Compare and contrast how far the authors of The handmaids Tale and Stepford Wives draw on the issues of the society in which they are writing to create a disturbing vision of the future.

     In Stepford Wives men view their wives as objects to be admired for their beauty reflecting male attitudes in the 1950’s. All of the men in Stepford are part of the “Men’s Association” and bring their talents together in order to create the perfect wife. The phrase “every girls an Ike Mazzard girl” is used when the illustrator from the Men’s Association makes beautiful sketches of Joanna, reflecting men capturing a woman’s image and glorifying it in their own fantasy. However Levin uses this idea and creates a disturbing image when it transpires the pictures are to create a beautiful robot to replace Joanna, as it is impossible in reality to live up to such beauty. This idea is reinforced when Walter, Joanna’s husband, states “these are beautiful”, thus Levin is creating a disturbing image of the future, which is based on reality, as women of the 1950’s wanted to look beautiful for the benefit of their husbands. Rather than waiting for ‘liberated’ women such as Joanna and Bobby to reject the idea of looking perfect for their husbands as they are portrayed as independent thinkers, the men of Stepford stay one step ahead and attempt to remove their free will. Similarly in The Handmaids Tale, the existence of Jezebels shows that there is a clandestine section of Gilead. Offred is taken to this night club and dressed up in “a garment, apparently for a woman: there are cups for the breasts, covered in purple sequins…. The feathers are around the thigh hole, and along the top”. Atwood describes the garment in detail and the ‘feathers around the thigh hole’ could be seen as sexually provocative. Atwood highlights the extent of corruption in Gilead as it is clear the commander is proves to Offred “his mastery of the world. He is breaking the rules, under their noses.” This indicates that even in a strictly Christian regime, men with the most power are able to dress up their handmaids and parade them as sexual objects to be admired for their beauty. The commander is demonstrating to Offred his power and it is also clear “he is showing me off, to them”. Men have the potential of returning women back to their basic functions in society, to look good and to reproduce. Both authors show that in order to protect these functions, men must take away women’s free will, which highlights their logical conclusion.

       In The Handmaids Tale each woman has a role in Gilead. The Martha’s role is to attend to domestic tasks, “She’s making bread” whereas the handmaids are defined by their reproductive organs. In the 1950’s women were expected to settle down and make a family; they were defined by the role of mother and homemaker. This idea is reflected in The Handmaids Tale when the Commander’s Wife describes the changing of Handmaids; the chapter entitled ‘Shopping’, this reinforces the idea that their purpose of reproduction is simply a “business transaction” and they have no identity. reducing women back to their role in the 1950s. Furthermore the Handmaids names are constructed by their owner’s name. This becomes apparent in “The Historical Notes” as Pieixoto says “like ‘Ofglen’ and ‘Ofwarren,’ it was patronymic, composed of the possessive preposition and the first name of the gentleman in question.” This reflects the 1950’s as women belonged to their husbands and had little power. It could be argued that this idea still exists in modern society as most women, when they marry, take on their husband’s surname. Therefore the next logical step would be to also adopt their first name.

           In Stepford Wives the men literally take away their wives freedom of speech, as the robots have a limited vocabulary, “I’ve been getting people to tape-record lists of words and syllables for me”. This reflects the history of women being oppressed with a limited education and use of language. Levin creates a dystopia whereby language and freedom of speech is stripped away and this creates a disturbing vision of women with no voice. This shows that that Levin is drawing on issues of society before equal rights and creates Stepford in light of historical events. Similarly in The Handmaids Tale, language plays a part in stripping power away from women. Firstly we learn that women are not allowed to read or write. Offred states that “we aren’t supposed to be reading”. One of Offred’s only sources of written words is a “hard little cushion” “the print: FAITH. It’s the only thing they’ve given me to read.” It seems ironic that faith is the only word Offred is able to read at this point in the novel. This is because Atwood shows the importance of language and symbolism as faith symbolises hope and freedom, or the ‘faith’ in a religion. However Offred seems to have little faith in any omniscient presence or in the idea of the regime ending. Gina Wisker believes that “Atwood was influenced by her own visits to Iran and her awareness of the strict codes of the Taliban which prevented women from being educated, owning property, revealing their faces in public.” This shows that not only in history is there evidence of women being uneducated there are cultures today where women have little power and no identity. Atwood stresses the importance of language, this highlights that stripping away the education of women is part of the process of stripping them down to simply the function of their reproductive organs and taking away their identity. However, we learn through the Historical Notes that Offred recorded her thoughts on to cassette tapes which were later transcribed. Even though she managed to create a voice for herself despite the oppression of Gilead, men still have the power to reconstruct her story and comment on it long after she is dead. Therefore although there is a positive slant to the ending, unlike Stepford Wives, as we discover Gilead ceased to exist, a patriarchal society still remains, much like the society that Atwood was writing in. Therefore both authors convey the message that no matter what happens in the future, patriarchy will always exist in some form.  

      When analysing the books with a twenty first century reading, it is clear that some aspects from the dystopian ideas exist in our society today.  The men in Stepford Wives strive to create beautiful wives; we see this in the ending when Joanna is changed and Ruthanne states that “her bow lips were red, her complexion pale rose and perfect”. Levin is clearly showing that this robot, created by men is their vision of perfection. In today’s society plastic surgery is rife, especially with iconic figures and  everyone is aspires to the ‘perfect’ look. Chuck Palahuik believes that Ira Levin created a vision for the future that is very realistic to today. He states “bookshelves are filling with pretty dolls. Those glazed pretty dolls wearing their stylish designer outfits”. Image in today’s society is more important than ever and perhaps Levin predicted this in 1972 when the book was published.  This shows he took ideas from society and history of the time he was writing and predicted this vision for the future of beauty and perfection that simply is not real.

        Both authors warn their readers of sexist and oppressive regimes as a vision of the future at the end of their novels. In the Historical Notes, we learn that Gilead ceased to exist. However Atwood draws on issues of sexism closer to our society today. The Historical Notes can be seen to question how far society is today from an extreme patriarchal regime like Gilead. Professor Pieixoto gives a conference on the Gileadean regime 200 years after it existed. Piexoto and Professor Wade take control of Offred’s story and rearrange the tapes she recorded “based on some guesswork”. Furthermore they mock Offred’s story as Pieixoto first talks of how ‘the superscription “The Handmaids tale was appended to it by Professor Wade” showing Wade even named her story. Pieixoto points out the “signification of the word tail” having a sexual innuendo and states that “all puns were intentional”. This clearly demonstrates how Offred’s story is mocked by the male academics and reconstructed through sexist attitudes. Arnold E. Davidson inverts the novel, by seeing it through the lens of the Historical Notes he warns that ‘a sexist legacy is not easily overcome.’ He believes this is what Atwood is showing us as Pieixoto mocks Offred’s story. Furthermore he believes that “the intellectuals of 2195 seem to be preparing the way for Gilead again. In this projection of past, present, and future, the academic community is shown to have a role, in recreating the values of the past.” This reinforces the idea of Atwood drawing on issues in today’s society and warning us of a future sexist regime. It is clear that history is reconstructed by men; still in today’s society males have the most power, even though women have rights. This shows she is drawing on issues in society today to create a disturbing yet realistic vision and possibly trying to convey the message or warn us that sexism is more prominent in our society than we may think.

      Similarly Ira Levin shows the men in Stepford Wives triumphing over both the seemingly liberated feminists, Joanna and Bobby, and replacing them with ‘perfect’

robots. When Ruthanne asks Joanna at the end “what are you doing then, besides your housework?”, Joanna replies, “Housework’s enough for me. I used to feel I had to have other interests but I’m more at ease with myself now”. This shows that men still held the power at the end of the novel and this reflects the message Levin tries to convey to his reader. He is using Stepford as a warning by taking issues of today’s society to their logical conclusion.

        Karl Marx stated that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”. This can be seen in both Atwood and Levin’s interpretation of society. They saw the issue of sexism in the 50’s and predicted during the 70’s and 80’s of horrific sexist regimes. They warned us that sexism is still rife and although it is easy to say that women today hold rights, we can still question whether women have any power. Both writers have taken issues of society to their logical conclusion to create a realistic vision of the future, yet have simply highlighted that this realistic image is horrific and disturbing.

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