have got you covered for any topic that may appear in the exam. It includes some character an...
THE HANDMAID’S TALE BY MARGARET ATWOOD
*Speculative fiction & feminist novel
Totalitarianism (dictatorship by a religious group)– citizenship + personal identity compromised. Lack of
freedom. Control. Religion and Theocracy. Dystopia. Fear
Defiance/Rebellion
Apathy: People don’t always stand up for what they believe in in order to avoid exclusion. People will
blindly follow a primitive ideology without any regard for morality.
Gender Roles: The role of women/sexism
Fertility
Children
Marriage
Love
Storytelling and Memory
Passivity
Language
Events referring to?
1. A large-scale terrorist attack orchestrated by the Sons of Jacob “shot the President and machine-
gunned the Congress”
- This leads to the Republic of Gilead becoming a totalitarian patriarchal theocracy.
- They suspend the Constitution. This shows the control they start to have.
- The Sons of Jacob force everyone to have the same religion as them. The women and men of Gilead
do not have a choice in the religion they believe in. They showed “who holds the real power”
- At first religion seems to be the central element of Gileadean society, defining all aspects of life. But, in
fact, the entire structure of Gilead, including its state of religion, is built around one goal: the control of
reproduction. To solve the problem of dramatically dropping birth-rates; it imposes state control on the
bodies of women. Controlling women’s bodies can only succeed by controlling the women themselves,
so Gilead’s political order requires the subjugation of women. Offred says, “What’s going on out there is
what you meant.”
- Women cease to be treated as individuals with independent selves. Rather they are seen as
prospective carriers. Deprive women of their individuality. Reduced to their fertility, treated as nothing
more than a set of ovaries and a womb. “We are two-legged wombs, that’s all”
Women begin to have significantly less status: They no longer have any financial or social power
- All females are fired from their jobs. Right to hold property or jobs is stripped away.
- Their bank accounts are frozen. All money is transferred to their ‘husband or next male of kin’
- They are not allowed to own property.
- It becomes forbidden to read and write except for the aunts. (the aunts at the centre are an exception,
but even they are subject to limits) “writing is in any case forbidden”
- Women are not allowed to speak until spoken to.
- No money- only tokens (gives power and control to ones in charge)
, - Women’s testimony in a court of law is not accepted without corroboration. “no longer admissible”
- Women are denied an education, the right to vote and the chance to work for pay.
- women lose their right to abortion and birth control
- When they arrive at the Red Centre, they are robbed of ever feeling like they are at “home”
- Gileadean women find all liberties and rights taken from them, from the right to choose their clothes to
the right to read to the right to vote. Women are treated as subhuman. Dehumanisation. They are
treated as commodities and branded like animals. They are only useful only for their physical abilities
They are robbed of their minds. It changes the kinds of people they can be.
- Burning of books- restrict access to knowledge outside of Gilead. Control the media. Restrict
travel. “blacked out on the film” “What you don’t know won’t tempt you”
- Aunt Lydia establishes the superior merits of life under the regime. She suggests that before the new
government, the freedom that gave people choices led to a disastrous anarchy. However, by removing
the freedom of choice, the new government allows the populace to be “free” from temptation. “All flesh
is weak” By redefining freedom Aunt Lydia manipulates the Handmaids to reject their own ways. “We
were a society dying of too much choice.”
Citizenship implies the status of freedom, the certain rights, duties, and responsibilities that a citizen has- this
does not apply to the women in Gilead. Margaret Atwood appears to be warning us against complacency
regarding the hard-won freedoms and rights enjoyed by women in many modern liberal democracies. How easy
it is to start taking freedoms and rights for granted. Taking away being a member/citizen of the country you are
living in. Even the powerful live very restricted lives. “I took too much for granted.”
2. Marriage
- The society outlined in the Handmaid’s Tale honours and privileges first marriages to the extreme.
- Marriages that existed before the establishment of Gilead are no longer considered legal.
- Second Wives with children are rounded up as the likeliest candidates to become Handmaids
- Everyone acts like it’s perfectly normal to have a Handmaid (a surrogate child bearer) as part of an
otherwise monogamous marriage.
- But even though marriage is treated as a sacred state, standard problems between husbands and wives
– lack of understanding, communication, and sexual desire – are persistent as they ever were.
- Husbands and their wives are always segregated within society “We just won’t tell him”
- When Men want to be in control – desire greater than love for their wife (overwhelming takes over them)
- Three-person marriage, the handmaid is still the adulterer “which of us is it worse for, her or me”
- The Handmaid’s Tale reveals the ways in which marriage has been separated from love and can be
used as a tool for the state.
- Women cannot do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or independent and
thereby undermine their husbands or the state.
3. Inhabitants interact according to strictly defined and controlled social roles.
- Every person has a class, or caste to which he or she belongs. These classes are identified by colours,
and people in the group must wear clothing of that colour. Women are not allowed to wear what they
want. Handmaids were given wings to wear so they were purposely blocked from seeing their
surroundings and for others to see them. A person’s class and representative colour are considered
more important than the person’s name or individuality.
- Handmaids who are essentially ‘breeders’ have their names taken away. They are indoctrinated and
trained through violence, coercion, and biblical teachings at the Red Centre into the ruling ideology. “I’m
trying to give you the best chance you can have” They are labelled with a patronym of the men who
control their lives. Renamed for the commander they serve. Offred signifies her status as a possession.
Ownership. She is of Fred. The name suggests she is an offering, she has been offered to reproduce.
‘Instead, I am his” “They’ll know you’re taken”
- Gilead is a strictly hierarchical society, with a huge difference between the genders.
- Women are restricted according to their social class and are defined only by their gender role- wives,
econowives, Martha’s, aunts, jezebels.
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