What is Atwood's message in The Handmaid's Tale?

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Em Collins 12BD

What is Atwood's message in The Handmaid's Tale?

        The Handmaid's Tale covers many topics and through Offred's discussion of events we see how Gilead has warped bible messages, torn apart families and condones legalized rape. The democratic society she once took for granted has been exchanged for a strict patriarchal fundamentalist dystopia, leaving her as nothing more than a “cloud congealed around a central object” the object of course being womb.  I think that considering the depth in which Atwood explores the relating issues it would be impossible to only have message, so in this essay I hope to outline the ones that I can distinguish.

        The first, and main, message I believe is to serve as a warning. Atwood makes many but sometimes subtle references to the 'time before' in which we currently reside. She is a Canadian writer but has given the narrator an American nationality, and states that the regime 'hasn't spread as far as Canada', which I believe is relevant as the Aunt's slogans out rightly twist and manipulate old sayings and bible references ("Blessed are the silent") in order to make them conform to and reinforce their instructions. The Aunts also create words such as "Prayvaganza" which seem to enter normal vocabulary without much hesitation. This mimics American society in that advertising campaigns and commercials do the same in order to sell their products, the way the Aunt's 'sell' their beliefs to the handmaid's. Canada is normally seen as a much more liberal country where as America is more known for their extremes showing that these could be the real danger that would result in such events occurring. Using references such as these makes the reader see how this could be a natural progression for the extremists, and understand how the current direction of society could eventually lead to such a regime. Offred describes herself as "A Sister dipped in blood" which is referring to the uniform handmaids are required to wear, by both the colour and by the literal blood shed to enforce the new regulations that require she wears it. This is to signify the lengths such extremists will go to in order to have their (even if no-one else’s) ideal society met. This gives a whole different feeling to the novel, as rather than just a story, it is more of a prophesy and an insight into what a group of individuals can achieve if vigilance drops while subtly critiscing American culture. Another way that this could be seen as a warning is in the situations that cause Gilead to begin the system, such as plummeting birth rates and other issues that are currently facing us, making this story seem ever more accurate.

        An alternative message could be to not take what we have for granted. We are reminded throughout the novel that Offred and Luke "didn't even know [they] were happy" in her old life. It is only now that she has been stripped of her identity, belongings and family that she appreciates her previous freedom. She reminisces about her affair with Luke, amazing herself at how casual they used to be in relationships and showing the contrast between the "time before" and the current situation where even kissing is forbidden and this deprivation "makes it bearable". This is a perfect example of the phrase 'you don't know what you've got until it's gone', which is highlighted well next to the aforementioned predictive nature of the novel. It inspires the thought that this could be what we will be thinking thirty years in to the future.

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        Freedom is another issue that is covered in this novel. Two types of freedom are identified by the Aunts, "freedom to" and "freedom from". In the new regime, the state has eliminated any 'freedom to' and replaced it in it's entirety with the latter. Offred acknowledges that in the democracy in which she once lived, there were rapes and there were attacks on women, but she also says she 'hungers for the act of touch' and shows that they not only have freedom from assaults, they have freedom from the most simple things in human nature. Even the commander ...

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