The Handmaid’s Tale

• Theme: Identity:


  In The Handmaid's Tale, nearly everyone's identity has been stripped away. Although the most powerful have more privileges than some of the others, everyone has been renamed and repositioned. Women are grouped into classes (Handmaid, Wife, Martha, Econowife). The body and its functions—especially the fertile female body—have become more important than personality, education, or mind. This theme is highlighted by the fact that no character is represented by his or her real name.
• Theme: Children:


  Children are precious, rare commodities in the world of The Handmaid's Tale. The production of children has become the Republic of Gilead's overarching goal, governing nearly every aspect of life. Yet while the goal of creating the next generation is overwhelming and seemingly necessary, traditional ideas about parenting and family are turned inside-out. Birth mothers must produce babies or they essentially get a death sentence, but they don't get to keep their children.

  Chances for fertility are parcelled out to men (and their "households") according to how much power or status they have.
• Theme: Marriage:


  The society outlined in The Handmaid's Tale honours and privileges first marriages to the extreme. 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 as persistent as they ever were. While marriage is officially honoured, it seems somewhat like a joke, with husbands and their wives always segregated within society.
• Theme: Passivity:


  In a sense, everyone is required to be passive in The Handmaid's Tale, but women have it worse because they no longer have any financial or social power. (The Aunts at the Center are an exception, but even they are subject to limits.)

  
  

  In order to survive in the Republic of Gilead, characters have to be blank slates. They have to be willing to take on new names and go where they're told. They can't complain if their children are taken from them or cry over their loved ones' sad fates. Acting out—even by doing something as seemingly harmless as reading—results in brutal punishment or even death.
• Theme: Love:


  Love is more remembered than practiced in The Handmaid's Tale. Even when the characters have feelings for each other, they try to fight them off because strong emotions are dangerous. There's nothing from the past to hold onto, and many people's connections and relationships have been completely severed.

  
  

  Love exists only as a memory (a child's scent at bath time, a rendezvous with a lover at a hotel) or in secret (the touch of two fingers through a bathroom wall, a filched cigarette, or the gift of being called by one's own real name).
• Theme: Women and Feminity:


  Women aren't supposed to use their minds in the world of The Handmaid's Tale. They're forbidden from reading, working outside the home, or even spending money. The small minority who are fertile are forced to become de-eroticized baby-making machines, or, as the narrator thinks of it, empty childbearing vessels.

  
  

  Their bodies are hidden and their brains are denied. Acknowledgment of the body as more than a vessel, and the mind as still productive, comes only in hidden moments, like when the narrator steals butter to use as moisturiser or speeds through a black-market copy of Charles Dickens' Hard Times.
• Theme: Home:


  There is a clear distinction between house and home in The Handmaid's Tale. Handmaids are placed in other people's homes, which to them are just houses. There's no reason for them to feel at home there. Strangely, one of the most home-like places in the restricted Republic of Gilead is a brothel, which used to be a hotel. It's full of references to the time before, like unchanged wallpaper and tiny soaps, which give it a feeling of familiarity and timelessness that's missing from the houses in which the Handmaids and Marthas work.
• Theme: Reading, Writing, Story telling:


  We never quite know what's true in The Handmaid's Tale; even when people state their names, they're lying. Throughout the book we're reminded that this is a story and that the narrator is altering some of the details. The narrator wishes she could change the events that happened to her through retelling them, or what she calls "reconstruction." Even the epilogue, with its "Historical Notes," reinforces the idea that this is a tale, a story, and that the manner of the telling is as important as what the narrator reveals through it.
• Theme: Freedom and Confinement:


  In the society of The Handmaid's Tale, even the powerful live very restricted lives, but the Handmaids, confined to their bedrooms except for sanctioned outings to grocery stores, childbearing Ceremonies, and executions, are worse off than most. Doubly trapped by their low social statuses and their fertile bodies, Handmaids barely get to do anything. Their bodies' fertility both enforces their confinement and paradoxically promises them a kind of freedom.

  
  

  If Handmaids become pregnant by their Commanders (this is their sole purpose in this society) their reward is not being sent off to die. If they do get pregnant, they're confined to their bodies in a different way, forced to give birth to children they don't get to keep, fathered by men they don't love.
• Theme: Womens bodies as political instruments:


  Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically decreased birthrates, 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.
• Theme: 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." Blacks and Jews 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 ("Newspeak" in George Orwell's 1984 is the most famous example), and The Handmaid's Tale carries on this tradition. Gilead maintains its control over women's bodies by maintaining control over names.
• Theme: 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 women mustered strength and stopped complying, they would likely fail to make a difference. In Gilead the tiny rebellions of resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of luck rather than resistance.
• Theme: Power:


  One of the most important themes of The Handmaid's Tale is the presence and manipulation of power. On the one hand, Gilead is a theocratic dictatorship, so power is imposed entirely from the top. There is no possibility of appeal, no method of legally protecting oneself from the government, and no hope that an outside power will intervene. One of the characteristics of this kind of power is that it is extremely visible. Power imposed from one direction must always be displayed. Unlike a democratic society, where the people consent to be governed and therefore have an interest in maintaining the structures of society, in Gilead, the government must cover the streets and even individual homes with guards and guns. The possibility of surveillance must be constant. The only place that people are free is in their own heads, creating a significant amount of isolation between individuals.

  
  

  Despite the Gilead regime's success at imposing order, Atwood's characters demonstrate that even if any substantial power is taken from people, they will still find a way to maintain control over themselves and other individuals. Offred manipulates her sexuality in the subtlest ways, aware for the first time of how much power she has simply because she is a woman. Though she has absolutely no ability to follow through on her suggestions, she knows that she is awakening ideas in men's heads, and that she is communicating with the Guardians under the Angels' very noses. Offred learns that Handmaids kill themselves in order to maintain some final sense of power over their bodies and decisions, and indeed, the thought of suicide is always in the back of her mind. Through her relationship to the Commander, Offred gains real power, but she is afraid to test its limits. Ultimately she discovers that her powers over him were useless, as he will do nothing to save her from the wrath of his wife.
• Theme: Sexuality:


  The focus of the Gileadean regime is on the control of sex and sexuality. They execute gays and lesbians; they destroy pornography and sexual clothing; they kill abortion doctors; they outlaw divorce and second marriages; and they ritualize bizarre sexual relations that they believe are supported by the Bible. It is unsurprising at the end of the novel to learn that the Gileadean regime eventually destroys itself. In attempting to separate sex from sexuality, the regime demonstrates both its underestimation of and fear of sexuality.

  
  

  The regime, it appears, is right to fear sexuality, for the extent to which illicit sexual practices undermine the regime quickly becomes clear. The Commander reveals not only that he carried out a series of affairs with his Handmaids, but that there is a more or less "secret" club where higher-ups consort with women solely for sexual purposes. These actions demonstrate that the government cannot expunge illicit sexual acts merely by threatening fearful punishments. In fact, by destroying the privacy of even condoned sexual acts, the government seems to encourage those in power to act out against these regulations. Finally, when Offred takes a series of tremendous risks to continue her affair with Nick, she demonstrates the power of sexual acts. The regime can impose as many punishments as it wants; it can force women to watch other women be hung; it can torture and abuse, but no matter what it does, ordinary women like Offred will continue to risk everything for acts of sexuality inspired by the possibility of love.
• Theme: The place of individual in society:


  One of the questions asked by The Handmaid's Tale is whether the needs of society should be allowed to trump the rights of the individual. As the Historical Notes stress, the Gileadean society was facing extreme pressures. Their population was shrinking, and they were going to disappear if severe actions were not taken. The isolation and enlistment of women with viable ovaries is a solution that makes the best use of available resources, but there are at least two serious problems with such methods. Essentially, the Gileadeans are acting under the idea of Utilitarianism: they are attempting to do what they think is best for the greatest number of people.

  
  

  One of the major problems with this reasoning is that as a theocracy, the Gilead regime's reasoning is not always as coldly logical as it needs to be in order to solve its problems. The Gileadeans decide that fertility is always a problem in the woman, never in the man, as was the case in the Bible. As a result, the regime wastes many fertile handmaids on clearly infertile Commanders. This reasoning drives handmaids to violate the sexual mores of the new society and make use of doctors or other accessible men to get pregnant. In order for the Gileadean society to effectively fix their birth-rate problem, they need to take a more scientific perspective on the issue. Ultimately, the Gileadean leaders place their religious beliefs over the rights of the individual or the survival of the group.
• Theme: Feminism:


  While Atwood is widely viewed as a feminist writer, The Handmaid's Tale presents a complex view of feminism. First of all, Atwood stresses in many interviews that the extreme nature of Gilead is a result of the conservative and feminist viewpoints simultaneously being espoused during the time that she wrote the novel. Moira is the novel's mouthpiece for many of these ideas, and when Offred remembers the arguments they had, she is reiterating many of the ideas that influenced the novel. The most important idea was Moira's belief that living solely with women would solve many of the problems women were currently facing. In many ways, the new social order in Gilead is supposed to provide for a society of women. Most women have very little contact with men. Women are expected to support each other in times of birth, death and sickness. Women teach other women about the new regime. Within a household, women work together to fulfill the different functions of their gender. Of course, the utopian ideal of this community is far from the reality. Atwood seems to be suggesting that one of the flaws in the feminist community is the belief that women automatically feel loyalty towards one another.

  
  

  Offred's mother serves as a mouthpiece for a different sort of feminism. Offred's mother marched for abortion rights, the banning of pornography, and many other women's issues before the institution of the new regime. When she was young, Offred remembers being embarrassed by her mother's activities. Her mother would lecture her for being ungrateful and complacent about her rights. Only post-Gilead does Offred realize how complacent she truly was. Offred didn't realize that her job or her right to own property could be taken away. She now understands how the lack of rights changes one's perspective.

  
  

  One of the qualities that make Offred so representative of women in general is that before Gilead, she was the kind of woman who didn't consider herself a feminist. She feared feminism would alienate her from men. She did not like it when her mother argued with Luke, trying to get him to admit that the only reason he cooked was because of feminism. Now Offred understands that feminism only forces women to recognize their natural alienation from men. It is the feminine itself that creates this alienation. This distinction becomes clear when Offred loses her job and is afraid to ask Luke whether he prefers the new order. Atwood explores feminism from several perspectives, and though she clearly considers its flaws, Offred ultimately seems to realize its importance.
• Theme: The power of language:


  One of Atwood's most intricate and well-integrated themes is that of the power of language. The idea of storytelling is woven throughout Offred's tale. She explains that everything is a re-interpretation of something else; nothing is an exact description of the truth. She considers possible themes for her story, pointing out that she has attempted to improve the tone of her story by adding in things like "flowers". She apologizes for the presence of so much violence and pain. As the historical notes point out, Offred's narrative is quite dissimilar from a straightforward historical account. She talks about different things, asks different questions, and provides different answers.

  
  

  Another interesting use of language is found in the manner in which Offred thinks of words and analyzes them, using them to distract her from her reality and to help her survive. For example, at one point she thinks of the word chair and its many meanings, from a method of execution to the French word for flesh. When she and the Commander play Scrabble, she uses the search for words to distract herself from her fear and confusion.

  
  

  Of course, one of the major changes to language enacted by the regime is that the use of language has become illicit for women. On the one hand, this lends words and language even more power. On the other hand, it renders the illicit use of language almost sexual. Offred may think so fiercely of words and take such solace in the repetition of memories because doing so helps her to retain her knowledge of language. When the Commander allows Offred to read or plays Scrabble with her, she realizes they are practicing a kind of "kinky" sexual act.
• Theme: Moral Relativism:


  Through the Historical Notes, Atwood raises the general question of whether it is possible to judge a culture outside of its boundaries. It seems clear that she believes that the answer is "yes". Though Gilead's culture is substantially different from our own, it seems unlikely that the reader does not hold it in judgement. Atwood seems to justify this judgment, for while she teases out Gilead's differences, the narrative also reveals that there are many similarities between cultures, no matter the social or cultural mores that divide them. In other words, the same kinds of relationships and the same kinds of power differentials underlie all societies. Atwood seems to suggest that those similarities are what allow outsiders to make judgments. A greater question is whether Atwood's novel is political: is she alluding to specific cultures that she feels her readers have excused themselves from judging.
• Theme: Gender Conflict:

  While Atwood asks a great many questions about gender conflict, she does not seem to provide readers with any concrete answers. Offred becomes more and more aware that as a man, Luke is on one side of the new regime, and she is on another, despite the fact that she believes he loves her. The Commander tries to explain to Offred why the new regime is better for men, and essentially admits that in order for it to be better for men, it must be worse for women. One of the most obvious questions is whether these feelings were simply repressed in the old society, or whether they were created by the new one. Would the Commander think the new regime was better if his survival was not bound up with his support of the new regime? Does Luke actually prefer the new way of life? Before he understood the new laws about divorce, how did he feel about the new laws curtailing the activities of women? Offred never asks, so the reader never knows the answers to these important questions.

  
  

  The overarching question is whether gender conflict exists at all. Is there actually more conflict between men and women than between women and women or men and men? Though there is little discussion of the relationships between men in The Handmaid's Tale, relationships between women are not necessarily superior to those between women and men. Offred finds herself arguing with her mother and Moira about those very things. The different categories of women after the regime change serve only to widen gaps between women. Some wives literally try to stab Handmaids to death, angry about their very existence, while perfectly aware that they can do nothing about it. In general, relationships between men and women are not shown in an even remotely positive light. The exception is the relationship between Offred and Nick: the strength of that relationship lies in Nick's sacrifice of his own safety in order to be with and help Offred. Atwood may be suggesting that all relationships are difficult: those between genders, and those among them.
• Theme: Religion & Theocracy:

  Gilead is a theocracy, a government where church and state are combined. Religious language enters into every part of the society, from Rita's position as a Martha, named for a New Testament kitchen worker, to the store names like Milk and Honey. And religion, specifically the Old Testament, is also the justification for many of Gilead's most savage characteristics. Offred's job as Handmaid is based on the biblical precedent of Rachel and Leah, where fertile servants can carry on adulterous relationships to allow infertile women like the Commander's Wife to have families. Each month before the Ceremony, the Commander reads from Genesis the same lines that make the book's epigraph, justifying and moralizing the crude intercourse that will take place.

  
  

  Yet many of the biblical quotes in the book are twisted. The theocracy is so rigid about its religious influences, and so emphatic about the specific rules it upholds, that it even warps essential virtues like charity, tolerance and forgiveness. Offred knows that the prayers that the Aunts play the Handmaids in the Rachel and Leah Center are not the words that actually appear in the Bible, but she has no way of checking. The Salvagings and executions are supposedly the penalty for biblical sins like adultery, but Offred knows that others are executed for resisting the government. The Handmaid's Tale is not a criticism of the Bible in itself, but a criticism of the way that people and theocracies use the Bible for their own oppressive purposes.
• Theme: Fertility:


  Fertility is the reason for Offred's captivity and the source of her power, Gilead's major failing and its hope for the future. Inhabitants of Gilead give many reasons for the society's issues with creating viable offspring: the sexual revolution and birth control, pollution, sexually transmitted diseases. And the book hints at other, more subtle problems: in a society that restricts women so much, treating the potential child-bearers alternately as precious objects, bothersome machines, and prostitute-like sources of shame, how could anyone conceive? Similarly, though Offred knows her life depends on a successful birth, the atmosphere of extreme pressure and fear can't be as successful a motivator as the hope, love and liberty that characterized life with her first daughter and Luke. Despite the sterile atmosphere, markers of fertility, such as flowers and worms, throng in the Commander's Wife's carefully tended garden.

  
  

  The Commander and his wife host Offred for her proven fertility, and they even rename her as Fred's possession—her body's functions are valued, but her personhood is not. This division is highlighted in Janine's Birthing Ceremony, where Janine's Commander's Wife pretends to give birth at the same time, and the faked birth is treated as the authentic one. In this way, Gilead manages to strip away even the Handmaid's connection to the babies they bear in a version of a sharing, collective society gone totally wrong.
• Theme: Rebellion:


  Every major character in the story engages in some kind of disobedience against Gilead's laws. Moira rebels most boldly, disguising herself and managing to escape from the Handmaids' imprisonment, though her daring escape proves futile, and she ends up at Jezebel's, resigned to her fate. Ofglen's rebellion is more community-minded, since she works as part of an organized resistance, although her careful plotting also ends badly. More unexpected are the small-scale rebellions from the Commander and the Commander's Wife.

  
  

  The Commander seems to have every advantage, being a man, powerful in the new regime, and wealthy. Gilead should be his ideal society, especially since the book suggests that he had a role in designing it. Yet he desires a deeper emotional connection, and cares enough about Offred's well-being to break the law and consort with her beyond his duties. The Commander's Wife also tries to get around the strictures of Gilead, setting Offred up with Nick in an illegal attempt to make a family.

  
  

  These rebellious acts, coming from Gilead's privileged group, add complexity to their characters and to the dystopia as a whole. No one in the book is purely evil, and no one is so different from real-world humans to fully embrace the lack of independence in Gilead. Whether large or small, attempting to destroy the Gileadean government or merely to make one's personal circumstances more tolerable, each character commits rebellious acts, highlighting both the unlivable horror of Gileadean society, and the unsteadiness of its foundations.
• Theme: Storytelling & Memory:


  The structure of The Handmaid's Tale is characterized by many different kinds of storytelling and fiction-making. For one, the title itself, and the fictional "Historical Notes on the Handmaid's Tale" of the book's end, frame the entire novel as Offred's story, that she's said into a tape recorder in the old fashioned storytelling tradition. For another, her whole story is also punctuated by shorter stories she tells herself, of the time before Gilead or Aunt Lydia's lessons. These small flashbacks can be triggered by the slightest impression, and they occur so often throughout the novel that it seems like Offred lives in several worlds, the terrible present, the confusing but free past, and the Rachel and Leah Center that bridged them.

  
  

  Adding to the overlap of past and present, the tenses are always shifting, with some memories in the past tense, and some in the present. A third form of storytelling comes about because of the constant atmosphere of paranoia and uncertainty. Offred constantly makes up fictions. She's filled with questions—is Ofglen a true believer, or lying? Is Nick's touching her foot accidental, or intentional? Offred must keep several stories in mind at once, imagining each to be true at the same time. This form of storytelling is most clear in her imaginings about Luke's fate, where he could be dead, imprisoned or maybe escaped.

  
  

  Fourth, Offred also uses storytelling as a pastime. Since she has no access to any entertainment, and very few events happen in her life, she often goes over events from other people's points of view, making up very involved fictions about what others might be thinking and saying. One major example is her long imaginary recreation of Aunt Lydia and Janine talking about Moira. Another is her creative ideas about what Nick might think of her and the Commander's relationship. With more stories and memories than current-time actions, the book is profoundly repetitive. It forms its own kind of simple, quiet hell—we, like Offred, are trapped within the echo-chamber of her mind.