Dystopian novels – a tried and true genre of literature. Yet Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale boldly takes the dystopian world a step further by asking the uncomfortable question: what happens to the women in dystopia? The answer is, as you’d expect, far from pleasant.
Atwood paints a bleak future in her novel: America as we know it lies shattered and toxic, and the Republic of Gilead is one of the few states to rise from the ashes. Gilead inherits the mantle of all “Big Brother” dystopian governments nicely, with a twist of religious zeal added for flare. Fertile women are treated as a treasured resource, as contaminants released into the land and air have rendered most of the population sterile. These fertile women, so-called Handmaids, are clothed in red and sent to Red Centers for re-education (read: indoctrination). Likewise, the rest of the population has been divided into classes, with Commanders and their Wives at the top, Angels ensuring safety of Gilead from threats external, Guardians maintaining order, and the Eyes acting as watchers of the State.
Amid all this we find the anti-hero of Atwood’s novel, a handmaid named Offred, literally meanning Of-Fred. Along the course of the novel Offred muses about many things pertaining to her past and present self, with her flashbacks of the past being particularly insightful to her current condition. The destruction and subsequent reconstruction of language into neologisms, an Orwellian concept, plays a critical role in reforming the way we view the world. “Crotch rot” is smoothed over and simply referred to as being “unhygienic.” Salvagings and Prayvaganzas are common (and often bloody) events. The Birthmobile harkens the birth of a child, though sadly there’s a quarter chance that an Unbaby will be born, another silent casualty of the toxins in the water.
Likewise, the oppression and divide between men and women have gotten so great that Offred and her Commander resort to illicit games of Scrabble, as opposed to the more traditional method of illicit sex from the past. Though the past is long gone, shards of memory still haunt Offred, especially flashbacks of Offred’s lost husband and daughter.
Atwood paints a near hopeless atmosphere for her protagonist, where even the concept of freedom itself is redefined; the hallmark of the past was “freedom to” do as you please, whereas the dutiful citizens of Gilead are privileged with “freedom from” the horrors and degeneracy of the past. The prose flows seamlessly, and easily conveys the more subtle and darker themes of The Handmaid’s Tale. Overall Atwood has created a literary champion of the Feminist movement, one that will leave its readers with a new found appreciation for the true sense of freedom.
CK, you leave an interesting summary and analysis of The Handmaids Tale. Especially when noting Offred as a type of “anti-hero.” This being because my interpretation of the book titled her neither as hero or anti-hero due to the nature of the book and the way that it is being presented. Due to the fact that it is a supposed auto biography due to the fact that it is written in the first person, i found that it disables the reader from establishing the good and the bad in people, because there is always an overwhelming amount of both in the book, hence the obscure ending. However I do agree with calling her an “anti-hero” as she really does she the character of someone in submission to what is happening around her. She does what is asked and what is told, while knowingly going in accordance with the system she despises. In this sense i feel that the book labels women such as Moira as a hero, only to show what being a hero has resulted in. This I feel is Atwood playing at all accepted forms of society. There is the “good” and the “bad,” where the “good” overcome the “bad” and that all is well in the end. Atwood plays with these notions and truly shows the complexity of individual characters and in that sense, the reality of the world, by truly humanizing the characters in the book. She therefore makes every character a hero and an anti-hero, and therefore shows how society really fits together, through a very clear dystopian world.