notes on Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

1. The Handmaid’s Tale

2. Margaret Atwood (1939 - )
• Canadian novelist and poet
• Fiction with social/cultural
context: about society as
much as individuals
• Handmaid’s Tale (1986) and
Oryx and Crake (2003): two
dystopian novels—broad
global scope
• Speculative Fiction: what
*could* happen to the world

3. Republic of Gilead
• Pollution (toxic chemicals and nuclear radiation)
and fundamentalism leads to declining
birthrates
• Fundamentalist takeover of northeast USA: end
of democracy—replaced with totalitarian
government
• Drastic changes in position of women
• Women and society reorganized to prioritize
birthrate
• Clothing indicates social position and function:
– blue, red, green, striped (see p. 21)

4. Women in Commanding Positions(?)
• “Aunts” (Aunt Lydia). indoctrination
– “freedom to” vs. “freedom from” (p. 24)
• Wives: Commander’s Wife: “Serena Joy”
– Pregancy issues, tensions (Offred’s “third time”)
(pp. 15-16)
– Scene in “Milk and Honey” store: Pregnant
Handmaid, belly like fruit (p. 26)

5. Women’s roles… Present
• Aunts
• Wives
• Handmaids
• Marthas
• Econowives
VS Women’s roles in the past….
Serena Joy / Pam…. Offred ….Moira

6. Us vs. Them; Past vs. Present
• Violently opposed dualities
– Japanese tourists in miniskirts (pp. 27-29)
– The color red… (p. 33)
– Aunt Lydia’s symbolic but empty gesture, vs.
familiar bread-baking smells (p. 47): motherhood
of the future vs. motherhood of her own past

7. palimpsest: (see p. 1):
writing material or medium that has been
erased, bearing traces of erased or scratched
out writing or image;
OR (more broadly) something that is complex
and multi-layered—where lower/half
concealed layers are exposed.

8. Utopia
• vision of an ideal form of human society
• either in fiction or philosophy
• social organization created by people working together for
maximum benefit of society
• often a commonwealth: ideal distribution of authority and
responsibility
• Origins in Renaissance: Thomas More’s Utopia (1516)
– More’s title is a pun on two Greek words:
• eutopos: good place
• outopos: no place

9. Dystopia
• In some ways the opposite of utopia—a disturbing vision of
human society
• Usually projected into the future—speculation, warning of
what could happen
• More modern idea—develops 1890s, early 20th century
• Examples:
– H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)
– Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (1940)
– George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

10. Context: Feminist History by the 1980s
• First Wave Feminism: “women’s suffrage” (right
to vote). 1920: women over 30 in US attain voting
rights
• Second Wave Feminism: 1960s and 70s
– Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer
– Women’s economic equality: “equal pay for equal
work”
– Sexual liberation: (controversial)
• birth control / abortion as rights
• Take back images of women from popular media (burning of
magazines seen as exploiting women (See p. 38)

11. Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in USA
• The ERA: proposed amendment to the US Constitution
• First proposed in 1923, passed by US Congress in 1972, repealed in
1982 when it fell short of ratification by three states)

12. Full Text of the ERA
• Section 1. Equality of rights under the law
shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of sex.
• Section 2. The Congress shall have the power
to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the
provisions of this article.
• Section 3. This amendment shall take effect
two years after the date of ratification.

13. 1980s Perspective: Feminism in Retreat?
• Novel as response to net loss of feminist advocacy in Western
world
• Atwood’s perspective: claims to have seen images in
Handmaid’s Tale 3 years before writing
• Much of the system of control over women in Gilead exists or
has existed around the world:
– Romania under Nikolai Ceaucescu in 1970s: ban on birth control
and abortion, PLUS mandatory pregnancy testing once per month!
– Laws in Canada forbidding abortions to women without consent
of husbands / family members
• Dystopian vision works by imposing laws, conditions of other
nations on women of the US: remove readers from comfort
zones

14. Third Wave Feminism: 1990s to
present?
• Develop, challenge, complicate ideas about
gender and sexuality
• Emphasis on cultural diversity of women’s
experiences around the world
• No single set standard for women’s
“freedom”

15. Third Wave vs. Second Wave
• Splintering of older “waves” of feminism?
– Less united by united political/social agenda
– generational conflict over “girl power” culture
• Third Wave Feminisms: embracing multiplicity
– different cultural possibilities for women’s authority
– Potential loss of radicalism?
– Female body/motherhood as culturally constructed
– Individuality: a Western construction?

16. Feminism and The Handmaid’s
Tale
• Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, published 1986
– in between waves (anxiety about decline of
feminism in 1980s)
– Second Wave issues: Equal Rights Amendment
• Potential loss of *assumed* liberties, *assumed*
equality
– Dystopic vision: makes the too-comfortable
present become the past—as a palimpsest