“In Gilead, all women are victims of patriarchal oppression.”
Discuss.
Atwood’s dystopian novel illustrates a corrupt regime that governs
people’s lifestyle, thoughts and behaviours. This regime achieves its
goals of control and obedience through violent figures like Angels and
Aunts, who despite their familial or biblical connotations, use force,
corrupt Gileadian religious views and the threat of violence to ensure
Gilead’s patriarchal rules go unchallenged; women in particular are
victims of this patriarchal rule. Women, specifically the Handmaids and
Marthas, are coerced into male-favouring prescribed roles as they are
solely used for domestic services and reproductive purposes; these
women are thus forced into abandoning their individuality, integrity
and identity as they’re instead commodified into roles based on the part
they can play for God’s law, as interpreted by Gilead’s corrupt
patriarchal authority. However although women’s roles vary according
to their status as some like Serena joy are given privileges like not being
defined by her fertility or ability to reproduce, all women including
these socially superior women are subject to the patriarchal oppression
imposed by unnamed male leaders of Gilead. This oppression is
achieved through laws that support an unobtrusive male bias at the
expense of the commodification of women, who are consequently just
used for procreation. Atwood’s feminist novel presents Gilead’s morally
corrupt political and social climate to warn readers about the possible
outcome if Christian right-wing groups like the “Christian Right” gain
power, who were already gaining popularity under Reaganism in USA in
the 1980s. This political group’s views mirror Gilead’s patriarchal rules
such as the definite roles of women in the domestic sphere as mothers
and wives, which Atwood challenges through Gilead’s patriarchal
religious extremism. However the novel’s protagonist, Offred, refuses to
have a victim-mentality through her small acts of rebellion like refusing
to forget her past or be mentally controlled. Therefore she cannot be
labelled as a complete victim of Gilead’s patriarchy. Also, it is not only
women who are victims in Gilead but also men as they are also
forcefully assigned roles like of Guards or Angels that, like women’s
roles, also denies them the ability to openly communicate and express
themselves. Therefore Atwood presents victims of not just patriarchy
but instead victims of an authoritarian regime that uses religion and
violence to suppress both men and women into oppresive prescribed
role.
Handmaids like Offred are denied basic rights like communication and
expression of individuality. This is obvious when Handmaids talk with
another through prescribed stilted empty speech, preventing them from
