Close reading on The Handmaid's Tale
The socio-political movements and events of the past are often analysed in works of literature. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale offers an alternative outcome for the United States, which falls victim to a totalitarian Christian regime, where women are disenfranchised through a malicious interpretation of the Bible. Through using a generic reader lens, my interpretation of the extract is that Atwood portrays how radicalisation and reactionary fervour can lead to a regression of civil liberties for women, resulting in the extremely patriarchal nature of Atwood’s Republic of Gilead. The persona’s reflection on her conversation with Moira and her memory of burning an erotic magazine in a park give insight to how a religious counter-reaction to societal changes can result in a zealous disenfranchising of women being imposed.
Atwood uses the perspective of the persona from the present to reflect on her free and loose moments with Moira with fondness and envy, highlighting how the persona has been psychologically wounded by the oppression of the Republic of Gilead. The persona comments on how they “had a paper due the next day… we studied things like that.” Atwood uses a free-spirited and colloquial tone as constructed through short and simple diction to project a laid-back and calm voice. In doing so, the persona returns to the comforting freedom she was able to experience in the past, through reflecting on it in her memory. Atwood establishes a juxtaposition between the persona in the present and the persona in the memory, suggesting that the present persona longs for the freedom that was taken from her by the oppressive Gilead regime. The persona also points out how “On the floor of the room there were books, open face down, this way and that, extravgantly.” Visual imagery is used to construct the room as messy and unorganised, highlighting the freedom that the past persona held. From the perspective of the current persona, who describes the laid out books as “extravagant”, Atwood uses enrichening vernacular in an otherwise unusual position to convey how the persona in present views this display of freedom and carelessness as a lavish luxury which she cannot currently afford. Hence, Atwood is able to construct the Gilead regime as stripping women of their agency to such an extent that small instances of laid-back freedom are reflected on with envy and desire.
In the magazine burning memory, Atwood reinforces how women’s individual liberties can be eroded when they are caught up in a religious zealotry which inadvertently subjugates them and strips them of their agency. The memory is presented to readers as “in a park… there were no leaves on the trees; gray sky, two ducks in the pond, disconsolate”, immediately constructing through visual imagery and a bitter tone a mournful and depressing atmosphere. The persona then describes how “there were some women burning books… There were some men too, among the women… Some of them were chanting”. Through visual and auditory imagery, Atwood further creates a sense fervent zeal and bitterness as the magazines are burnt out of hatred. Atwood is able to link this display of religious fever with the support of women who are caught up in the excitement, and thus unwittingly chose to give up their freedoms in the name of the theocracy. In doing so, the Gilead regime is presented as the outcome of radicalisation and extremism as a counter-reaction to the direction of contemporary society. When the persona puts a magazine into the fire, she notes how “still on fire, parts of women’s bodies, turning to black ash”. Atwood synthesises visual imagery and symbolism to use the magazine as a symbol of female agency, and its burning as its destruction. Through thermal imagery, the reader further understands how women can be disenfranchised at the hands of religious anger, highlighting how reactionary responses lead society down a path of totalitarianism. Hence, Atwood is able to present the civil liberties of women at threat from being deteriorated by zealous hatred.
