EXPLORE THE VIEW THAT MALES VALUE WOMEN PREDOMINANTLY FOR THEIR CHILDBEARING ABILITIES, BUT THAT ACTUALLY, MOTHERHOOD HAS MORE ASPECTS TO IT WITHIN THE MERCHANTS TALE, THE CLERKS TALE AND THE HANDMAIDS TALE

        This attitude is imitated clearly in The Handmaid’s Tale: the women who are fertile are considered “national resources”. Their roles are reduced to attempting to give birth, and the fact that they can do this means they are respected, pampered and valued by society. Those who are unable to become pregnant are deemed “Unwomen”, insulting and offensive – showing that the entirety of what it means to be a woman rests on the ability to give birth. Those who are unable are not womanly. Offred is aware of this attitude towards her in the novel, but has nonetheless been somewhat brainwashed into reducing her own perception of herself to something akin: when she describes how she is similar to candyfloss, she remarks “squeeze me and I’d turn into a small sickly damp wad of weeping pinky red” a description that could easily be transferred to a womb. The relevance is that sometimes it is not only the male that is guilty of reducing the role of women, but women themselves. This can be observed further in Offred’s changing attitude towards her own body: “I used to think of my body as an instrument of pleasure [...] now the flesh arranges itself differently”. The predominant purpose of Offred’s body has changed, and evidently she feels this. Offred has become conditioned to view herself this way, has absorbed the male prejudice. Alanna A Callaway suggests in her article ‘Women disunited: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale as a critique of feminism’ that it is not a feminist dystopian novel, but instead a commentary on how feminism has brought about the disunity of women. The question must be asked, is the female perception of themselves as “vessels” simply mimicking the male perspective?

        After Janine’s baby is discovered to be a “shredder”, Offred remarks of Janine’s guilt “people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot”. Considering that what has been taken from Janine is a baby, the ‘use’ and ‘plot’ she speaks of can be seen to describe the baby. The baby is the use and plot of Janine’s life in Gilead, and the same can be said for many of the women in Gilead, for example, Serena.

        To believe that what it means to be a mother is just giving birth is the reductionist view held by many of the males in these texts. What they ignore are the numerous other layers of motherhood that ironically have shaped even them to be the people they are. Mothers in the texts have a lot of bearing and influence on the way that the characters behave, and this can be seen in Offred, Higgins and the functions of the Wives.

Offred’s mother taught and instructed Offred, priming her for life and, later on, for the inevitable totalitarianism of Gilead, although unforeseen by her. Her mother always used to tell her - “steel yourself”, and Offred repeats this to herself on certain significant occasions – during the ceremony and when revealing herself to Ofglen as non-orthodox.

  The scene of the ‘Prayvaganza’, where the weddings occur en masse, illuminates the shift in the bond between mother and daughter: Offred describes how “daughters, in white, come shyly forward, their mothers holding their elbows. It’s the mothers, not fathers, who give away daughters these days.” This is the last set of daughters that will have existed in a pre-Gileadean society, and this ceremony becomes a complex metaphor for the mother-daughter relationship in Gilead. The daughters are being guided by their mothers, and then given away, which on the surface refers to them being walked up the aisle, but metaphorically, something far more sinister – giving them away permanently. They are being given to Gilead where they will become birthing machines.

Offred frequently flashes back to scenes with her mother and these enlighten us as to the motives or causes of Offred’s thinking and behaviour. What becomes evident is that as a mother, Offred’s confounded the stereotype. Her method was not tender, not “creating snug and comfy” as a mother is described in ‘Thoughts After Ruskin’ by Elma Mitchell - instead she exposed Offred to things like a documentary about the holocaust to educate her. Offred notices her mother in one of the videos she is shown in the Red Centre, protesting. She remarks that her mother is pretty – ironically her mother confounds the stereotype of being a mother by being a feminist, and yet bucks the feminist stereotype by being beautiful. Later when Offred remembers her mother visiting her and Luke, she describes Offred’s father as a “nice guy who just wasn’t up to fatherhood”. Offred’s mother has reversed the stereotype posed in the question – she has a holistic view of motherhood but had reduced the father’s role to simply the donation of sperm. She succinctly explains this when she claims, “A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.”

She criticises Offred and Luke as unappreciative, and she has ended up bitter that her protesting has not produced action in the next generation. Offred retells the scene of her mother crying quite passively – she doesn’t introduce any overtones of pity or remorse for the way things were between them, she simply remarks, “I admired my mother in some ways, although things between us were never easy. […] I didn’t want to live my life on her terms”. Offred’s mother may be disappointed in Offred, but it is evident that she has taught Offred to think for herself, and that actually Offred’s apparent submission/quiet subversion is arguably more effective than her mother’s brash resistance – seen in the fate of her mother and Moira. Moira’s similarities to Offred’s mother, and Offred’s longing for their reunion – “I want her back”  - is arguably what gives birth to the friendship between the two women. Offred, ironically, appears to reject the pre-Gileadean feminism propagated by her mother. Offred is a character that seems to decide on the admirable characteristics of the people that surround her – her mother, Moira etc, and draw them all into one personality – her own. She has none of the excessiveness of these people.

Offred digs at her mother by saying, “I am not your justification for existence”, again tangling the role of the mother, giving birth and its relation to the raising of a child. IS having a child justification for the existence of a woman? It certainly is in The Handmaid’s Tale, and it is partly in ‘The Merchant’s Tale’, alongside sexual enjoyment. Offred, ironically and arguably, comes closer to her mother in her absence, because her existence within Gileadean society leads to her understanding her mother’s feelings more and more. Her slight rebellions and subversions are Offred’s way of remembering and honouring her mother: “I’ve mourned for her already. But I will do it again, and again” – clearly Offred misses her mother constantly and wants to keep the memory of her alive.

Offred herself is a mother, and like with her own, we experience this through her flashbacks of her family life with Luke. She recalls a time when a woman snatched her child from her in the supermarket, the instinct of protection kicking in when Offred hears her child cry. Offred remains a mother even when her child is taken away – similarly to Griselda, who cries

“Your woful mooder wende stedfastly

That crueel houndes, or som foul vermyne

Hadde eten yow; but God of his mercy

And youre benyngne fader tendrely

Hath doon yow kept […]”

upon the return of her children. Both women did not cease to worry about their child’s safety after their removal, showing that the role of mother is far more over reaching than simply giving birth. If the latter were to be the case then it would not fuss the mothers that the child was no longer with them.

Professor Higgins’ mother is another minor character with major influence. When we are first introduced to her in Act 3, Shaw takes the time to divulge some specific details regarding Mrs Higgins and her house. She “defied the fashion in her youth” – an independent and progressive thinker like Offred’s mother, evidently.

She scolds Higgins but soon moves on to talking about his marital state. She wishes him to marry, but Higgins remarks, “My idea of a lovable woman is someone as like you as possible”. Clearly Higgins’ mother has raised him in such a way that she has shaped his preferences in a woman, and he acknowledges this by saying “some habits lie too deep to be changed”.

Higgins’ mother appears patronising and condescending – she tells him to take his hands out of his pockets, “that’s a good boy.” But though it appears this way, it is actually just another complex layer of motherhood – that even though Higgins is a successful man, he can still revert to being irresponsible and immature in his mother’s company and let her mother him – she keeps him in check, and we see this with the way she reacts to Higgins’ producing of Eliza at the party: like Offred’s mother, she is demeaning about males – “infinitely stupid male creatures” – and she points out the flaw in their plan that unless they continue to give her money she will not be able to maintain the lifestyle they have designed her for. Higgins’ mother has clearly contributed far more to his character and existence than simply giving birth to him: to assume that this was all she had done would be a gross underestimation of her role. It can not only be pointed out that motherhood is complex and layered, but that those characters who have experienced feisty and involved mothers have a far more healthy perception of what it means to be a mother: Offred with her daughter, and Higgins exuding no prejudices about whether Eliza should have a child.  

A point that could be suggested is that actually, the view proposed in the title is one held in the texts as a whole, but not held by the male characters – held by the society. On a one-to-one basis, the attitudes of the individual males are quite different. The Commander is primed by society to view Offred as a childbearing tool, but he is unable to do so. Instead he treats her as a companion. At one point, the fact that they play Scrabble shows he considers her as an intellectual partner – but the action is covert and they are both aware that it is not allowed. Offred thinks “Scrabble! I wanted to laugh, shriek with laughter [...]” – the idea of her being an equal to the Commander is absurd to her, even though the fact that they are playing a board game means they are only “playing”. The same could be said for Januarie, who indeed lists the need for an heir as a reason to marry, similarly in ‘The Clerk’s Tale’ with the Marquis; but is this because society has provided them with this attitude, and really, they enjoy the women for other reasons, and don’t give much thought to them as mothers? It is impossible for the males to view the women as ‘simply’ anything. The relationship is too complicated. The point about society holding the view but not individuals becomes difficult when you question whether the males inherit the prejudice from society, or if society reflects the prejudice held by males.

Society and the issues it faces can be revealing about attitudes: surrogacy is a debate that provides a picture of what society (and specific schools of thought, i.e. feminism), thinks of the role of mother, because essentially, it splits the perceptions of the role into two people: a birth mother, and the mother that is to raise the child. Feminists tend to side with the birth mother. In Canada, Atwood’s home, there is little public support for the idea of surrogacy, which has been labelled “reproductive prostitution” by some feminists. Anita Allen describes allowing surrogacy as producing “mother machines”. This split can be seen in the difference between the handmaids and the Wives. On the day of birth, the Wife whose handmaid is in labour imitates the act of giving birth. This would indicate that they view the specific act of producing the child as important in the process of being a mother. The envy and animosity between the two sets of women shows that they understand that motherhood is layered; each wants to be a mother in the holistic sense, and recognises that the role has been fractured. Offred explains her loathing for Serena - "because she would be the one to raise my child, should I be able to have one after all". In today’s society it appears women are awarded more power and rights in the parenting situation with a recent survey into parenting showing that 78% of people think that women still do most of the work, but that 86% believe men are more hands on with their kids now than in previous generations. Yet it would seem we are moving to an even more equal split of power in the raising of children, with the issues raised in the fathers4justice debate: a 2011 article reported that women are awarded primary custody in 82.6% of cases, and that this should be changed.  

Abortion is also a telling issue, not dissimilar to surrogacy – abortion is a crime punishable by death in Gilead but something that Offred’s mother campaigned for. If a woman who does not carry a pregnancy through to completion is killed as a punishment, this supports the notion that they are only valued for their childbearing potential, because their defiance of it results in their death. What Offred’s mother really is campaigning for in the right to abortion is arguably, the woman’s right to defy the male expectation of her.

The fact that The Handmaids Tale is authored by a female is significant – it stands as a woman’s opinion of male behaviour, described in first person narrative from a girl’s point of view. The focus is clearly on the pregnancy aspect as opposed to ‘The Merchant’ and Clerk’s Tales, written by males with comparatively little on the aspect of childbirth - far more on the ideas of sexual attraction.

This would lead me to conclude that the complexity of motherhood and the capacity for variation within the role of mother is greatly underestimated by many male characters. Motherhood is undoubtedly a fulfilling and unique role, and if asked to list the differences between the sexes, that ability to give birth would be unavoidable.  But this should not mean that the role of motherhood is only valued as this physical capability. These character analyses of Offred and Higgins’ mothers show the immeasurable effect that mothers have on the characters and their behaviour, whether they are similar to the parents or not. The different societies lived in by the authors has also skewed the perceptions or opinions of women and the ability to give birth, and Atwood is correct in remarking that the journey away from the commoditisation of women and child birthing is of arguable distance.