The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel set in the Republic of Gilead in the near future. The novel was written and published in the early to mid-1980s during the Cold War, industrialization, many terrorist attacks and severe economic recessions around the world and when ideas and movements such as post-feminism, civil rights movements rose. Atwood uses “language as power” as one of the main elements in the novel. Language is one the things that stand out as a tool that controls people’s behaviors and actions in Gilead.

First of all, Gilead takes away the names of women to strip them away from their individuality and unique identity and instead names them accordingly to their commanders. The handmaids immediately become propertied by their commanders as their name becomes “Of-someone” (eg. Offred and Ofglen).  The new naming system for handmaids in Gilead serve as a tool to emphasize the sense of property and discouraging individuality.

Secondly, in Gilead, both men and women are defined by their jobs – men by their military rank and women by roles such as wives, handmaids or marthas. However, feminists and deformed babies are considered as neither of these gender role titles and instead are called “unwomen” or “unbabies”. Also, African-americans and jewish people are called “children of ham” and “sons of jacob” which make them different from the rest of the society. By defining them differently from the white group of people, persecution of those people are made easier in Giliead. These neologisms and new titles that describe people are used as a tool of power in categorizing people for the advantage of Gilead’s management of people.

Lastly, the use of biblical language in Gilead also serves as a great tool of power for controlling how people behave. The bible is not only accessible to certain people but also manipulated by Gilead for the goal of its society. For instance, it would often say things from the bible that glorifies and praises childbirth or marriage and leave other things out that come together in context. In addition, even when the bible is misquoted, there is no way of checking it as the bible is not accessible to all. Therefore it can be said that the bible is used as a tool of power to make people act as Gilead wants them to.