ADALYA JOURNAL ISSN NO: 1301-2746

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale : A Feminist Dystopia 1. Mrs. M. Muthulakshmi, Research Scholar, Assistant Professor, Government Arts College for Women (A), (Affiliated to Bharathidasan University) Kumbakonam - 612001. E-mail: [email protected] Mobile No.: 9842711240 2. Dr. S. Ganesan, Research Advisor, Associate Professor, H.H The Rajah’s College (A), (Affiliated to Bharathidasan University) Pudukkottai - 622 001. E-mail: [email protected] Mobile No.: 9786382393

Abstract The present paper seeks to study ’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel. Atwood is the most prominent postmodern novelist of Canada and both her fiction and poetry deal with feminist issues. At the end of the second world war, the Canadian women also became conscious to get their independent identity. They started feminist movements to establish equal rights on par with men. The first wave feminism focused on education and training. The second wave emphasized on work place rights and reproductive rights and the third wave feminism is tied to anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism. Most of Atwood’s novels focus on the feminist issues like problems and uncongenial environment at the work place, gender inequality and difficulties posed by the patriarchal system and loss of identity.

Key Words: Postmodern feminist writer - feminism - a feminist - dystopian classic.

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Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: A Feminist Dystopia Historically, the all-round dominance of patriarchy was generally evident until the close of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, these are numerous examples of challenge to the ruling gender divisions that disempowered women. Canada is a land of multicultural society that has citizens who come from every corner of the globe and retain their own distinctive heritage. There is a unique distinction as ‘French-Canada’ and ‘English-Canada’, thereby making it definitely peculiar and varied in its stature. Canadian fiction has earned a vital position during the latter-half of the twentieth century. Women novelists gradually flourished after the feminist movement in the Canadian scenario with prominent women writers like Margaret Lawrence, Mavis Gallant, , and were making a mark. However the best known writer who has also gained an international reputation is undoubtedly Margaret Atwood. Atwood’s books are widely read and are translated into many languages. She has written different genres of literature like verse drama, , criticism, children’s books and well- plotted fiction that survey the suppression and persecution of women. Atwood’s work is located at the inter section of three distinct, through related, literary traditions : Feminist, Canadian nationalist and post modern. She has penned many novels like The Edible Women (1969), Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), Bodily Harm (1986 or 82), Cat’s Eye etc. However, the novel taken in-to focus is her The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) which is also considered as a feminist-dystopian classic. Dystopian worlds are set in the future or in the present of alternative universes, and deal with totalitarian regimes, dehumanized societies or environmental disaster. The most famous works in the sub-genre are for instance, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1931), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953). When it comes to feminist literature, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) is probably the most well known work in this category. The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead (formerly known as the United States of America) a totalitarian regime based on a religious ultra-conservatism where sterility has increased due to pollution. In order to end with the decline of births, the government has created a new social class: the handmaids, women of childbearing age, who are given to high- ranking officials to children for them. The story is narrated from the point of view of one of these handmaids, a woman called Offred. Early in the novel, Offred was kidnapped by the

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theocratic government; separated from her husband and child and forced to be a handmaid or a surrogate mother, for a powerful but childless couple. Offred has been named after the commander to whom she belongs (hence the patronymic name Offred). If she is unable to give the commander a child in a period of three years, she would be declared an unknown and would be exiled to the colonies, to work in farms or polluted wastelands. Offred and her commander meet several times in the greatest secrecy and do many forbidden things together; he lets her look at a magazine; she reads Dickens in his room; finally he even takes her out one night. The outing is to a kind of playboy club, the sort of thing supposedly rooted out of the theocratic state. The play-boy club incident where she does not fall in with the commander’s wishes is an instance of her continuing to exercise an option, an assertion of individuality. Her choice is Nick who is not averse to her; for aversion is a free-man’s prerogative and Nick lives in Gilead where all rights have been abolished to accommodate one paramount duty which is to be fruitful and multiply. Offred’s interlude with a man with procreative potential takes on other dimensions; under the circumstances, it acquires a tinge of romance. The curious, pathetic thing about it is that even in Gilead, under the bestial conditions of breeding in captivity a human relationship sprouts, though Nick makes a joke of the dehumanized, clinical need that bring Offred to him, the necessity to prove herself fertile so that she may not be classified as dispensable and shipped off to the colonies. Offred, who witnesses the bloody salvaging, the ritual slaughter and dismemberment of women, begins to feel shock, outrage, nausea and considers them as barbarous. She is alert and seems to be put in jeopardy. She feels her stay as if it was a jail sentence and she would like to scratch marks on the wall. She is filled with lassitude in Gilead. She would like to repent, abdicate, renounce and sacrifice her life in Gilead. She feels her body is no longer suited for pleasure. She does not wish to be a doll hung up on the wall. She occupies herself with nostalgic memories of her husband and daughter, and strongly desires to escape from her present claustrophobic environment. She is not even free so die in Gilead. Ultimately, Offred decides to end her life by hanging herself: “I could noose the bed sheet round my neck, hook myself up in the closet, throw my weight forward, choke myself off” (HT 274), but she considers suicide an idle thing, a timid action. The cushion on which the word “Faith” (HT 274) is embroidered is an image that reveals Offred’s profound faith in her life as a woman. Although she lives in Man’s

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tyrannical world in Gilead, she feels a sense of pride for having been born a woman. She says: “Oh God, king of the universe, thank you for not creating me a man” (HT 182). As seen in other Dystopian words, the government and the ruling classes are often depicted as oppressive tyrants, prone to rule with an “iron fist” to the point of fanaticism. This is the case of the Republic of Gilead, established by religious extremists whose aim is to end with the immorality which they believe it is ingrained in the society. The regime is, in fact, named after a region in ancient Palestine where Jacob and Laban made a deal about Laban’s daughters in the Bible (Wilson 275). After a terrorist attack that kills the President and most politicians of the Congress, the Constitution is suspended by the Sons of Jacob, as they call themselves, and a revolution takes place. They reorganize the society into an oppressive, militarized and heavily stratified hierarchy that allows no uprising of any kind. This new regime is especially though on women, as the government passes an act to freeze women’s bank accounts so they become economically dependent. To end with sterility, women that proved to be fertile are gathered in centre and re-educated as “handmaids”, whose function is becoming pregnant and giving children to the ruling class, they are offered to. But not only are women the victims of this new regime. Non-white ethnic groups such as African-Americans are isolated and relocated in other parts of the country, possibly in farms. Jews are given the option to abandon their faith to convert to Christianity or be exiled to Israel. If they disobey, they would be subjected to death penalty. In Dystopian worlds, some kind of violence is usual as a result of the clash between oppressive regimes and insurrectionist groups. High rates of crime, war and death penalty can also be present in some form. In Gilead, there is war against other countries, hence the need to have a militarized body and a military rank of soldiers. There is also a private police, the Eyes, who are in charge of ensuring everybody follows the law, and those who do not, are reported to the authorities. For those who break the rules and go against the government, the most usual form of punishment is the death penalty, either by being sent to the colonies and triggering a slow death due to the contamination; or by being hanged and publicly displaying their corpses as a reminder to others. Dystopias are usually placed in urban settings, where its inhabitants are not permitted to trespass their boundaries in some cases. In others, it is physically impossible living outside the urban centre due to these being surrounded by polluted wastelands where life is inconceivable.

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The theme of barren and sterile lands is also touched in the novel, and some of the topics found throughout the story are essentially ecological. Prior to the establishment of the Republic of Gilead, contamination was a problem which is still carried to the current point of narration in the story. It is implied that war has worsened the condition of the planet and, at the same time, the high rates of sterility may be a consequence of pollution. To comprehend the tale of Offred -a handmaid, it is important to evaluate the background, that is Gilead. The Republic of Gilead is governed by a Fundamentalist Christian theocracy. The so-called theocratic state regime, Gilead Legitimizes and enforces the class of Handmaids out of the dire necessity to overcome a fertility crisis among the ruling elite. Moreover, the state cancels the original names of the Handmaids in order to erase their former identity and labels them according to the names of their commanders. Similarly, other handmaids’ names are Ofglen, Ofwayne, and Ofwarren. They are doomed to wear the scarlet robes signifying their adultery. Through her protagonists, Atwood has revealed not only to stereotyped perception of women and the traditional society’s expectations from them but she has also showed the changing man-woman relationships. She has tried to show how women are trying to redefine themselves. She also tries to establish the fact that the two sexes are complementary and neither is complete without the other.

References Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Doubleday, 1985. Print. Davison, Arnold E and Cathy N. Davidson. The Art of Margaret Atwood. Toronto: Anansi, 1982. Print. Dhawan, R.K, ed. Today. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. Print. Elaine, Kendall. “The review of The Handmaid’s Tale .” Los Angeles Times Book Reviews. 9 Feb. 1986: 1&2. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism 44. Ed. Sharon K. Hall. Detroit: Gale, 1987. 149-50. Print. Hall, Sharon K. ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1987. Print. Mandal, Somdatta, ed. Margaret Atwood Critical Perspectives. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2014. Print.

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