An essay on The Handmaid’s Tale

Many of you are working on improving your essays at the moment and I have posted an essay on Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ below. The student who wrote it does not want to be identified but she would be happy to receive feedback, so add a comment! She wrote it in exam conditions in 45 minutes.

” Most novels are written to reflect real events in real worlds”

Discuss the features that make a novel you have studied seem realistic (or unrealistic), and explain why realism is appropriate (or inappropriate) to the novel’s main themes.

The quote “Most novels are written to reflect real events in real worlds” is an embodiment of the true essence of Dystopian literature. Dystopias are manifestations of present societies faults – they project a future that is almost tangible to emphasise what we could come to if things do not change.

Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaids Tale” is an ideal exemplar of dystopian literatures, a cruel, but realistic depiction of where society is headed, as she conveys current issues such as pollution – particularly that of nuclear devastation, the ideas of patriarchy, and the oppression caused by totalitarian regimes and theocracies – and their foundations in intolerance.

Realism is essential in “The Handmaids Tale” as it brutally confronts the reader with the issues of the present in order for them to see where the path society is heading down leads – this is one of the main themes of Atwood’s novel; societies potential for destruction if issues are not properly addressed.

Atwood wrote “The Handmaids Tale” in the eighties, a time when feminism was undergoing a reform in some parts of the world, particularly that of America. Atwood projects the outcome of this flashback of feminism by portraying a society – Gilead – which is dominated by men, and women must play the subversive, submissive role.

Atwood even directly links one of the characters – Serena Joy – to the anti-feminist women that prevailed during the eighties. Serena Joy had been instrumental in the beginning of Gilead, preaching to her fellow gender that women belonged in the home. However, Atwood’s spin of projecting the future shows that such women, if they were truly faced with the society they preached, would not enjoy it. Offred, the Handmaid to Serena Joy, comments “she doesn’t make speeches anymore, she’s speechless, she stays at home but it doesn’t seem to agree with her”. This contributes to the themes found in “The Handmaids Tale” of what will happen to society if our current faults are not allayed – Atwood is teaching us to see where we are headed in order for us to stop and redress our issues to prevent a future where women have been fully oppressed.

The problems of nuclear devastation are also addressed in “The Handmaids Tale”. Atwood wrote her novel during the aftermath of a nuclear spillage on an island in America. Fear of nuclear devastation was rampant throughout the world at this time, and Atwood picks up on this to use it in her depiction of Gilead.

Gilead is surrounded by areas of waste, nicknamed the ‘colonies’ as those who do not fit the structure of Gilead are sent to these areas to do menial yet hard working labour. Atwood hints at the destruction of the environment but never fully explains the situation. However, it is obvious that the environment has been greatly effected. Atwood’s portrayal of this environment shows us where nuclear power is leading. The chemical spills of the eighties are personified, yet they remain realistic in depiction so that the audience is confronted with a potentially real situation. Atwood shows us what the environment will result in if such issues are not addressed.

Totalitarian regimes, and the ideas of theocracy, particularly that of religious fundamentalism and both such governments involvement in intolerance make up a large part of Atwood’s novel. The ability for the government to control every aspect of societies lives has forever been a potential for society, and the previous dictatorship government of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy to the present days relatively recently toppled government of Suddam Hussein’s indicate what Atwood has formed in her novel. Gilead is a totalitarian society, ruled militaristically by the constant surveillance of “the eyes”, the guardians” and “the aunts”. The oppression that the Handmaids and other women are subject to parallels the oppression that Hitler and Mussolini used on all of their citizens. Eventually people cannot trust anyone, as Offred states about her fellow Handmaid Ofglen “she is my spy and I am hers”.

Atwood portrays a society of mistrust and apprehension, of paranoia and loss of freedom. Aunt Lydia states “there are two kinds of freedom, freedom to and freedom from, you are being given freedom from, don’t underestimate it”. Yet Atwood is telling us that freedom to is the important one, that freedom from is an oxymoron of sorts that doesn’t really exist – it’s just a euphemism for oppression. Atwood warns us of the reality of totalitarian societies and their potential to control all aspects, and eliminate freedom of the individual. It is a reality that exists even today, and although it is not happening directly to us, yet it still happens and could if we are not aware of our governments true intentions and limits of power.

Religion and its potential for creating an oppressive regime is steeped in present and past societies ability for religions to find any part of the bible to produce justification for acts. Like the Elizabethans believed that childbirth was an act willed by God to punish women for Eve’s sin, so does Gilead use the Rachel and Leah story to provide justification for the handmaids, in itself a contradiction as it is infidelity.

Religion’s justification can also be seen today, in freedom fighters and suicide bombers, killing innocent people to gain control or prove a point on the grounds that the Koran allows them to without guilt. Atwood’s portrayal of Gilead as a society dominated by an almost puritan form of Christianity emphasises the potential for religion to be used in anyway to instrument and uphold a government that is controlling.

Throughout ‘The Handmaids Tale’ Atwood presents us with a realistic portrayal of society in the future, a projection that manifests from society’s faults of today. This tangible future illustrates her themes of society’s potential for destruction if issues are not properly addressed to create a novel that is essentially a warning to the readers to follow her hints and change the present before it becomes her future.