The Handmaids Tale - Themes

Question 1

Control + Oppression

Answer 1

• gilead as a totalitarian estate -> the regime uses surveillance, religious ideology and punishment to maintain control
• example: the red centre indoctrination, enforced by aunt lydia, manipulates handmaids into believing oppression is protection
• marget atwood herself said she drew from real world historical oppression of women, such as purtian new england

Question 2

Feminist + Gender Roles

Answer 2

• women as reprodutive vessles -> handmaids reduced to their futillity, echoing real-life patriarchal structures
• example: serena joy was once a proponent of traditional female roles but now finds her trapped in a system she helped create
  -*second wave feminist critics argue gilead as an exaggerated response to real-world backlash to female rights**

Question 3

Hope + Resistance

Answer 3

• small acts of defiance -> from moiras escape to offred subtle rebellion with nick, resistence exists in many forms
• offred’s fate is unkown, but her survival of gilead through storytelling is an act of resistence in itself
• example: the underground mayday resistence suggests wider rebellion against gilead

Question 4

Sexuality As Power

Answer 4

• sex as a tool of control -> gilead institutionalises rape, making it a religious duty (the ceremony)
• example: offred dissociated during the ceremony, highlighting the psycological trauma of enforced reproduction
  - atwood critiques patriarchal views on female sexuality, showing how control over sex equates to control over women

Question 5

Power of Language + Storytelling

Answer 5

• control of knowledge -> gilead manipulates language (eg handmaids not allowed to read/write) to limit resistence/rebellion
• postmodern critics argue offreds narrative is unstable, making the reader question if the story is fiction/non-fiction