What would society be like if half the population was treated like an inferior race? If their civil liberties and basic human rights were taken away based on a physical trait? These are the very questions that Margaret Atwood addresses in her 1985 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Although this novel is probably older than most students reading this column, the issues it addresses are still hauntingly relevant.
Atwood’s novel gives us a very vivid description of what life could be like if we as a society did not continue to fight for human rights, to stand up to oppression and define ourselves as more than the drones that women and men become in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Atwood’s semi-science fiction novel is set in the fictional land, the Republic of Gilead, which has formed within what was formerly the United States. After a huge earthquake hits California, the United States is thrown into nuclear meltdowns and pervasive strains of disease that limit fertility. In order to turn things around and stop the country from its downward spiral, a chauvinistic military coup group, who call themselves the “Sons of Jacob,” step in and take control of the nation, renaming it the Republic of Gilead and making some huge changes to human interaction and society as a whole.
Since infertility was the problem, this group blamed women for the halt in reproduction and take measures to better control them. What unfolds is a haunting description of how far hate and prejudice can go in putting people against each other, recreating social hierarchies and completely redefining how people can live their lives, particularly women in Atwood’s tale.
The redefined social hierarchy is very rigid and unyielding. For men, there are five main stations, four of which are defined through their career positions. The fifth class is that of “gender traitor,” which are men who partake in homosexuality. Aside from the “gender traitors,” the men are in charge of guarding society and making sure that everything is in running order; that no one crosses their stations.
As we can see from the men’s social classes, there is certainly a stigma around sexuality, since the only men who are shunned from society are those who are viewed as sexual beings. Expanding on this idea, women too are viewed as mere sexual objects, so their entire class system depends on their definition as sexual beings. All of the eight classes for women involve how they are defined by someone else — that is, who they are married to, who they are permitted to have sex with or what children they take care of. The highest status for a woman is wife; the lowest is Jezebel (essentially a prostitute working in a brothel).
The protagonist of Atwood’s novel is Offred, a woman who is placed as a handmaid in the new Republic of Gilead. As a handmaid, Offred’s sole purpose in life is to bear children for the Wife of the family she is placed in. Wives are not permitted to have children because it is too dangerous, as well as taxing on their physical appearance. Offred’s life as a handmaid is a very isolated one, as we discover quickly through Atwood’s seamlessly crafted prose.
Offred was once what we would call a normal woman; she had a daughter and a husband, a job and a happy life. However, after the Republic was formed, she was separated from her husband, her daughter was ripped away and adopted by an infertile wife and Commander.
Offred had her entire life taken from her under this new regime — even her name Offred is not her own. Her name is actually a name drawn from the terms given to slaves and is broken down to Of-Fred, meaning belonging to Fred, the husband in the house she serves.
We don’t learn much about Offred except for momentary flashbacks that give us the information about her former family, and that her name was once June. By the end of the novel, June is almost entirely erased and replaced by the isolated, lonely and desperate Offred.
Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is an intricately woven and developed novel of an alternate society. It is not a simple and light-hearted book, but one that forces the reader to ask questions of self, friends, society and how those interact and function within our worlds.
Atwood did not make up class hierarchies; they all have a real grounding in history and society. With this novel, she is asking us to think about how the origins for her Republic of Gilread could be initiated.
How can we let those prejudices and feelings of inequality and hate get in the way of being equal and being fair to other human begins? We can’t, and Atwood reminds us why.