The Castle has always been in the gothic novel. Starting with Horace Warpole’s Castle of Otranto, it has always been an obvious and major component in the gothic genre. The Castle always represents a certain amount of danger; In Vathek the castle is the home of the horrible Prince and his awful mother signaling the evilness of the place. In the Romance of the Forest, although the castle acts as the character’s home, it is also always threatened by being found out, by the duke. It was constantly being menaced. In Dracula, the castle was the home of the vampire, and where all the horrible things happened to Jonathan Harker. The castle is constantly represented as being evil and the locale of evil happenings or evil people.
In The Handmaid’s Tale there are two such ‘castles’. They are not physically castles, but they are major buildings. One is an old Victorian house and the other, the Red Centre. The first ‘castle’ – the Red Centre - is the place where all the fertile women are sent to be trained as handmaids. Here, they are brainwashed by propaganda and ‘Aunts’ who teach them their new way of thinking. They must sleep in army cots and follow strict regimes. The Red Centre represents a sort of prison. The women are the prisoners. Just like in Dracula, and Romance of the Forrest, the narrators are trapped in their cells as though in jail. The Red Centre is exactly that; a jail and a place cessation. The women’s old ways are restricted and terminated and their liberty is stolen from them.
In the Victorian house, lives The Commander, his wife, the handmaid and a few servants and it is the location of many unfortunate things. It is where the handmaid must fornicate with the Commander on a regular basis. This, is not a pleasant experience for it is her duty, not her passion that compels her to do so. Also, his wife is present for the act, which must be very humiliating having a witness to a deed that is so personal.
It is also the locale of her life as a handmaid. It is the final destination of her training as a servile woman, as a handmaid. The house is where her new life as a prisoner woman is to unfurl. She is a prisoner in her own room:
“I know why there is no glass, in front of the
water-colour picture of blue irises, and why the
window only opens partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn’t running away they’re afraid of.
We wouldn’t get that far. It’s those other escapes,
the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting
edge.’’ (p.8)
The ‘castle’ represents the ceasing of ‘freedom’, for once she enters it – both the Red Centre and the house - she is a slave to man.
Another element of the gothic novel is the costuming throughout this story. Although it is set in the future, they make the women dress in garb from the past. They wear drapey clothing described as habits. The word habit refers to the dress in the gothic tale The Monk, by Matthew Lewis. “The skirt is ankle length, full, gathered to a flat yoke, that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full.” This style is also reminiscent of the nun. This is an ironic twist since nuns are chaste and married to God, while the handmaids are used for procreation/fornication purposes and are not permitted to have husbands.
The parting of lovers is another gothic element. In The Romance of the Forest, Adeline and Theodore are separated for many months, but are eventually reunited. In Dracula, Jonathan and Mina are separated twice; him going to another continent, and her becoming a vampire. The Handmaid’s Tale is no different. Before the narrator – Offred- was launched into the new regime, she was a normal woman, with a child and a husband, Luke. They were a happy couple, even though now as she remembers back to him, she can’t remember loving him. She is too brainwashed, and doesn’t like to think or remember. It is simpler for her to not. “I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.” (p. 7)
As the story is told, we learn that she has been taken away from her husband and child and does not know what has happened to them and vice versa. The constant unknown destiny of her tiny family tortures her mind and at times she is so overwhelmed by grief at her loss, she would prefer to commit suicide than live any longer. Offred cannot bare her separation from her loved ones and hence has begun to think of them as dead, since it is easier to handle than to think that they are living and being mistreated in some way. The separation of lovers is a red flag indicating a gothic novel.
In most gothic novels starting with the first, Castle of Otranto, and carried through almost every gothic novel since then, is the inscription. In the castle of Otranto, the inscription was on the giant helmet; in Romance of the Forest it was on an old scroll. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the inscription is carved by a fingernail into the floor of the back of the closet in Ofred’s room. She finds it while exploring and thinks it is written in Latin. “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”. Although it takes her awhile to decode the message – meaning ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’ - she is sure it is from the previous tenant, and intended for her eyes. This message brings her strength, knowing that she is not the only one to suffer the frustrations of being a handmaid. The message brings her comfort and a sense of solidarity with the other captive women.
A very interesting theme throughout this novel is the color red. It is mentioned on almost every page in the book and I take it to symbolize two contrasting things: freedom and the ceasing of freedom. The ‘Red Centre’ is a place of reformation of the women, it is where their liberty is taken away, yet it is also the color of Moira’s shoes, who represents liberty. Red is the color of all the handmaid’s dresses which are nun-like and restrictive, but it is also the color free tulips in the garden of the Commander. Although tulips represent an offering of love, the garden represents life and freedom.
Another puzzling element are the three dead men hanging on the wall. They are all masked with white sacks on their heads, but one of them has bled from the mouth and soaked through the white sack in the shape of a mouth. I can only speculate that this represents the stolen freedom of the man, and the life which was taken from him. All through this novel we see that the color red is a major theme and is vital in emphasizing freedom or the lack of it.
A characteristic of the gothic novel is the multiple suitors to one woman. Romance of the Forest demonstrates this quite well by having Adeline persued by three men including the Marquis de Montalt, young La Motte and Theodore. The novel Dracula also illustrates this with Lucy’s three suitors who all ask her to marry them, her only accepting the last proposal. The Handmaid’s Tale is similar yet quite different. Even though it is set in the future, their practice is quite primitive. The novel is about sharing fertile women. A fertile woman is passed from house to house and must have sex with the household’s Commander. This practice demonstrates multiple men per woman on a common scale, but on a more personal scale, Ofred, our main character, has the classic three men in her life. Luke, her husband in her former life, before the regime; the Commander, who’s obligation it is to fornicate with her and to procreate, and lastly Nick who is the object of her desire. All of these three men, represent different elements of her. Luke is her love and her past, the Commander is her duty and her thralldom and Nick is her lust and personal freedom.
Gothic literature was originally written as a reaction to the age of reason, order, and the politics of eighteenth-century England. In the 1980s, Margaret Atwood wrote this novel as a dark satire and a social commentary. She shames our society today in her mock futuristic Gileadean society and rudely reveals where we may be headed if we continue on this route as a society. Although the events in this story are highly unlikely to take place, the attitudes and values it conveys are present in today’s society such as the protection of women and the objectification of women.
Although The Handmaid’s Tale reads like a nightmare for most women, it is a great gothic and feministic book. It encompasses intricately complex themes and boggles one’s mind that one author could write such amazingly intriguing literature. By revealing many gothic elements in this novel including: the castle, the inscription, the parting of lovers and the classic woman in distress; it is proved that The Handmaid’s Tale is in fact of the gothic genre.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. “The Handmaid’s Tale.” O.W. Toad Limited. 1986
Stoker, Bram. “Dracula.” Penguin Classics. New York.1993.
Radcliffe, Ann. “Romance of the Forest.” Oxford World’s Classics. New York. 1998
Study Guide to Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale. 1996-2000. Copyright Paul Brians.
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale. 1994-2000. Copyright Houghton Mifflin.
Sparknotes:The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood. 2002.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/handmaid/