Was The Handmaid's Tale written from a feminist or anti-feminist perspective?

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Was The Handmaid’s Tale written from a feminist or anti-feminist perspective?

The Handmaid’s tale was written in 1985 during the rise of the opposition to the feminist movement.  This novel portrays what might happen if the anti-feminist messages given to women by the fundamentalist New Right in the 1980’s were followed through.  It details the virtual enslavement of women and their reduction to mere functions.   The purpose of this novel is to warn women of what the female gender stands to lose if the feminist movement were to fail. In this essay, I am going to look at the issues concerning women and feminism in The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale, as a whole, is a critic of patriarchal extremism though the content is anti-feminist in that the subject is the Republic of Gilead and its ideals.  In Gilead, the masculine code is carried to the extreme in the regime’s assignment of women to various classes – the wives, the Handmaids, the Martha’s, the Econo-wives, and the Aunts – according to their functions.  The regime effectively robs women of their individual identities.    

In society today there exists a patriarchal system.  It is quietly upheld by those at the top of the hierarchy but is under constant threat of reform.  Unlike men, women have been facing problems for centuries, and still women experience harassment and discrimination.  Though some problems are unavoidable, along with male domination and the laws of society, women have had to contend with other challenging and oppressing situations.  Despite this, women in modern society are becoming more powerful and can counteract any problems with lawsuits and protest rallies.  In Gilead, though, women and in particular the Handmaid’s, are just mute, replaceable objects. As Rita, one of the Martha’s says ‘ She didn’t work out’ about one of the previous Handmaid’s, as if she was an item purchased, but faulty and returned.  The knowledge that this patriarchal system is already in existence helps to convince the reader that the Republic of Gilead is a possibility.  ‘No new system can impose itself upon a previous one without incorporating many of the elements to be found in the latter’(Attwood,1985:317) is quoted within the historical notes.  It is not so farfetched that this upper class, racist, Caucasian elite ejects the existing Government, puts themselves into power and imposes their beliefs on everyone else.

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In this book, Atwood centres her novel on a girl whom happens to be one of the Handmaids.  If one of the men, for example Nick or the Commander, was the main character the feminist sympathies would have been lost, so using the Handmaiden adds strength and helps it work better as a feminist tool.  The women exist not only in the novel but also in real life.  They are treated as property instead of human beings. The one and only purpose in their lives is to have children.

In The Handmaid's Tale women are supposed to be more ...

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