The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

Toronto, Canada: Emblem Editions, 2002

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Question: Why is Offred, unlike most the other Handmaids and subjugated women of society, compelled to search for truth and freedom?  

     In Gilead, where the novel is set, women are prohibited from reading, walking and dressing freely, becoming friends and thinking for themselves.  Any who go against this decree set by the "rulers of society", the highly placed man, are severely punished and/or killed.  Divided into various classs, each womsn is named either a Wife, married to a Commander, an Aunt, teaching the Handmaids to accept their fate, a Martha, belonging to a lower class of society and designated to domestic duties, or a Handmaid, in essence a breeder. 

     Athough the women designated as Handmaids dislike their fate, most of them are resigned to it, while as Offred ponders the decline of society.  Unlike others, she often remembers what her life was like before Gilead was created.  Throughout the novel, she tends to slip into flashbacks of various things that happened before, and so the reader is able to re-create most of the events leading up to Offred's current life.  She was married to a man named Luke, and they had a child together.  When the architects of Gilead came to power, she attempted to flee to Canada with her family, but they were caught and she never saw or heard from her husband and daughter again.  I believe that one of the main reasons Offred constantly wonders what life could be like, and why women have been submitted to this degradation, is the existence of her daughter.  All through A Handmaid's Tale, she wishes that she knew where her daughter was, and she wonders what she looks like, who she's with.  In addition, Offred begins her affair with Nick, the chauffeur, because Serena Joy, the Commander's Wife, promises to show her a picture of her child. 

     The primary reason that Gilead has been widely accepted as the norm is because it only arose at the total decline of society: it was the age of prostitution, wide-spread and availible pornography, and violence against women.  The dictators of Gilead explain their actions by saying that it is only for the good of women: they have need of protection and control.  Most of society accepts this reasoning, although those who don't have a secret rebellion.  The new rules have simply forced both men and women to hide their actions, as all pleasure activities are deemed totally inappropriate. In reality, isn't the simple fact the Handmaid's exist a form of prostitution?  Isn't that what the architects of Gilead were attempting to stop with their political takeover?