Atwood's Attention to Words in The Handmaid's Tale Essay

The basis for chaos and forced conformity in Gilead arises from the various naming methodologies that have been established. From the opening chapters, readers are exposed to the subdivision of women into their respective roles in society. These different labels include “Marthas”, “Wives”, “Handmaids”, “Econowives”, and “Unwomen”. Although these assigned names allow the regime to organize masses of people, they have simply created an unruly hierarchy, where the Wives at the top continually exercise their authority over other women in the households. In the first Ceremony, Serena Joy physical asserts this hierarchy by using the “rings of her left hand [to] cut into [Offred’s] fingers” (pg.107). Apart from women, the names for different locations further indicate the regime’s attempts at manipulation.

“Just as a painter paints, and a ponderer ponders, a writer writes,” says Roman Payne. Style is a very key aspect in literature. With style the significance of the text is enhanced to a higher level. Likewise it creates momentum and interest in the text. Moreover, when style is analyzed The Handmaid's Tale written by Margaret Atwood is profound, and effectively demonstrates how style can dramatically impact a text. Accordingly, throughout chapter one of The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood’s style leads to an effective use of point of view, an adequate use of narrative elements, and a sophisticated use of diction to connect and portray valuable meaning to the readers.

Atwood’s view is that indifference and complacency to issues which are present in society will exacerbate them. The 1980’s is generally regarded as the end of the second wave of feminism and the beginning of the so-called “feminist sex wars”, The Handmaid’s Tale was a method for Atwood to warn against the issues that could arise from women being simply content with the gains they had made throughout the 1960s-1980s and not striving for complete equality. These ideas of the need to strive for absolute equality and to not be complacent to the issues of society are summed up by Atwood in the historical notes where sexism and the patriarchal society which were present in Gilead are still present though they are thinly veiled. For instance the very name The Handmaid’s Tale was given to the collection of tapes by Professor Wade and is intended to be a play on words with “tail” which has vulgar connotations. This use of a sexist joke emphasises that although the society post-Gilead is not as overtly sexist the society is still not equal.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood connects the effects of World War II on American citizens to the duties of the citizens of Gilead in order to portray how the government is dependent on the sacrifices its people make for the common good. According to the National WWII Museum, during WWII, civilians were urged to salvage materials in order to provide more supplies for the military. Substances like sugar, food, and gas were rationed. Materials such as tires, rubber, paper, metals, silk, and string were recycled (“Take a Closer Look: America Goes to War”). The practice of recycling and salvaging depicts how civilians would sacrifice some of their luxuries for more common items in order to contribute to the war effort. Offred is not

A form of mental oppression within The Handmaid’s Tale is showcased through the lack of individuality. The fact that in the first chapter, the characters are forbidden to use their real names let alone speaking them, leaving them with the only option which was “to lip-read… watching each other’s mouths. In this way [they] exchanged names from bed to bed (Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 14).” By conveying their names, they are able to hold on to and preserve what little individuality and identity they have left. Ultimately, it reveals how much power this new society has managed to gain and how much the main character clearly lacks within the situation. Moreover, the stative verb “exchanged” and the abstract noun “names” makes the action of telling each other their names come across like a business transaction. This actually highlights the way Gileadean society functions as woman are thought of as nothing but merchandise, objects, that can be sold or this case given away or exchanged to others in order to benefit the rest of society. Furthermore, the fact reflects the society that Atwood grew up in as women were generally thought of as just caregivers which would have significantly lowered self-esteem and brainwashed them into thinking that this is all that they can do; Offred begins to think this very

One of the many sad aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale is that the women who are subjected to abuse and oppression soon comply with the roles that have been assigned to them, both permitting and perpetuating abuse against and amongst themselves. Atwood is not particularly hopeful about women and power and agency as a means of changing the conditions in which they are trapped. Even Offred’s eventual escape from the strange and perverted system is more a function of luck than determined will. Paying particular attention to the ending of the novel, this essay will argue that the author wants to call the reader’s attention to the problems that women suffer, but that she offers no solution or hope for change. I will be addressing three different literary devices in this essay; Repetition, Characterization, and Foreshadowing. I hope you enjoy.

In the nineteenth century, US President James Madison was quoted as saying, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.” This quote is pertinent to Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. In it, it depicted a society in the future, with a conservative approach to government, favoring men, and very controlling. While it explored many topics that were relevant to the society at the time, the most important one was power and the power dynamics in the novel itself. The main areas of the novel that utilized this power the most are in the violence, the use of language, all surrounding the patriarchal society favoring men.

Language is a communication system. It is one of the most unavoidable, as well as underestimated, elements of everyday life and it is questionably the most powerful medium by which humans interconnect with one another. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrates how language is able to facilitate power and in turn, dominate a society. In this novel Atwood creates Gilead, an imaginary futuristic society where women are completely stripped of their freedom. Although this type of society utilizes guards and spies to reinforce the regulations, the primary power relies in the government’s control of language. In the Republic of Gilead, Atwood uses an official vocabulary that is much different than the one we use today. This language is specifically designed to serve the needs of the society’s elite and it manages to overlook and distort reality. Not only does Atwood use a warped language, but she also color codes different groups because color is just as much of a language than anything that is said out loud. With the use of this coded language, Gilead creates a system of titles. Throughout this novel, Atwood assigns each group of characters with terms such as Handmaids, Commander, Aunts, Unwomen, as well as color-coding certain groups, and by doing so, she manages to exemplify the power of language and how it shapes and controls a society.

In Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale takes place in a dystopian future. In this future, nearly all the women have become infertile, so the few who can still have babies have been rounded up, brainwashed, and assigned to powerful men in a twisted attempt to restore the human race.Set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States that treats women as property of the state, and the few remaining fertile women are forced into sexual servitude.Women are subsidized to having no rights and are subject to being only tools reproduction purposes, and are turned into a thing called Handmaids. Every Handmaid is assigned to an elite wealthy couple to help them produce a child. As, another way to strip the women of their identities they are given new names associated with the males name of the couple they are serving.Handmaid names consist of the word “of”

The Handmaids Tale is a dystopian novel set in a fascistic future of the America, which has been renamed “The Republic of Gilead”. During the history, pivotal social movements have appears out of the analysis of the discrimination that originate from a patriarchal society. For example, the well-known activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton have spoken out for the women's franchise, as well as gender variation in the field of education and the workforce. However, while many community have developed past these misogynistic differences, Margaret Atwood, in her novel The Handmaid's Tale, display a futuristic, dystopian society called Gilead, which draws the idea of patriarchal to their reasonable end.

The effect of words, powerless and innocent as they are, depending on the one who combines them can have good and evil outcomes. In the hands of Margaret Atwood, she used her knowledge and different interpretation of words in her dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale in a very indirect and devious way making her novel a treasure hunt in search of these key words for the understanding of the novel. The novel takes place in Gilead, a very dark future of the United States, governed by a theocratic government which oppresses women by making them “handmaids” in the name of religion to cure the infertility of the population. The double entendre diction which exists throughout the whole novel adds subliminal hints on the charactarisation of the characters, such as Offred, and to the story itself, such as the religious political system that governs Gilead, which is a double entendre in itself. These different plays on diction proves the oppression of our main character and proves how powerful language can be.

Gilead’s government relies heavily on language from the bible to help maintain its theocratic dictatorship. It does this by taking religious quotes such as “Give me children or else I die” out of context and bending the meaning to impose their ideologies. A quote that is made to be taken quite literally in Gilead as the women are told it is their sole purpose to reproduce and if they do not they are an “unwoman” a disturbing term which implies that in the eyes of Gilead, unless the women meet its ideology, they are useless and their humanity is taken away from them.

However, the theft of the women’s real names is the most devastating to characters like Offred because it strips her from her unique identity. Names carry an infinite amount of information that Atwood wants the audience to realize is often overlooked; factors such as the individual’s origin, information about their family, gender, and potentially their culture, commonly serve as the precursor for humans to predict how their interactions with one another will go. The language that Gilead uses to categorize and identify people within its society breaks unity among members, and completely changes the meaning and value of the word ‘feminine’. Addressing the females that are no longer able to reproduce as “unwomen” gives Gilead the power to take the only thing that remains to bond them. While it is not uncommon for different cultures to have varying views about how women interact within their civilizations, the officials of Gilead almost completely remove women as members of society. Atwood wisely uses names as a tool to connect with the audience because the use of names is a fundamental element of society that occurs routinely and at a high frequency. More importantly, Atwood uses her opinions about the value of a name, to serve as a lesson to readers; she insinuates that her audience should increase their awareness of the effects and potential

Though the English language has its roots in a male-dominated society where the true meaning of words are now taken for granted. In The Handmaid’s Tale, language facilitates power. In order to effectively rule over class and gender the level of censorship on literature and control of discourses runs high. Atwood uses word choice to expose the shocking structures of the Gilead society and how faulty its foundations are as it was built upon gender inequality. The repercussions of gendered language are evident throughout the novel, implying that the sexist structure of Gilead is a result of oppressive language modern Americans accept and use in every day talk.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, causes the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own accuracy (Watzlawick, 1984). Thus, language shapes and restructures the order of things, it is clear the way words can constrain the thoughts of individuals. The language used to describe individuals in authoritative positions expose the ways language is used to influence and control the ideas people may have. The Handmaid’s Tale uses language not only to construct a possible dystopian future, but to also showcase how language works in relation to power and gender within one’s own society. In the article Speaking as a Heterosexual: How Does Sexuality Matter for Talk-in-Interaction, Celia Kitzinger (2005) discusses how a heterosexual world is produced in everyday talk -in-interaction and how privileges enjoyed by dominant groups in general are groups that identities and modes of behavior are rarely scrutinized. This article conducted a conversation analysis in order to understand how dominant group construct the social world and however they might privately describe their internal sexual desires may differ from the public identities they display in heterosexual interactions. (Kitzinger, 2005). Similarly, Atwood illustrates the oppression of women through the technique of naming as a way to keep them in order. The narrator herself, Offred, derives from the possessive form “of Fred.” Handmaids are