essay The Handmaids Tale

The main features of the state of Gilead are strict discipline and national security. The greatly militaristic national security of Gilead can be compared to that of the former Soviet Union which because of ideological reasons maintained a complete suppression of its citizens. Atwood criticises USA’s response to the Cold War through instituting a similar government in USA as in the USSR. The reader can understand that factions like the Eyes had corresponding groups there, as the KGB. Atwood inclines with this that the Cold War in fact brought USA and USSR closer to each others.

The most important tools of suppression in Gilead were the re-education centres. The narrator calls them red centres at several occasions, once again implying the influence of USSR’s political belief communism. The red centres were locations of schooling that had the aim to decrease the number of rebellious elements in society. Although the centres were structure to destroy hope, rebellion against the authority existed for a long time even within them. The causes for these rebellions were not as much because fear of death or loosing freedom as of seeking shelter together from the social reforms and the human tendency to reject everything new. In the end the centres were successful in breaking down any hope of rescue just as the gulag camps were to the tsarists after the Russian revolution.

Atwood seems to promote the idea that the Cold War did not help USA in their quest for global democracy. Her novel implies that instead of spreading capitalism throughout the world the Cold War helped totalitarian ideologies. Her criticism towards armament resulting in two extreme poles that creates an unsuitable environment in both countries is seen when factions unite to fight the enemy without considering the effect this will have on their own country, weather or not it is justified.