Theseus Theory

‘The Handmaid’s Tale shows us the control that men have always had over women. Men are seen as superior and use their power to manipulate women through sexuality to get their ultimate way.’

Critical Review 

“You often hear in North America, “It can’t happen here,” but it happened quite early on. The Puritans banished people who didn’t agree with them, so we would be rather smug to assume that the seeds are not there.”

Through using allusions of our World past and present, Margaret Atwood has created the 1985 novel ‘The Handmaids Tale’, where the reader dives into the grit of a Totalitarian regime displaying a dystopian future. Themes such as male supremacy and feminism are entwined within the pages of this eye opening novel in which Atwood believes could be our future. Females are reduced to their primal reproductive states and males have superiority when it comes to their sexual desires; women’s freedom of speech, movement and sexuality have be ripped away creating this now theocratic society. Allusions such as Nazi Germany and biblical references have helped Atwood achieve her goal in making readers understand how easily the World can be corrupted. Offred, the main protagonist, shares with us the journey and changes of her life due to this corrupt government system; the reader is able to understand Offreds emotions due to allusions of our past World events. Atwood has used this novel as a way to open peoples eyes as to what has happened in our past and what could likely happen in our future. 

“The problem wasn’t only with the women. . . The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore . . . I’m not talking about sex, he says. That was part of it, the sex was too easy . . . You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even. They were turning off on marriage. Do they feel now? I say. Yes, he says, looking at me. They do.”  

Biblical allusions have been used throughout this entire novel, and as the basis of the theocratic government. Freedom of speech has been taken away from the mouths of all women and ‘unimportant’ men, and only biblical phrases are to be used as a form of greeting “Blessed be the fruit” “May the Lord open”. Both of these commonly used references refer to fertility. Reproduction rates were the main cause of the creation of this State, the Worlds population was rapidly declining due to infertility and people of high power saw that creating a totalitarian theocratic State would be the solution. Fertile women, such as Offred, were assigned to be handmaids for infertile Wives in high power, each month the ‘ceremony’ would take place in which the Wive’s husband, the Commander, would have intercourse with the handmaid in hope of reproduction. This is an allusion of the Old Testament in the Bible where Rachel and her husband cannot reproduce. “And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son.” ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ has been formed around this idea of text from the Bible, the Bible is the soul of Christianity and still to this day a fundamental part of many peoples lives. I believe Atwood has used the Bible because it is one of the most World wide known books that holds a high influence over people, but also because many people know of the ‘story’s’ within.

Jezebels is another allusion that has been derived from the Bible and helped to create the guideline of the illegal nightclub-cum-brothel ‘Jezebels. Jezebel was a women from the Bible that was seen as a ‘whore’ of religions, in the Old Testament people that worshiped any other than the Israelite God were seen as ‘adulterers’ and ‘whores’. Jezebel in the novel is used to represent all women as unrestrained and promiscuous and that they should be controlled by men to restrain them from their deviant ways. Women working in Jezebel’s had all once been strong independent women but now due to gender are ‘lower ranked’ and subjected to please men to stay alive. This type of life parallels that of prostitute’s in our modern World where they offer up their bodies for payment but in Gilead the payment is their lives, that they get to live another day. High ranking males in Gilead are above the law and also are the law, they’ve created a World that is solely to please themselves. Women have been put into positions by males that caricature the modern women for the sole purpose of pleasing males; Handmaids for reproduction, Martha’s and Wive’s for the inner domestic circle and the Jezebels for sexual desire. Comparing Gilead to home life before the 80’s where it was a woman’s job to look after the house, including the people in it, and the comparisons of male dominance/superiority in this novel I believe that Atwood has used the idealistic housewife as the baseline for all women in Gilead. Their soul purpose is to please and keep a humble household for the ‘hard working’ male. Atwood realised the problem that is brewing in our modern World, where society’s expectations impose women to be all of these things but not more of one than the other. Unhealthy oppression of women in Gilead could very likely be our future, because we are forced to meet ideals that are unfair and unhealthy. The hold that modern males have over women’s sexuality only creates an unbalanced society of sexism, Offred believes that this power is “about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it.”

“I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will…Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object .. which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.”

Offred used to think of her body as an instrument, the music that flowed out was her own but now she is defined by this central object that is her womb and she as a person is no longer of importance. Atwood has used the Feminist theory to show the inequality of females in this society and that women are the lesser species, which is a clear connection to our World which is arguably dominated by higher paid males. Offred knows the power that she holds as a woman, but she does “Avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that defines me so completely.”  Nazi Germany is an important allusion that Margaret Atwood has used because the reader will knowingly be able to link how this totalitarian government reflects that of Nazi Germany. Just as the Jews were subjected to great hostility and characterized by their religion, women in Gilead were also. In both States the freedoms of speech and movement were stripped away from citizens and only those who held power benefited, such as the commanders in The Handmaids Tale. Margaret Atwood was born in Canada during the time of Nazi Germany, this would have impacted her early childhood greatly learning and hearing about the cruel injustice that was taking place across the ocean. These memories would have stuck with her throughout her life and therefore it makes sense that is has appeared through The Handmaids Tale. She has used the Westernised idea of taking a male’s last name upon marriage and linked it to the handmaids where they become total property of a man. Offred is of Fred’s property, she is not her own person but rather an accessory. “I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable.” This idea of being the property of a man shows the control that males have over women. Being stripped away of their own names is like stripping away pieces of their soul, the essence of who they are. They are no longer a person but an object, like a machine they are all the same and are to produce the same healthy babies. Women such as Offred no longer have the freedom of their own bodies due to male supremacy. 

“Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you knew it”. It’s an easy slide from a democratic to a totalitarian government if we aren’t aware, this can been seen through dystopian literature like Lord of the Flies and Nineteen Eighty-Four; in our history we have radical Nazi Germany which Gilead mirrors. It’s important to protect the individual power that you have during this crucial stage of our World where there are groups like ISIS and Donald Trump, if we let go of ourselves we could fall back to our past extremist society or suffer Gilead’s fate. This thought provoking novel shares similarities with our society today and the importance of being aware of the abuse of power from male power figures around us, who use fear and the ideas of supremacy to control society. I believe Atwood has created this novel to showcase the power that women hold, but is then abused by power hungry men; through the use of language and ideas shared to us about Gilead we see ideas of institutionalised and internalised sexual coercion that males have over women. Atwood has shown the oppression of women in Gilead and that the only way to escape this society’s clutches is through death.