The Handmaid's Tale

"The Handmaid's Tale" - Margaret Atwood (1985) Analysis

Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature Wider Reading

English Literature AS A level Wider Reading

Context

"The Handmaid's Tale" is a dystopian novel set in the future. In it, Atwood explores the consequesnces of certain uncomfortable issues that came to light in the 1980s - Atwood questions whether the changing "modernity" of the world will lead us into self destruction, politically, socially and morally. Feminism, falling birth rates, credit cards, increasing state control, lack of privacy, sexual abuse and consumerism are all issues explored in "The Handmaid's Tale". 

Atwood's novel is extremely central to  the "struggle for identity" course. In the text Offred (our narrator)'s identity is completely decimated under the totalitarian regime and leads the reader to question what it is that gives us our identity? It's written as a palimpsest - new material written on top of old (this is exposed in the "historical notes" where we find the text is actually recorded voice on tapes over old records of "the time before") this is mirrored in the regime where The Aunts try to crush old habits, buildings echo the previous life and memory seeps into every crack.

Themes

Feminism

Language

Social

Polictical

Religion

Double and individual identity

The past and memory

Power and control

Sex

Motifs

Names - identity
Mirrors - repetitive, monotony, everything the same
Eyes - Seeing things, spying, lack of privacy, being watched
Flowers - fertility, the natural world
Blood - fertility, human life
Hands (and the human body) - things that make us human, make us the same, make us individual
Religion and the bible - control, faith, hope
Eggs - fertility, birth, hope, comfort
Clothing and self expression - identity, individuality
Colour

The Visit to the Doctors
Atwood uses "the visit to the doctors" in chapter two to portray much about the many themes in the novel. The struggle of gender, power and sexual desire which make up the identity of the characters and the stifling regime of Gilead.

The narrative in the chapter remains in recent times of her memory and does not flash back to "before" as her memory often does. Atwood presents the character in a stream of conciousness which allows such windows into the past to appear in the narrative, as our own thoughts are a mix of present and memory.

In this chapter we are exposed to one of the only three males we meet in the present Gilead. This stands out in a novel where men so obviously hold the power but women play more of a part in the shaping of the narrative; our narrator herself being female. The doctor's palimpsest is revealed in "his wife" his generic tone "honey", his hospital curtains "the snakes and the sword are bit of broken symbolism left from the time before" and his rebellion. In exposing the reader to these details (that are all familiar to life today) she shows how every member of society in Gilead is affected by the revolution and is haunted by the past. "Some tic of speech from another time" shows how tiny each detail is, but how utterly consuming: it leaves an itch. Or perhaps it shows how the doctor, just like Offred, feeds upon the past like a parasitic creature who latches on to every little thing that touches on the time they so miss.

Atwood also presents ideas about how sexist the regime is. The different levels of power constitute of men and women on every level, but men are superior on every level. "We rode in a red car, him in the front, me in the back". This, on one hand, could show how superiority and power in the form of control is given to men ad he is the one driving the car; deciding the path. But on the other hand, this could be Atwood challenging ideas about pure male dominance. It could signify that, as a Handmaid, Offred is more highly regarded than the driver: a guardian. She has a seat in the back and is being driven, much like one being chauffeured - and the car is red - the colour of Handmaid's. However, it does show the workings of the Gilead regime: she is a "chalice" of children, perhaps superior to the guardians, but that is her only job. She is still a woman "incpeable of any occupation other than reproduction".

She also uses irony where the doctor's abuse is the very thing Gilead claim to be protecting women from. Atwood continues to suggest here the idea that protection can also be viewed as a form of entrapment and suppression.

Atwood uses this passage in the novel to highlight Offred's "use " in society  This emphasises Offred's role as a mere "vessel" of life. Events like where the doctor offers for her "to use him" is accentuates the clinical and impassive air Gileadiean society has.