Summary
Handmaid's Tale Themes and Characters Summary
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- English Home Language
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- 12th Grade
Handmaid's Tale Themes and Characters Summary
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HMT THEMES & CHARACTERSWomen’s Bodies As Political Instruments
• Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically
decreased birth rates, the state’s entire structure, with its religious trappings
and rigid political hierarchy, is built around a single goal: control of
reproduction.
• The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete control of women’s
bodies through their political subjugation. Women cannot vote, hold property or
jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or
independent and thereby undermine their husbands or the state.
• Despite all of Gilead’s pro-women rhetoric, such subjugation creates a society in
which women are treated as subhuman. They are reduced to their fertility,
treated as nothing more than a set of ovaries and a womb. In one of the novel’s
key scenes, Offred lies in the bath and reflects that, before Gilead, she
considered her body an instrument of her desires; now, she is just a mound of
flesh surrounding a womb that must be filled in order to make her useful.
• Gilead seeks to deprive women of their individuality in order to make them
docile carriers of the next generation.
Language As A Tool Of Power
• Gilead creates an official vocabulary that ignores and warps reality in order to
serve the needs of the new society’s elite.
• Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles.
Whereas men are defined by their military rank, women are defined solely by
their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. Stripping them of
permanent individual names strips them of their individuality, or tries to.
• Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the terms
“Unwomen” and “Unbabies.”
• Black people and Jewish people are defined by biblical terms (“Children of Ham”
and “Sons of Jacob,” respectively) that set them apart from the rest of
society, making their persecution easier.
• There are prescribed greetings for personal encounters, and to fail to offer
the correct greetings is to fall under suspicion of disloyalty.
• Specially created terms define the rituals of Gilead, such as “Prayvaganzas,”
“Salvagings,” and “Particicutions.”
• Dystopian novels about the dangers of totalitarian society frequently explore
the connection between a state’s repression of its subjects and its perversion
of language and The Handmaid’s Tale carries on this tradition.
, • Gilead maintains its control over women’s bodies by maintaining control over
names.
The Causes Of Complacency
• In a totalitarian state, Atwood suggests, people will endure oppression willingly
as long as they receive some slight amount of power or freedom.
• Offred remembers her mother saying that it is “truly amazing, what people can
get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.” Offred’s complacency
after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the truth of this insight. Her
situation restricts her horribly compared to the freedom her former life
allowed, but her relationship with Nick allows her to reclaim the tiniest
fragment of her former existence. The physical affection and companionship
become compensation that make the restrictions almost bearable. Offred
seems suddenly so content that she does not say yes when Ofglen asks her to
gather information about the Commander.
• Women in general support Gilead’s existence by willingly participating in it,
serving as agents of the totalitarian state. While a woman like Serena Joy has
no power in the world of men, she exercises authority within her own household
and seems to delight in her tyranny over Offred. She jealously guards what
little power she has and wields it eagerly. In a similar way, the women known as
Aunts, especially Aunt Lydia, act as willing agents of the Gileadean state. They
indoctrinate other women into the ruling ideology, keep a close eye out for
rebellion, and generally serve the same function for Gilead that the Jewish
police did under Nazi rule.
• Atwood’s message is bleak. At the same time as she condemns Offred, Serena
Joy, the Aunts, and even Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if
those did stop complying, they would likely fail to make a difference. In Gilead,
the tiny rebellions or resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred
escapes because of luck rather than resistance.
Complicity
• The Handmaid’s Tale explores the ways in which ordinary people become
complicit in the appalling acts of a totalitarian regime.
• Although the novel’s women are all to some extent victims of the Gileadean
state, many of them choose complicity rather than rebellion.
• Serena Joy is miserable and has very little freedom, but she enjoys and exploits
the power she wields over Offred.
• More seriously, the Aunts are not just complicit in the regime’s crimes: they are
amongst the novel’s worst perpetrators, responsible for torture and
psychological abuse.
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