An Introduction to Margaret

Atwood’s The Handmaid’s

Tale

“The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.” –

Margaret Atwood

Meet the Author:

Margaret Atwood

• “‘What inspired The Handmaid’s Tale?’ I’ve often been asked. ‘General observation,’ I have said. ‘Poking my nose into books. Reading the newspapers. World history. One of my rules was that I couldn’t put anything into the novel that human beings hadn’t actually done.’”

Meet the Author:

Margaret Atwood• Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, and grew up

in northern Ontario and Quebec, and in Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master’s degree from Radcliffe College.

• Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction, but is best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1969), The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. 

• Her work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian.

• Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Meet the Author:

Margaret Atwood

Early on in her career Atwood was labeled and dismissed as a radical feminist author, but as Atwood continued to

produce novels and short stories, “a much more complicated pattern emerged. Her men continued to be

weak and petulant, but the true villains of her fiction turned out to be female”

The Characteristics of

Dystopian Fiction• Propaganda is used to control citizens• Information, independent thought and freedom are

restricted• A figurehead or concept is worshipped by citizens • Citizens are under constant surveillance• Citizens are controlled by corporate, bureaucratic

(governmental), technological, or religious powers• Citizens fear the outside world• Citizens live in a dehumanized state• The natural world is forgotten• Citizens conform to uniform expectations• The society is an illusion of a perfect utopian world

(perfect, ideal world)

The Characteristics of a

Dystopian Protagonist (Offred)

• Often feels trapped and is struggling to escape his/her circumstances

• Secretly questions the existing social/political systems

• Believes or feels that something is terribly wrong with the society in which he or she lives, but is powerless to change it

• Helps the audience to recognize the negative aspects of the dystopian society

Atwood’s Dystopia:

The Republic of Gilead• Atwood’s fictional, dystopian setting, known in the novel

as The Republic of Gilead (a biblical allusion of Puritanism), depicts a soulless theocracy of oppression, paranoia, violence, corruption, and human misery in which religious extremists have taken over, and have, in turn, reversed the progress of the sexual revolution in order to reduce women to nothing more than vessels for reproduction, domestic servants, or purposeless wives who must allow other women to have sex with their husbands for the ‘greater good’ of this patriarchal society.

• In Hebrew, "Gil" means joy and "ad" means forever, or eternity (Do you see the irony here?). Further, the word "Gil" in Hebrew can also be derived from the word for a round stone; therefore, Gilead can also mean a round (memorial) for eternity.

Atwood’s Dystopia:

Oppression• Social Stratification:– Wives, Econowives, Marthas, Handmaids,

Aunts, Unwomen• The Handmaids:– Their only purpose is to reproduce. They are

“[reduced]…to the slavery status of being mere ‘breeders’”.

– Offred knows “[she] is a natural resource” (Atwood 65).

• The Inability to Retaliate:– The women fear the government’s

punishments (death or the Colonies) and are jealous of each other. They fail to unite and overcome the Republic.

Atwood’s Dystopia:

Violence• Salvagings (Public Hangings):

– Priests, doctors, gender traitors, etc.• They are “like scarecrows…since they are meant to scare”.

• Lesser Punishments:– Women reading, attempting to harm Commander or

Wife• Injury to hands and feet• “They didn’t care what they did to your feet or

your hands, even if it was permanent…For our purposes…[they] are not essential”.

• Participatory Executions:– Punishment for rape – being “torn to bits by a mob

of women”

Atwood’s Dystopia:

Defects and Deformities• The Colonies:– Radioactive/toxic waste from the previous

society (USA)• The Unwomen:– Women who are unable to conceive

• Unbabies:– Birth defects – “The chances are one in four” – Euthanasia• The government takes the babies away

• The Solution?– Handmaids are considered the solution as

they will repopulate the Republic.

Atwood’s Dystopia:

Human Misery• Suicide:– Handmaids are under so much pressure

that they often take their own lives

• Lack of Fulfillment:– Women cannot hold normal jobs, own

property, vote, etc. • Loneliness/Lack of Human Relationships:– Separated families (Offred, Luke, and

daughter)– Normal husband and wife relationships are

difficult to maintain (Commander and Serena Joy)

This Novel is a Satirical Tale• Definition of Satire: A piece of literature that ridicules

people’s foolishness or hypocrisy, often through parody which is a grotesque or absurd imitation

• Humor is in short supply in this novel, but it is a satire nonetheless. Atwood's love for language play is a major feature of the protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale. Her jokes and reflections are often dark and bitter, but they are also very pervasive. Look for examples of satire throughout the text!

• Example: On page 37 – “But on one bag there’s blood, which has seeped through the white cloth, where the mouth must have been. It makes another mouth, a small red one, like the mouths painted with thick brushes by kindergarten children. A child’s idea of a smile.

Atwood’s Dystopia:

The Purpose and Message

• Contemplate: What is the purpose of dystopian literature? From what you have read so far, what important message do you think Margaret Atwood is attempting to convey to readers?

• Atwood calls The Handmaid’s Tale a “speculative fiction”: Atwood explores what could occur if society closes its eyes to what is going on in the world. Throughout the novel, she warns that if people are not paying attention, they may experience an extreme loss of freedoms; in the worst case scenario, everyone will become repressed, voiceless slaves.

• The novel was published in 1985, but is arguably still a very relevant warning to modern readers.

Atwood’s Dystopia:

The Purpose and Message

• Atwood illustrates how FEAR guarantees collusion – the individual is afraid to speak up or rebel, therefore, the individual shares responsibility for every aspect of the society, including its atrocities (the Aunts, the Guardians)

• Through FEAR, a totalitarian regime is able to police itself. Its members (even the extremely oppressed) police each other as agents of the state.

• Friendship becomes obsolete as no one can be trusted—The ongoing questions is ‘Who is a spy?’ The “Eyes” are always watching. This enhances suspense in the novel!

• Totalitarianism: A from of government in which no rival parties are permitted. Total submission to the state is required. This type of government shapes this dystopia.

The Significance of the Title:

The Handmaid’s Tale• The Handmaid’s Tale is reminiscent of Chaucer’s

Canterbury Tales. It conjures the immediate image of a medieval world full of knights and their ladies. What is the irony of this?

• It is written in first person, as an interior monologue. Offred’s inner thoughts are the story, as she is forbidden to express her thoughts out loud. Her strength lies in insight, not in action.

• Note the double entendre on the word, “tale/tail”. The dual meaning establishes the conflict in the novel - the protagonist versus a world that sees her as nothing more than a sexual object void of sexual autonomy. She is used solely for her body.

Key Messages to Pay Attention to:

Important Themes in the Novel

• The loss of human identity and personal autonomy

• The practicality of marriage and reproduction• Passivity and the absence of power• Memory/thought as a means of hope and

survival• The oppression and confinement of women• The power of reading, writing, and storytelling

Narrative Perspective in the Novel:

The Impact of Offred’s Voice and Tone

• Offred’s narration consists of a fairly bland, hypnotic tonelessness and a palpably claustrophobic type of tunnel vision in the text. What do you think the ultimate purpose is of having Offred share her struggles and examine the inhumanity within Gilead from a somewhat dispassionate point of view?

Discuss this question thoughtfully in small groups!