The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
The HT: Plot & General Criticism
HT as a dystopia fiction & satire
Gilead
The narrator’s ways of resistance
Household
The novel and the film
The Circle Game
(1966, poetry)
Survival
(1972,
non-fiction)
The Edible Woman
(1969, novel)
Margaret Atwood
Surfacing
(1973, novel)
Lady Oracle
(1977, novel)
Dancing Girls
(1977, short)
Life Before Man
(1979, novel)
Dancing Girls
and Other Stories
(1982, short stories)
Bodily Harm
(1982, novel)
The Handmaid's
Tale (1985, novel)
Bluebeard's Egg
(1987, short stories)
Selected Poems:
1965-1975 (1987,
poetry)
 Concerned with
Canada’s cultural
identity; Feminist
concerns
 Survival (1972)
 Duality “Tricks with
Mirror”; TwoHeaded Poems (1978)
 Victim mentality
Selected Poems II:
1976-1986
(1987, poetry...
US)
Margaret Atwood (2)
Cat's Eye
(1989, novel)
Wilderness Tips
(1991, short
stories)
The Robber
Bride
(1993, novel)
Good Bones and
Simple Murders
(1994, short
stories)
Alias Grace
(1996, novel) A
Quiet Game(1997,
The Blind
Assassins (2000)
42 books; 10 novels
 Postmodern, selfreflexive mode
 mixing poetry and
fiction, mixing a lot of
genres (Gothic,
detective story, fairy
tales, family romance,
comedy, allegory, etc.)
The Handmaid’s Tale: Plot
 The simple, constrained life of a handmaid
and her memories.


Her life: shopping, eating, bathing, waiting,
ceremonies– intercourse, birthing, Salvaging.
“Night” sections – memories, meeting Nick, etc.
 In-between the commander and his wife:
Commander – meetings in the study,
Jazebel,
Wife – Nick
The Handmaid’s Tale:
General Criticism
 Critique of patriarchal control –
 How does the handmaid resist? Is she
passive? e.g. Not actively involved in May
Day underground group, loves hand cream,
Vogue, Sleeps with both the Commander and
Nick, the ending.
General Criticism (2):
HT as a national allegory
using conservative feminism?
 -- "[The Handmaid's Tale]'s understanding of
female independence is determined by
Atwood's sexually coded understanding of
Canada and America. In this, Atwood's fullscale parody of American society, what
concerns her is not a feminist politics of
emancipation, but the nationalist politics of
self-protective autonomy, an autonomy which,
as I will argue, eventually translates into an
advocacy of traditional femininity." (Sandra
Tomc 74)
General Criticism (3): Offred too
passive and un-political?
 “[Atwood] seems to privilege the female
existential will, the realm of private
consciousness, as an adequate recompense
for. . . enslavement.” (Glenn Deer 85).
 “. . . when [Offred] is finally contacted by the
resistance, she is curiously uninterested. She
has sunk too far into the incestuous little
household she serves. . . “ (Barbara
Ehrenriech.)
HT (1985) as a dystopian Scifi & satire
 features of Dystopian works: (e.g.
Brave New World, 1984, Blade
Runner )
1. Fantasy and Fear of the future
2. Power , Totalitarianism, War and
Environmental Pollution (the extreme outcome of
technology (radiation, computerization – HT. credit card,
infertility)
3. Two-Dimensional characterization and Binary
Opposition: e.g. HT p. 10
Targets of HT’s Satire
 Three epigraphs: Genesis, Swift’s “Modest
Proposal” and a Sufi proverb.
 American Fundamentalism and Puritanism
 The New Right in the 80’s and its backlash
of feminism.
 Feminist controversies: 1. Anti-pornography,
2. Abortion: Pro-choice vs. pro-life.
 U.S. domination over Canada
American Fundamentalism
 conservative movement in American
Protestantism;
 emphasizing as fundamental to
Christianity the literal interpretation and
absolute inerrancy of the Scriptures, the
imminent and physical Second Coming of
Jesus Christ, the Virgin Birth, Resurrection,
and Atonement. In opposition to modernist
tendencies in American religious and
U.S. -- Canada
 Atwood’s 1987 essay opposing the CanadaU.S. Free Trade Agreement: “Canada as a
separate but dominated country has done
about as well under the U.S. as women,
worldwide, have done under men; about the
only position they’ve ever adopted towards
us, country to country, has been the
missionary position, and we were not on top.”
(82)
HT’s General Concerns
 gender fascism
Women’s or
Canada’s autonomy.
 Ways of constructing one’s self-identity
(memories, story-telling, etc.) and uniting
resisting forces.
Questions:
 When does the story happen and where is
Gilead?
 How does Gilead control women?
 What are the biblical allusions in the novel?
 Most probably in 1990’s, with 1980’s as “the
time past”
Gilead’s Location:
 Clues:
1. Offred escape north of Maine; the
Historical notes: “Maine” p. 381
2. News broadcast: p. 107
1.
2.
3.
The underground organization has sent
resources to Canada.
Five Quakers were arrested in a place which
used to be Detroit.
Montreal Satellite station is blocked. 105
Gilead’s Location (2):
 Atwood’s interpretation: Boston.
 “The Wall is the wall around Harvard yard.
All those little shops and stores mentioned
are probably there at this very minute. I
lived in Boston for four years. It’s also the
land of my ancestors. . . . They were
Puritans of the 1630 – 1635
immigration. . . . “ (87).
Literary Association of Gilead
1. Scarlet Letter
2. American Renaissance (e.g. scholars such
as Leslie Fieldler, Harry Levin.)
Gilead’s Control: Spatial
constraints
 I. Gilead's geography:
 Commander's Compound (Kitchen, lawn with
flowers, handmaid's room); gate 18; p. 23
 Red Center, --punishments p. 118
 the streets and the stores (Lilies, Milk and
Honey, All Flesh) pp. 31
 the Wall, pp. 42 Jezebel
Gilead’s Control:
Spatial/Physical constraints (2)
 I. Offred’s Room: p. 9 –10
 Archaic,
 Reduced to the basic facilities.
Gilead’s Control 2: Thought
Control
No talking, no thinking – p. 10; total
control of news broadcast 105-107
 salutes and sayings:
1. "Blessed be the fruit"; "May the God open"--p.
25; "Praise be." p. 26; farewell = "Under
His Eye" p. 59.
2. "Waste not, want not." p. 9;
"Think of yourself as seeds." p. 25; "The
Republic of Gilead knows no bounds. Gilead
is within you." p. 31; two kinds of freedom p.
33; "Modesty is invisibility" p. 38; "All Flesh is
weak" p. 60. "Men are sex machines" 186

Gilead’s Control 3: Hierarchy
Gilead‘s hierarchy and names:
Commander, Eye (24, 29; 38),
Angel, Guardian of the Faith (27-28),
Guards, 30
Tourists p.
Wife, 16, 18-19; 20-21-22
37-38
Aunt, pp. 4, 25; 33
Handmaid—their names, Janine p. 35, 36;
Martha, p. 13-; 28; Econowives p. 32, widow,
p. 32, Unwoman
 Gilead's color: black, blue, etc. pp. 12, 29
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The Handmaid's Tale:
Gilead
 Gilead's Thought Control: Aunt
pp. 25; 33
 the Eye -- anybody can be the Eye
 Why is there such an authoritarian
nation, Gilead?

Feminist controversies over porn,
abortion, Feminism backlash,
computerization, environmental
pollution, etc.
The Handmaid's Tale:
Themes & Intertexuality
 Intertextuality:
 Bible,
 The Little Red Riding Hood, p. 11; garden p.
16; red tulips 44
 Scarlet Letter, etc.
The Handmaid's Tale:
Themes & Intertexuality
 Biblical Allusions –
 Martha, devoted herself to housework
while her sister Mary sat and listened to
Jesus.
 Jezebel -- tried to kill the Lord's prophets
and encouraged Ahab to do evil. the dogs
would devour Queen Jezebel's body
The Handmaid’s identity
 Question:
 How does the narrator, Offred, reconstruct her identity after she is reduced
to just the role of being a handmaid?
Offred – June
 “I keep the knowledge of [my] name like
something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to
dig up, . . .” (108)
 Self – 1. senses: her smell 1, p. 10, empathy 29,
look 24; desire 39
 Body: enjoys the power of a dog bone 30;
her idea of freedom 38;
 Relate to the others: yearning 4-5; talk 13-14;
Nick 24; 28-29-30; 45 Ofglen; the previous girl,
Offred – June

Language redefined: -- no reading, no store
names. P. 33
1.
2.



Habits 33
food (date rape 50 );
Night p. 49 & memory:
Memory – p. 16; 32- Moira, Mother; about Luke
15, 44; daughter pp. 51-52
Criticism p. 25; and correcting Aunt's lessons in
her head 25; 60 “All flesh is weak. All flesh is
grass.”
The Bible
 P. 251- “My God. Who Art in the Kingdom of
Heaven, which is within.
 I wish you would tell me Your Name, the real one I
mean. But You will do as well as anything. . . .
 I have enough daily bread, so I won’t waste time
on that. It isn’t the main problem. The problem is
getting down without choking on it.
 Deliver us from evil.
 Then there’s Kingdom, power, and glory. It takes a
lot to believe in those right now. But I’ll try it
anyway. In Hope, as they say on the
Handmaid’s identity (2)
Keen desire & physical senses
desire (e.g. Nick & the guardian)
Relate to people around her
re-constructions of the past.
“Household”
 What are the purposes of turning sexual
intercourse into a public ceremony? How is
Offred treated in the Ceremony? Does this
happen today?
 How does she maintain her sense of self
when it is denied by the others?
Gilead’s control of sexuality
 Not about romance, passion or desire; only a
matter of duty. p. 122


The man can still enjoy it with two women.
Women turned into “ailing mothers” p. 123.
 Sexual intercourse ritualized; endorsed by
the Bible.
 Offred: like a furniture, arms being held by
Serena p. 121
Offred/June’s self-assertion
 Language -- Re-definition of household p.
103-104; tense, tensed 127; Offred, Off-red.
 Relating to others: Feeling her contact with
Nick 104;
 Praying "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum":
"Don't let the bastard grind you down." p.
117
 Watching him (returning the gaze p. 113)
Offred/June’s self-assertion
 Remembering as a way of escape:


pp. 108-109 (escape);
p. 115 (Moira),
 Self-assertion after the ceremony p. 124
 Which of the above is the most powerful way
of resistance? Are they all internal thinking
and thus not actually powerful?
Differences between
the film and the novel
 Film
 Memory—escape
scene, quiet
 The woman as still an
object of gaze. e.g.
after the 1st ceremony.
 Novel
 More thinking,
remembering, narrating
and feeling.
 e.g. after the 1st
ceremony
Differences between
the film and the novel
 Film
 Novel
Differences between
the film and the novel (3)
 Film
 The ending: killed the
commander, rescued
by Nick
“Neither of us say the
word love. . . “ (347)
 Novel
 After the ceremony:
self-nourishing; want
to see, want to steal. pp.
125 –
 With Nick: different
possibilities in chap 40.
 ambiguous ending
“And so I step up, into the darkness within, or
The Historical Notes
 12th Symposeum of Gilead Studies in 2195.
 University of "Denay“("deny“; native group in The
Northwest Territories); Canada criticized.
 Explains the source of the tale (30 something tapes),
their inability to identify Offred, the Gilead’s ways
of arresting women and possible reasons for
infertility.
 Similarities between Pre-Gilead period and Gilead
period: birth services; polygamy, totalitarianism
(e.g. KGB) p. 386- 87
The Historical Notes
 Gender structure unchanged:
1. Professor Pieixoto flirting with Crescent
Moon –”enjoy” her
2. “Underground Femaleroad”
“The
Underground Frailroad” 381
3. His distrust of the narrator.
4. “Our job is not to censure, but to
understand.” 383