Explain what Atwood’s idea of feminism is and how this idea is portrayed in the novel
Summarily, the Handmaid’s Tale is a story set in the dystopia, a totalitarian society of Gilead in the United States. Society treats women as chattel and second-class citizens who are subservient to the regime in place. The problems bedeviling and threatening its stability are the environmental disasters and the plummeting birth rates. A dominant theme throughout the novel is the exercise of power. This discussion narrows in on power’s relation to the concept of feminism. Feminism is understood as a social movement and ideology that advocates for the rights of women on the equality of sexes in the economic, political, and social sphere. The narrator, a Handmaid and who is later revealed to have the task of having intercourse regularly with the man of the house to produce off-springs for the household.
Atwood’s idea of feminism is that women are not second-class citizens within society. Nevertheless, the exercise of personhood, autonomy, and dignity of women is threatened by internal forces within the women category who may inadvertently internalize patriarchy and perpetuate its power on fellow women. This idea is portrayed in the novel through the characters of women from different social classes in their interactions with each other. Atwood’s idea of feminism is that women’s experiences are critical to the theme, structure, and plot of the book. The Gilead regime uses Biblical symbols to maintain control over women, a predominant feature throughout history, such as the nineteenth-century slavery.
The women in the story are intended to be denied their individuality through the castes to which they are assigned, the clothes they are required to wear, and the names they are given. The modesty costumes worn by the women of Gilead are derived from Western religious iconography – the Wives wear the blue of purity (Atwood, 27), from the Virgin Mary, the Handmaids wear red, from the blood of parturition, but also Mary Magdalene (Atwood, 24). The statement “I never looked good in red, it’s not my color” (Atwood, 23) shows a denial of choice to pick something as simple and basic as color. The sentiments by Rita further reveal denial of choice “Go to the Colonies, Rita said. They have the choice” (Atwood, 25). The wives of men lower in the social scale are called Econowives, and they wear stripes (Atwood, 38). The expression of identity can be through clothing. As a result, maintaining control over what women are allowed and forbidden to wear is a direct infringement of their autonomy to expression, thus depriving them of their individuality. Atwood explores the politics of dress in the novel through the veil, worn by all women in Gilead, and which functions as the crucial tool of subjugation. Further, women are denied leisure denied access to leisure in these societies through the devaluation or absence of personal leisure spaces.
The theme of freedom of choice is prevalent in the discussion of the experiences of women “There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from” (Atwood, 39). The women achieve some degree of individuality by pursuing their interests to have a sense of purpose, for instance, Serena Joy knitted (Atwood, 26). She yearns for the measure of control she had before her present situation “What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my clothes, my soap, my own money, the money I had earned myself. I think about having such control” (Atwood, 40). The protagonist Offred is hell bound to believe that the regime’s god is different from her version of god as she keeps a secret version of her Lord’s Prayer. Her defiance to conform to this accepted symbolic use of religion to oppress women is significant in the present world to groups of women organizations that assist women vulnerable to exploitation by those wielding power as men or women.
Women’s regressive social roles are determined by a caste system defining standards for behavior, dress, and social duties, thereby eliminating undesirable cultural trends and beliefs while controlling a fearful and potentially rebellious populace. In some cases, the pursuit of their interests occurs at the expense of other women in the story. For example, Serena Joy displays indifference, contempt, and hostility to Offred when she is assigned to her house, “She probably longed to slap my face. They can hit us; there’s Scriptural precedent” (Atwood, 31). The plight of women as subject to patriarchal control is as depicted above with regards to the dos and the don’ts of clothing and eliminating their individuality.
This concept of feminism relies on the idea that women are complex and are motivated by different aspects. Atwood highlights the critical reproductive and unique biological role of women to the extent that women are critical in maintaining the population of society. On the one hand, Atwood exalts the reproductive role of women by the expression in the store of the pregnant woman “She’s a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her. She’s a flag on a hilltop, showing us what can still be done: we too can be saved” (Atwood, 41). Janine, “She’s come to display herself. She’s glowing, rosy; she’s enjoying every minute of this” (Atwood, 41).
Further, the complexity of women is elucidated by the fact that while the caste system represses men and women, women in positions of power, rather than the men, make this system unpleasant and dangerous for fellow women. The threat leading to the disunity of women emanates mot from the outside forces but internal struggles of women. From the Handmaids spying on each other to the Commander’s Wife’s contemptuous attitudes to the extent that “no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature: control of the indigenous by members of their own group” (Atwood, 308).
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The handmaid’s tale. Vol. 301. Everyman’s Library Classics &, 2006.