We are reminded of this as a risk through the example of Offred’s ‘I hurt, therefore I am’, which not only adds a psychological dimension to our mode of reading the text, but reminds us of the tortures which are endured by those in dystopian worlds. Of course, this is an allusion to René Descartes, who introduced many ideas of psychology to Western Civilisation in ‘Cogito, ergo sum’: ‘I think, therefore, I am’ – Offred is establishing that her senses make her alive as she subverts Descartes’ argument because she no longer is allowed to think for herself. Moreover, we can thus argue that the idea of an ‘I’ to do the hurting establishes an existence – even if the person is no longer free to do as they wish.
Of course, the language used by the figures of authority is also based around simple concrete sentences; but the use of oxymoron adds new connotations. Prevalent amongst these is the infamous ‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.’ which, more than being an example of list of three and syntactic parallelism, provides the party with opportunity to exploit their nation through lexical restrictions. In this sense, ‘war is peace’ could demonstrate how war ensures a greater economy and to give the public motivation and a sense of national pride and unity – all contributing to a more successful and peaceful country. ‘You are being given freedom from’ suggests that these powers are helping relieve their citizens, but we appreciate that the lack of freedom to choose ensures the statement is subversive because the women of Gilead do not all appreciate the freedom; a majority would prefer the lifestyle of yesteryear.
Throughout the novels, language itself is attacked so regimes manipulate language to reflect their own motives. That ‘a word contains its opposite in itself’ denotes how Big Brother is attempting to alter our perceptions of language use so we determine opinions in a predefined manner of which the party would approve. We may note the correlation with ‘M’aidez; Offred utilizing another language, to convey what the Handmaids wish to say. In shrinking the language, it evidently ensures people are not able to explain their own hatred of the party because ‘the range of consciousness [will be] always a little smaller.’ Of course, we may argue that this was a warning in the post war era – by consequence of mass censorship throughout the early forties, Orwell may have been warning against tighter controls of what was right and wrong. Similarly, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ abuses lexeme connotations, so words contain opposite meanings: ‘Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled… guns for the guards, specially picked from the angels.’ plays on a semantic field of relations – be they physical or spiritual. ‘Aunts’ ‘patrolling’, as opposed to caring, sounds as if they are preventing these women from doing as they wish and similarly that the guards were ‘picked from the angels’ would seem to suggest that these figures are watching over you – but here the guards spoil the heavenly connotations with their manmade ‘guns’; reflecting Presidential abuse of religious doctrine at the time.
Another difference is that Atwood has written in the first person; whilst Orwell, the third. Yet both styles create ambiguous reader roles, recreating the totalitarian state. The 3rd person of 1984 could represent that those subject to Big Brother had to live independently to ensure their survival. Further, in witnessing Winston’s first writing of the diary, we become an audience to which this has fallen and could read it retrospectively. Moreover, this detached viewpoint could allow us to embody the thought police; as we are aware of Winston’s actions and do not necessarily have to agree with what he is doing – indeed, that ‘there was a knocking at the door’ almost encourages us to want Winston to be found writing in the diary. In much a similar fashion, the ambiguous 1st person in Atwood’s novel allows us to assume the position of the eyes, through dense accumulation of rules and regulations early in the novel. However, we may be a general: ‘there is no-one to write to’ and thus are merely a future people or in the use of ‘Dear you’, there is indication that the protagonist knows the recipient of her address. It does of course provide a viewpoint for the oppressed, but we are unsure of its true value; as such address could indicate Offred as an unreliable narrator. Interpretation of these instances causes us to question how far the dystopia exists and how much is omitted or skewed by our own protagonists: ‘[Offred] was boxed in. How do you tell a narrative from the point of view of that person? The more limited and boxed in you are, the more important details become.’[2] Hence the protagonists are unsure what to think; even those close to the establishment weren’t even sure what was happening: ‘We lived as normal – by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance. You have to work at it.’ and ‘Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain.’ both comment on how adapting to circumstance isn’t easy; ‘ignorance’ and ‘stupidity’ both belonging to a semantic field of the unknown.
The difference in narrator gender would have women unreliable – on the periphery – and males linked to problems centrally. Of course, quotes such as ‘Nothing was illegal anymore, since there were no laws.’ demonstrates both male and government abuse of power, particularly during the war, and how unstable society is because of the frequent changes. Of course this leads to the peoples of both novels being somewhat ignored and ‘[they are] like a child.’ in how they are treated. Atwood points out that those who created new ideas are always expelled or worse because ‘the artists are messy. They don’t fit… In any monolithic regime I would be shot’.[3] ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’’s ‘I used to think of my body as an instrument’ denotes how these women are no longer their own people, but are ‘resources’ of the state and should behave so: her body now ‘counting time’ for all other concepts of reality are determined by the leaders. Greater government controls form the basis of both periods as well. ‘Our new happy life’ of ‘1984’ is so reminiscent of post war speeches and yet nothing much changed and in its inclusive pronoun, there is suggestion that this is the life that the public want. The passage incites debate as to how much we should allow government control before declaring it a dictatorship. We may refer to ‘when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous’ as reference to Harry S. Truman keeping the USA on a war footing and partly shaping the Cold War, so as his economy would not collapse as production rates shrunk. Government backing is obviously an important vantage point and we may interpret the Handmaid’s Tale, with its allusive imagery, as arguing against the US withdrawing support for the E.R.A. (Equal Rights Amendment) which saw women put on equal par with men in work and law.
In this way, we may interpret the heavy imagery throughout ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ as referring to these rights and questioning to what extent women are just means to an end – i.e. reproduction of a dominant male. Primary amongst these are references to the menstrual cycle: ‘I tell time by the moon’ is clearly a reference to the monthly period, which sees the women ‘fall, brightening, waning, brightening again’; which can not only be interpreted a need for change, but rather viewing each passing period as a failure because of a lack of pregnancy; chances of conception, waning. Similarly, that these women compare the womb to ‘the hold of a ship’ would have them carrying a precious cargo – the womb literally embodies a vessel; playing on connotations of passage into the world. In reference to the lack of women’s rights, ‘We are two legged wombs’, through clever use of premodification, bares the connotation that there is something unnatural about these women – their purpose is to reproduce and so the womb is vital; the legs are an unnecessary addition. Women should only express themselves as mothers.
Moreover, the use of natural imagery is something featured in relation to love in 1984. The transition from ‘pools of gold’ where ‘the air seemed to kiss one’s skin’ to ‘the Earth… like iron and the grass… dead’ utilises the semantic field of nature and twists it to depict a pathetic fallacy – whereby the beautiful day reflects Winston’s first experience of love; the gloomy, his break up. We should note the role of Julia in much a similar way to the need of progression which is the main theme of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. We can argue that in her dominance in the scenes in question: ‘I expect I’m better at finding things out than you are.’ is not only typical of a condescending party line, but represents a woman in a position of power at a time when women rarely worked. That the novel is a dystopia, with women in these positions, could be seen as a critique against moves towards equality – Julia being a leader has negative effects. Of course, in the Cold War, there was a government push that women should remain at home.
One of the predominant motifs which draw the novels together, however, is that of numbers and their representation of freedom. ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.’ and ‘one and one and one and one doesn’t equal four. Each one remains unique’ draw parallels in that each talk of the want to be able to exercise basic human rights – more explicitly, freedom of speech. In ignoring each person, the state is not providing adequate solutions and the constant change in the way numbers add denotes attempts at bettering society. Of course, not only do the above examples comment on Eastern Europe’s Communist takeover and women’s rights respectively, but the quote ‘2+2=5’ is critique of how Russia’s five year plans were always announced complete a year early, despite huge discrepancies and this is recreated in ‘1984’ with the use of ‘three year plans’ – methods of trying to keep the people happy and under control. In this way, people have to adapt: ‘We live in the blank white spaces at the edges of print.’ suggests that in their memories there is an escape from the dystopia, yet ‘Is it your opinion that the past has real existence?’ in ‘1984’ can be seen as deep rooted control that although the present comes from the past, the present controls the past and thus there is a subversive control of time – comment on how both Communism and Capitalism were attempting to prove themselves the stronger ideology; instead of looking after their populations.
In conclusion, we can reflect that 1984 was printed as a warning; and as Atwood called her work ‘speculative fiction’, we may view it as a demonstration for the need of women’s rights. They talk of being wary of government and so allude to Marxist theories of how literature recreates and reflects a dominant ideology and it is in breaking this mould that the pieces become poignant. ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ itself alludes to this link whilst abusing biblical passages: ‘From each according to her ability, to each according to his needs’. Instead of a being a passage from St Paul, the doctrines of leading politicians are condemned as being worshipped by the public and we may suggest that it is concentration on this want to create a balance which in turn leads to a dystopia. Yet due to the subversive natures of these novels, are the worlds themselves subversive ploys? Have these instances solved domestic issues and problems? To some extent, they have; though one must consider in retrospect ‘Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some.’ However what these systems crush in the protagonists by the end are ‘the attributes that power mad regimes cannot tolerate: a human imagination… the power to communicate; and hope.’[4] – we can argue that in losing this, there a true sense of dystopia.
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[1] Krishan Kumar ‘Utopianism’ (1991) p1
[2] Margaret Atwood ‘Conversations’ page 216
[3] Margaret Atwood ‘Conversations’ page 183
[4] Margaret Atwood – ‘Second Words’, page 397