THE HANDMAID'S TALE

'''The Handmaid's Tale''' is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985. The novel, set in Cambridge, Massachusetts,^[1] explores themes of women in subjugation, and the various means by which they gain agency, against a backdrop of the establishment of a totalitarian theocratic state. Sumptuary laws (essentially, ''dress codes'') play a key role in the form of social control in the new society.
The novel is commonly assigned in college-level English courses in the United States, usually in comparison with other dystopian-themed novels. In the UK and in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, it is frequently a part of A-level syllabi, and in Canada and the United States, it is frequently used at the Grade 12 level. It is also part of the HSC syllabus in New South Wales, Australia as well as the TEE syllabus in Western Australia. The American Library Association lists it in "10 Most Challenged Books of 1999" and as No 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000" due to a high volume of complaints from parents of pupils on these courses regarding the novel's anti-religious content and sexual references.
''The Handmaid's Tale'' won the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. It was additionally nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1987 Prometheus Award, and the 1986 Booker Prize.

Plot summary

The story is told from the perspective of Offred, a Handmaid. "Offred" is a patronymic which describes her function in the Republic of Gilead; Offred belongs to her Commander, Fred. (A note which may or may not be of signifigance, is that Ofred is Swedish military jargon for "unpeace" i.e. war or wartime.) Offred's real name is not revealed. Offred's assignment to the household of the Commander is her third, after she has failed to become pregnant with her first two Commanders. If she fails with her current Commander, she will be transported to the colonies. This third assignment differs from her earlier experiences in that she is given, in various disjointed episodes, glimpses that all is not as it seems in the new world and that the people in her life, while paying lip service to Gilead's rigid mores, seek various means of expressing their individuality.
Offred initially becomes aware of this new viewpoint when Fred oversteps the bounds of her official role by ordering her to visit his study late at night to play Scrabble with him. He also obtains forbidden hand lotion for her and allows her to read books and magazines from the past. On one occasion, he dresses her in a sexy costume and smuggles her out to Jezebel's, a nightclub and brothel. He asks that she keep all this secret from his Wife, Serena Joy.
At the same time, Serena Joy is asking Offred to keep secrets from the Commander. Resentful of having been deprived of her formerly prominent role as a televangelist and right-wing lecturer, she feels the only thing that can give meaning to her life is a child. Since the Commander is likely to be sterile (his previous Handmaids did not conceive), Serena Joy suggests that Offred attempt to conceive a child with Nick, the chauffeur, later revealed to be a member of the underground Resistance.
Nick and Offred begin an emotional and sexual relationship which they continue until Offred is either caught or smuggled out of the household. By this time, Offred and Nick believe that she might be pregnant. Her fate is not made clear by the ambiguous ending, though since she was afforded an opportunity to make tapes describing her experiences, it seems likely that she was rescued by Nick and his colleagues and possibly was able to leave the country via the "Underground Femaleroad" mentioned in the appendix, which treats Offred's on-tape narrative as a historical document, discussed at an academic conference far in the future.
At the beginning of the book there is a reference to the sharing of names. Five are mentioned - Alma, Janine, Dolores, Moira, and June. Throughout the book all of the names are accounted for except June. Also throughout the book Offred mentions that she has a name; therefore it can be guessed that her real name is June.

Major themes

Dystopia

A revolution has taken place and the United States has become a nominally Christian theocracy, albeit one that does not appear to be modeled on any real Christian-majority society that has existed in history since the declining influence of the Catholic Church during and after the Inquisition. At the opening of the novel, the US Constitution has been abrogated, and a new order has been established: the Republic of Gilead. Gilead is ruled through biblical fundamentalism and rigid enforcement of social roles vaguely resembling current Dominionist thinking. Most citizens have been stripped of their freedoms. The key to this suppression is the conscious elimination of literacy among the population. Pictures take the place of labels in the grocery store. All religions, except the official state religion, have been suppressed.
Those who do not conform to the new norms, or who in the past became pregnant and did not immediately embrace the "new world order," are pressed into service as handmaids and personal servants or deported to "the colonies" (regions where pollution has reached toxic levels). All those who threaten the ideology of Gilead, and those who will not repent — political and religious dissidents, pro-choice advocates (called abortionists) and homosexuals (gender treachery) are executed and hanged at "The Wall" for public display. The government has proclaimed martial law owing to the destabilizing effect of "hordes of guerrillas" roaming the countryside. This is reinforced by the roadblocks, sandbags and the sounds of gun and rocket fire that are mentioned repeatedly, yet almost glossed over by the characters, who seem to regard living in a war zone the normal routine of life.
In Gilead, many people are infertile, for reasons which are never completely revealed. The massive mortality rate and declining population, unable to recover because of an almost total inability of the men to father children, is mainly due to the ecological disasters that have made large parts of the country uninhabitable, and involved nuclear-plant accidents and leakages from toxic-waste sites and stockpiles of chemical weapons. Fertile women who were not parties to state-approved marriages are forced to engage in sexual reproduction for the benefit of the upper classes (the only ones supposed to have children). One in four children born fail to thrive, which is considered to be evidence of a reproductive problem of the female body. Single women who cannot reproduce are exiled, which amounts to a slow execution. Although it is hinted that in truth it is the men who are infertile, it is fundamental to the Gileadian worldview and power structure that they be regarded as beyond reproach.
The title character is a woman who had married a divorced man before the revolution. As divorces are all retroactively declared void, she is designated an adulteress and faced with exile to the colonies unless she becomes a handmaid. She has proved her fertility by giving birth to a daughter who survived infancy, but the child had been taken from her after she and her husband and child made a failed attempt to escape Gilead and cross into Canada.
The handmaids are women modeled after Zilpah and Bilhah in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, the slaves of the patriarch Jacob's wives Rachel and Leah. When the wives could not conceive, they had their handmaids lay with their husband to have children on their behalf. Like the biblical handmaids, the title character must have ritualized and completely unemotional sex with a man, with his wife holding her hands. Sexual satisfaction is forbidden and if a child is produced, it will be considered the offspring of the man and his wife.
Handmaids spend a maximum of two years in a particular household before they are moved. Those who cannot conceive within three placements are deemed barren Unwomen and sent to the colonies — so that many genuinely fertile Handmaids seek to impregnate themselves using alternative methods. For example, when Offred receives a medical check-up, the doctor offers to "do the job" for her. Similarly, Fred's wife Serena Joy arranges an illicit affair between Offred and Nick the chauffeur, so that Offred may conceive and produce a child for Serena Joy and her husband and avoid deportation. The dual pressure to conceive produces an insurmountable psychosis in the Handmaids. Offred frequently refers to the words secretly carved in dog Latin inside her closet where no one can see, presumably left by a former Handmaid — ''Nolite te bastardes carborundorum'' (Don't let the bastards grind you down).

Subjugation of women

In Gilead, women are stripped of their independence through the reversal of feminist accomplishments. They are no longer allowed to hold property, arrange their own affairs, make reproductive choices, read, wear make-up, control money, or choose their clothes. Women are segregated into categories, and dressed according to their social functions. Seven legitimate categories (Wives, Daughters, Widows, Aunts, Marthas, Handmaids and Econowives), and two illegitimate functional categories (Unwomen and, secretly, prostitutes), are mentioned in the novel.

Socially accepted and promoted categories of women in Gilead

# 'White women' seem to be the default in the Gilead society. In the novel, the main non-white ethnic group mentioned are Blacks. Blacks, along with Jews, are quickly shuttled away per the fundamentalist Gileadan interpretations of the Bible. Blacks are labelled as Children of Ham while Jews are called Sons of Jacob. The reproductive value of white women in America is privileged over that of others. This is an underpinning assumption of the book. Women in Gilead are categorised “hierarchically according to class status and reproductive capacity” as well as “metonymically colour-coded according to their function and their labour” (Kauffman 232). Interestingly, "Gilead" means "whiteness" in Scottish Gaelic, although it's not known whether this connotation was intended or a mere coincidence.
# 'Wives' are at the top social level permitted to women. They are women married to the Commanders who are the ruling circle of the new military dictatorship. They are often infertile for unknown reasons, possibly related to an unexplored ecological disaster or effects of a bioweapon. ''Wives'' always wear blue dresses. After the death of her husband, a ''Wife'' becomes a ''Widow'', and must dress in black. It is implicitly suggested in the novel that ''Widows'' are also being sent to the colonies.
# 'Daughters' are the natural or adopted children of ''Wives'', and, though this is not mentioned, perhaps also of ''Econowives'', They wear white until marriage (it is mentioned in the book that some of the daughters' being wed could have been no older than 14. although this is not a set age.). The narrator's daughter has been adopted by an infertile ''Wife''.
# 'Aunts' train and monitor the ''Handmaids''. In return they receive — relatively speaking — a degree of personal . It is a central organisational element of Gilead that women be used in the social repression of women. ''Aunts'' dress in brown.
# 'Handmaids' are fertile women whose social function is to bear children for the ''Wives''. Handmaids are subjected to a monthly reproductive ritual derived from the biblical story of Rachel and Leah's reproductive competition (''Genesis'' 29:31–35; 30:1–24). Handmaids dress in a red habit with a white head-dress which obscures their peripheral vision. The ''Aunt'' system produces ''Handmaids'', by reeducating fertile women who have broken Gileadean gender and social laws. Owing to the demands of ''Wives'' for fertile ''Handmaids'', Gilead gradually increased the number of gender-crimes. However, the ''Aunt'' system attempts to promote the role of the ''Handmaid'' as an honourable one and seeks to legitimise it by removing any association with gender-criminality.
# 'Marthas' are older infertile women whose compliant nature and domestic skills recommend them to a life of domestic servitude in the houses of the elite. There has been some conjecture that ''Marthas'' are Black, reflecting a long tradition of the American elite employing black slaves and domestic workers. However, since black people (referred to in the novel as the "Children of Ham") are described as having been relocated into bantustans, this is unlikely. ''Marthas'' dress in green smocks. The title of "Martha" is based on the Gileadite reading of the incident recounted in Luke 10:38-42, where Jesus visits Mary, sister of Lazarus, and Martha; Mary listens to Jesus while Martha is preoccupied "by all the preparations that had to be made." The name "Martha", interestingly, means "mistress of the house" or "lady" in Aramaic
# 'Econowives' are women who have married relatively low-ranking men, meaning any man who does not belong to the ruling elite. ''Econowives'' are expected to perform all the female functions: domestic duties, companionship, child-bearing. The ''Econowife'' dress is multicoloured: red, blue and green to reflect these multiple roles.
The division of labour between women engenders some resentment between categories. ''Marthas'', ''Wives'' and ''Econowives'' perceive ''Handmaids'' as sluttish, and ''Econowives'' also resent their freedom from domestic work.

Socially unacceptable categories of women in Gilead

Outside of society exist two further classes of women.
# 'Jezebels'. Informally, the desires of Commanders for mistresses and sexual variety has resulted in a collective form of prostitution available only to them. The women who populate this system are informally known as ''Jezebels''. This category includes some lesbians and attractive, educated women who were unable to adjust to handmaid status. These women are housed in the remains of a hotel and are also used by Commanders to entertain foreign dignitaries. Jezebels dress in the remnants of sexualized costumes from "the time before": cheerleaders' costumes, school uniforms, and Playboy Bunny costumes.
# 'Unwomen' are sterile women, widows, feminists, lesbians, nuns and politically dissident women confined to the Colonies (both areas of agricultural production and deadly pollution). Handmaids who fail to produce a child within three chances are also sent here. ''Unwomen'' as a category embraces all women unable to fit within the Republic of Gilead's gender categories. Unlike members of society who transgress and break fundamental rules (who are murderously punished), ''unwomen'' are simply regarded as categorically incapable of social integration as their society rejects them utterly. Males who engage in homosexuality (or related acts) are declared ''Gender Traitors,'' and either executed, or sent to the Colonies to die a slow death. All those banished to the colonies, men or women, wear grey dresses.

"The Ceremony"

Human sexuality in Gilead is regulated by the stated belief that sex for pleasure is fundamentally degrading to women, though controlling women's sexuality is, at bottom, a means of denying them power and independence. Men are understood to desire sexual pleasure constantly but are obliged to abstain from all but marital sex for religio-social reasons. The social regulations are enforced by law, with corporal punishment inflicted for lesser offences and capital punishment sometimes inflicted by a group of Handmaids for greater offences. This latter ritual, known as ''particicution,'' is also a means of allowing the Handmaids to let off steam, particularly when the condemned is male.
"The Ceremony" is a non-marital sexual act sanctioned solely for the purpose of reproduction and unites Wives, Aunts, Marthas and Handmaids in an urgent mission. Sex acts that defile the Ceremony (for example, sex with a Handmaid for pleasure) are punished with death. It is unknown what social rules regulate sexual relations between men and their Wives, but Commander Fred's marriage clearly suffers from a high degree of personal and sexual alienation. The sexual position of Econowives is inferred by references to Serena Joy's alienation from the world in which she was a "star," and by descriptions of wives who have been hung for various crimes. Though the narrator has little interaction with them, she is able to analyse what she perceives happening to them, and mourns that none of the various groups of women are able to empathize with the others, women are taught to hate and fear other women.
The Ceremony re-enacts in rather literal fashion the biblical passage in which Jacob's infertile wife Rachel says to him "Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees" (''Genesis'' 29:31–35; 30:1–24). The Gileadan variation on the passage has the Handmaid lying supine upon the Wife during the sex act itself.
Offred describes the ceremony:
Once a Handmaid is pregnant, she is venerated by her peers and by the Wives. After her baby is born, it is given to the Wife of her Commander, and she is reassigned to another household. The Handmaid's reward for giving birth is that she will never be sent to the Colonies, even if she does not conceive again. This suggests an illusion of justice within Gileadean society that supposedly gives some recompense for some women, however minimal. Atwood never explains what really happens to these women, but she does indicate that their "reward" is not what it seems to be. Moreover, these rewards may simply be a functional incentive for social cooperation, motivated more by a need to avoid disorder than by justice. Owing to the ecological disasters, approximately one quarter of all children born, who thrive, have physical defects. These are taken by the government, after which they are never heard of again. They are described by the Handmaids as ''shredders'', a dysphemism that implies their death perhaps by euthanasia. During the length of the book, we are introduced to a number of pregnant Handmaids, yet we never see a child who survives long after birth. We do not even know the fate of the child Offred is carrying by the end of the novel, presumably while she is making the tapes and waiting for rescue. Atwood's writing allows the reader to presume a happy ending, if they need one, or a less sanguine conclusion - based on the inability of the anthropologists to find any trace of her or her descendants.

Subjection of women in pre-Gileadian society

Via Offred's memories, the novel indicates that pre-Gileadian society was not a heaven for women. This society was late 20th-century America as Atwood envisioned it developing towards the year 2000. Women feared physical and sexual violence, and despite long-running feminist campaigns (approximately 1970–2000 within the text), they had not achieved equality. Feminist campaigners, particularly radicals like Moira (Offred's long-time friend) and Offred's mother were persecuted by the state. In addition, mass commercialization of sexuality had occurred and prostitution had reached a nadir of "fast-food" and "home delivery" sexuality. Women outside of prostitution in "the former times" were subject to a socially-constructed vision of romantic love that encouraged serial monogamy in favour of men's social and sexual interests.
It is noted that immediately following the overthrow of the government, but before the new order had completely changed things, that women began to lose whatever freedoms they had previously had. Offred describes the loss of her own bank account (it is transferred to her husband's control) and then her job, before she, her husband and her daughter attempt to flee. An "aunt" describes women's right prior to the overthrow as "freedom to" (i.e. women having the freedom to do as they pleased), while the time after is described as "freedom from" (i.e. women being given the freedom from choice).
Atwood is also mocking those who talk of 'traditional values'; for example, such leaders as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan who suggested that women should return to being housewives. Atwood was eager to demonstrate that extremist views might result in fundamentalist totalitarianism that targets even the holders of such views. Serena Joy, formerly a television Gospel singer and preacher of traditional values, has been forced to give up her career and is clearly not content. Her preaching has destroyed her own life.
On the other hand, in pre-Gileadean society and despite holding a University degree from an unspecified North American university, Offred was a menial white collar worker. Offred's coworkers were all women, but her boss was a man. Aside from having had to cope with oppressive cultural and social phenomena, women lacked full and meaningful control over their economic lives.

Social regulation of human sexuality

As The Commander explains, the Gileadian elite has formulated an explanation of the failure of society in "the former times": women were too available to men. Men's ready sexual access to women led to violence and abuse and a decrease of authentic feeling. Gilead's solution is to limit men's access to women until they have proved themselves within social-ideological terms. Fred (supposedly the Commander's proper name) sees no problem in the fact that women are in both cases treated as the property of men, in the former case as individual property and in the latter case as social property. Fred also makes it clear that women are considered to be intellectually and emotionally inferior; in Gilead, they are not permitted to read and female children are not educated, since the view is that allowing women to become literate was a great mistake of the past.

Sumptuary laws

The sumptuary laws of Gilead are complex. All lower status individuals are regulated by sumptuary dress laws. Women, in particular, are divided into castes by their dress. Men too are regulated but equipped with military or paramilitary uniforms: constrained but also empowered. Only rare civilians (increasingly persecuted) and Commanders seem to be free of sumptuary restrictions. This freedom itself is indicative of power.
Additionally, those punished with death are dressed for the occasion: priests in long, forbidding robes and doctors in consulting gowns.

Social critique

Atwood's tale comprises a number of social critiques.
It presents a dystopian vision of American society in the period 1970–1985, particularly in the period of backlash against feminism. This critique is most clearly seen in both Offred's remembrance of the slow social transformation towards theocratic fascism and in the ideology of the Aunts.
But Atwood also offers a critique of contemporary feminism. By working against pornography, feminists in the early 1980s opened themselves up to criticism that they favoured censorship. Anti-pornography feminist activists made alliances with the religious right, despite the denials of some feminists. (see Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon). Atwood warns that the consequences of such an alliance may end up empowering feminists' worst enemies. Atwood also suggests, through descriptions of the narrator's feminist mother burning books, that contemporary feminism was becoming overly rigid and adopting the same tactics as the religious right.
Most obviously, Atwood critiques modern, fundamentalist, religious movements, specifically American fundamentalist Christianity, though there is a brief suggestion that she was also considering Iranian fundamentalist Islam. In the American case, a religious revival of the mid-1970s seemed to remain particularly influential in the early 1980s. Jimmy Carter, a US president during the period, had avowed his renewed and reaffirmed Christianity. Additionally, the religious right was growing through televangelism. In the book, Atwood pictures revivalism as a counter-revolutionary doctrine, opposed to the revolutionary doctrine espoused by Offred's mother and Moira, which sought to break down gender categories. A common Marxist historical reading of fascism states that fascism is the backlash of the right after a revolution has failed. Atwood explores this Marxist reading and translates its analysis into the structure of a religious and gender revolution. This is demonstrated in the quote "From each according to her ability… to each according to his needs" (1996, pg.127), a deliberate distortion of Marx's own phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" — the latter (whilst using the pronoun 'him') represents an ideological statement on class and society; the former, a stance taken by Gileadian society towards gender roles.
It is worth noting that during the Iranian revolution, an alliance of Western-educated intellectuals advocated modernism and Marxism but were defeated by other factions. Women played a key role in the revolution, and at the time ''The Handmaid's Tale'' was written, it was a common fear that Iranian women would be completely disempowered by their own accomplishment.

Key phrases

In ''The Handmaid's Tale,'' Atwood takes pains to emphasize the effect of changing context on behaviours and attitudes. A key phrase '"context is all"' (1996, pg.154, 202) is repeated throughout the novel. The Scrabble game, for example, illustrates her point, since Offred describes it as once "the game of old men and women" (1996, pg.149) but now forbidden and therefore "desirable" (1996, pg.149). Offred also perceives the world differently in a society that is morally rigid. Revealing clothes and make-up were part of her former life; yet, when she encounters some Japanese tourists wearing these, she is intrigued by her feeling that they are inappropriately dressed.

Biblical references

The primary biblical reference in ''The Handmaid's Tale'' is to the story of Rachel and Leah (''Genesis'' 29:31–35; 30:1–24). While Leah was fertile and was blessed by God, Rachel was barren, meaning she could not have children. Rachel proceeds to compete in producing sons for her husband, by using her handmaids as property. Rachel takes immediate possession of the children produced by her handmaids. In the context of Atwood's book, the story is one of female competition, jealousy, and reproductive cruelty.
A similar story also exists in Genesis, where Sarah is infertile, and Hagar conceives on Sarah's behalf. The Sarah and Hagar story is considerably different from the Rachel and Leah story. This is mainly because of the active role played by Hagar, and Hagar's possession of her child. Sarah's fertility is restored by God at an advanced age. Atwood was aware of the similarity between these stories, and was using it to show the hypocrisy of Gileadean biblical interpretation: the biblical story showed a relationship between a wife and a handmaid which did not involve sexual and reproductive subjugation. Additionally, it was ultimately the choice of the wives in the Bible, whereas wives in Gilead (such as Serena Joy) are forced.

References in social science

★ Stephen J. Ducat. ''The Wimp Factor''. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. p. 110. ISBN 0-8070-4344-3

★ Kauffman, Linda S. Gender and Theory. Blackwell, 1989. p. 232

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

DVD cover for the 1990 film adaptation

Main articles: The Handmaid's Tale (film)

A 1990 film adaptation of the novel was directed by Volker Schlöndorff. It starred Natasha Richardson (Offred), Faye Dunaway (Serena Joy), Robert Duvall (The Commander, Fred), Aidan Quinn (Nick), and Elizabeth McGovern (Moira). MGM released the film on DVD in 2001.
A straight stage adaptation by Brendon Burns was toured by the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, UK in 2002.
There is also an opera, written by Poul Ruders, which premièred in Copenhagen on March 6, 2000.
There is a full-cast dramatization, produced for BBC Radio 4 by the award-winning John Dryden in 2000.

External links

★ Analysis, background, themes and quizzes on The Handmaid's Tale.

★ The most honored novels: ''The Handmaid's Tale'' has received numerous honours and is near the top of the list.

★ An independent Wiki dealing with the analysis of the book only.

★ ''New York Times'' review. Mary McCarthy, 1986.

Notes

1. From the publisher: ''The Handmaid's Tale'' on RandomHouse.com

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