The Handmaid's Tale - Literary Analysis Essay

Introduction

The Handmaid's Tale is a novel written by Margaret Atwood and published in the year 1985. It is set within a totalitarian society in the Republic of Gilead and based on a journey of the handmaid named Offred. As the main character in the story, Offred sets the main idea of the text as the oppression of women in society. Offred's' experiences throughout the novel reveal how handmaids are treated as the property of the state and sexual objects in a totalitarian society. The literary analysis of the Handmaids Tale examines the authors' main idea, writing style, and the use of literary devices in presenting the oppressive society through struggles and effort to obtain freedom.

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The Main Idea

The central theme in the Handmaids Tale is the manipulation of power in the totalitarian society. The Republic of Gilead uses a dictatorship type of power that is imposed from the top to the citizens. The government uses propaganda to impart fear to the citizens and keeping order in control. The people do have any chance of appealing for any command made by the leaders. There is no hope for legal protection from the government of using any form of intervention to achieve freedom for the oppressed in society. At the Red Center, the government manipulates women to accept the ideologies of becoming handmaids to the government in repopulating the nation. For instance, fertile women are convinced that it was their fault that rape cases were imminent in the past because of their failure. Janine is one of the women in the novel who tells how she was gang-raped at the age of 14 years and later had an abortion. "But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger ... Who led them on? Aunt Helena beams, pleased with us. She did, ... (Artwood, 1985: 88). In this passage, the women at the Red Center are being reminded that it was their fault that rape occurred on them in the past. The method of manipulating women is misusing power by the government leaders to achieve what they want from women. The main aim was to make the women accept forceful sex from the commanders to bear them children.

The commander is another character who portrays the manipulation of power to manipulate Offred. Being the highest in the Gilead hierarchy, the commander starts a forbidden affair with the handmaid and directs the relationship to sex. The author uses figurative language to demonstrate the manipulation of the commander for sexual desires to Offred. Offred stated, "Something has been shown to me, but what is it? Like the flag of an unknown country, seen for an instant above a curve of the hill. It could mean attack; it could mean parley; it could mean the edge of something, a territory" (Atwood, 1985: 49). In this statement, Artwood demonstrates how the commander used power to intimidate Offred before engaging in a sexual affair. Offred got confused with the commander's presence as handmaids, and the leaders should not have contact. Offred is threatened by the presence of the commander as described by the words, territory, flag, country, attack, and parley. The fear of Offred towards the commander is evident by the expression in the statement.

Writing Style

The Handmaids Tale novel uses the feminist approach in writing the text. Feminist approaches of writing incorporate the politics of feminism, ideologies, and principles in a work of literature to show the inequalities that exist in men dominated world (Yadav & Yadav, 2018: 57). In The Handmaids Tale, a feminist approach is used by Atwood through the application of an existential apologia in scenes of endangered women to portray their survival in a male-dominated society. Women are undermined, coerced, enslaved, tortured, and killed in the name of maintaining the law of the land. For instance, Offred is a female character who demonstrates endangered women in society who adopt desperate coping methods. For example, Offred enjoys little pleasures such as using smoothing lotion on her skin, smoking cigarettes with other characters, including Moira, eye makeup, fashion, jewelry, and reading magazine. When in a relationship with the commander, Offred requests a hand lotion (Atwood, 1985: 159). The commander offers magazines too for reading. Offred described, "Staring at the magazine, as he dangled it before me like fish bait, I wanted it. I wanted it with a force that made the ends of my fingers ache" (Atwood, 1985: 156). Offred does all these to alleviate the current misery she is undergoing through the hands of the commander. Enthusiasm is seen with the little favors that Offred got from the relationship with the commander.

Atwood also used an introspective and a non-linear method of writing. The author weaved together stories from the past and present of Offred. In narrating her story, Offred reflects on her past environment and events, including the marriage with Luke and time at Red Center. Offred stated that "Luke and I used to walk together, sometimes, along these streets. We used to talk about buying a house like one of these, a big old house, fixing it up" (Atwood, 1985: 26). Offred uses flashbacks to describe much about her life from the inner person. Expectations of a good married life with Luke were not achieved as the commander limited their freedom. Remembering life at the Red Center, Offred stated, "Everything they taught at the Red Center, everything I've resisted, comes flooding in. I don't want pain" (Atwood, 1985: 347). The character does not want to put oneself at risk of being victimized and offers her body freely to others to do what they wanted to do. Much of the narration is from memory, demonstrating the introspective writing style in the novel.

The Use of Literary Devices

According to Bodin (2018:196), the use of literary devices in texts heightens the awareness of the reader and gives visual-spatial attributes to the story. In The Handmaids Tale, the author used literary devices such as symbols, and allusion, among others. Symbols are used to show abstract concepts or ideas in a text. Symbols such as red habits and eyes have been used to probe the psychological parodies in the Republic of Gilead. The narrator stated that "I'm fully dressed in my red habit again, having shed the spangles, scraped off the lipstick with toilet paper. I hope nothing shows; I hope I don't smell of it, or him either" (Atwood, 1985: 314). The handmaid's red habit is a symbol of the red color in women's clothes to symbolize fertility. The color red has a symbolic meaning of the menstruation blood as well during childbirth. The eyes symbolize the secret police in Gilead and the eyes of God. Atwood (1985:24) stated, "Or sometimes a black-painted van, with the winged Eye in white on the side." The author describes a winged eye of the police as a symbol of the watchfulness of the sight of God and the totalitarian government. In that case, the eye of God and that of the nation are the same.

There is the use of biblical and literary allusion in The Handmaids Tale. For instance, Biblical allusion is seen when the narrator describes Rita as wearing Martha's dress while standing at the kitchen table. "Rita is in here, standing at the kitchen table, which has a top of chipped white enamel. She's in her usual Martha's dress, which is dull green, like a surgeon's gown of the time before" (Atwood, 1985: 6). The word Martha is used as an allusion that describes cooks in the Gilead society. A reader associates the name with the biblical story in the New Testament in Luke 10:38-42, whereby Jesus visited the two sisters named Martha and Mary. The same way cooks in Gilead are concerned with the kitchen work, Martha in the Bible was busy preparing something for Jesus instead of listening to the teachings. The magazines and films described by the author are literary allusions that depict pop culture in Gilead. The narrator said, "There are no more magazines, no more films, no more substitutes; only me and my shadow, walking away from the two men, who stand at attention, stiffly, by a roadblock, watching our retreating shapes" (Atwood, 1985: 25). The above passage is an allusion of the song "Me and My Shadow 1927" that was popularly associated with loneliness. The aspect of having no more materials to read for the narrator is a depiction of eminent loneliness.

Conclusion

In conclusion, The Handmaids Tale is a novel that describes the plight of women in Gilead society. Women are oppressed in a totalitarian society, and their experiences represent the values held by the government and leaders. The literary analysis of The Handmaids Tale shows that the author keenly examined the main idea of the text using the experiences of the main character. Atwood precisely uses a feminist approach of writing to present the case of female gender in a male-dominated world. The use of literary devices in the novel reveals the author's ability to give experiences abstract ideas using symbols and bring into meaning a worlds' phenomenon based on Biblical teachings and literary understanding.

References

Atwood, M. (1985). The Handmaid's Tale. Ballantine Books. Print.

Bodin, H. (2018). Heterographics as a literary device: Auditory, visual, and cultural features." Journal of World Literature, 3, 196-216. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00302005

Yadav, M., & Yadav, M. (2018). Aspects of feminist writing: A presentation of common issues." Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics, 3(1), 57-68. e-ISSN: 2502-6062.