Setting
The narrative landscape of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" is anchored in a dystopian future where societal and environmental collapse leads to a draconian theocracy. Atwood paints a world where personal freedoms are curtailed, particularly for women, who are commodified for their fertility. The setting not only serves as a backdrop but also as a pivotal element in illustrating the power dynamics and cultural critiques woven throughout the novel.
Gilead
Gilead, the reimagined northeastern United States, emerges as a theocratic regime stemming from a coup by right-wing, conservative Christians. In this bleak vision, the natural world is marred by pollution, leading to plummeting birth rates. The government responds by outlawing divorce, pornography, abortion, and stripping women of their rights to property and financial independence. Fertile women, like the protagonist, are reduced to breeding tools for high-ranking officials. Set against the historically rich backdrop of New England, Atwood crafts a setting layered with irony. Cambridge, with its landmarks such as the library and the wall, becomes a symbol of oppression, sharply contrasting with its legacy as a hub of freedom and learning. The narrative's dedication to Atwood’s ancestor, Mary Webster, and her Harvard mentor, Perry Miller, further enriches this tapestry of historical allusions and societal critique.
Colonies
Beyond Gilead’s oppressive boundaries lie the Colonies, a barren wasteland designated for "unwomen"—infertile or rebellious females sentenced to a slow death cleaning toxic waste. This grim exile serves as a threat to enforce compliance among handmaids, who must produce offspring within three assignments or face this dire fate. The Colonies exemplify the ruthlessness of Gilead’s regime, where the value of women is measured solely by their reproductive capabilities, and life is bleak and short-lived for those deemed useless.
Canada
Contrasting the oppressive reality of Gilead, Canada symbolizes hope and liberation. Though the novel's events are confined to Gilead's borders, Canada represents a sanctuary for those fleeing persecution. The protagonist's desperate attempts to escape with her family highlight the stark divide between tyranny and freedom. The narrative's closing hints at a hidden network—reminiscent of the Underground Railroad—allowing persecuted individuals to seek refuge in the north, underscoring Canada’s role as a beacon of hope in a world consumed by fear and control.
Expert Q&A
What year is The Handmaid's Tale set in?
Though the exact year is never revealed by the characters of The Handmaid's Tale, one can find a great deal of evidence to suggest that it takes place in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Various technologies, medical advances, and attitudes in the text make it clear that it could not take place much, if any, earlier than this. Further, the medium Offred used to record her narrative also suggests this time period.
What are the three key settings in Margret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale?
The three key settings in The Handmaid's Tale are the Commander's home, the school where handmaids are re-educated, and the pre-Gilead society. The Commander's home is central to the plot, where much of the story unfolds. The re-education school highlights the regime's control, while the pre-Gilead flashbacks underscore the societal changes leading to women's oppression.
How does the setting in The Handmaid's Tale influence the characters' actions and choices?
Why is a particular architectural style used in The Handmaid's Tale?
The architectural style in "The Handmaid's Tale" is traditional and orderly, reflecting Gilead's emphasis on an imagined traditional Christian society. The rulers have repurposed existing architecture, making it neater and more repressive, symbolizing hierarchy and control. New architectural elements, like sentry gates and barbed wire, signify violence and repression. This style aims to erase individualism, proclaim a Christian state, and reinforce patriarchal ideals, opposing modern, egalitarian values.
Characterize Gilead and its dystopian features in The Handmaid's Tale.
In The Handmaid's Tale, Gilead is a repressive and highly regulated state whose values derive from fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible. Gender roles are strictly enforced, religion devotion is a requirement, and the government justifies its harsh control of its citizens by claiming that it is all in the name of security and continuing defense in the ongoing war.
Style and Technique
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is a rich tapestry of literary techniques, employing Gothic elements and hallucinatory imagery to explore the disorienting world of Gilead. Through Offred's detached narration, the novel combines stark realities with psychological intensity, drawing the reader into a dystopian society marked by extreme patriarchal control and repression. As the story unfolds, Atwood's use of narrative twists and meta-commentary invites readers to reflect on the nature of storytelling and the preservation of women's voices.
Gothic Elements and Imagery
Atwood's characteristic Gothicism manifests in the grotesque and surreal atmosphere of Gilead, where Offred's fragmented interior monologue reveals the intense alienation experienced by women. The physical transformation of familiar spaces, such as the conversion of Harvard Yard into a site for public executions, serves as a chilling backdrop to the narrative. These scenes are described with Offred's matter-of-fact tone, enhancing the horror of Gilead’s oppressive regime.
Symbolism and Disorientation
The novel effectively uses symbolism to underscore the oppressive social rules imposed on women. The handmaids' red robes and white blinders symbolize their enforced subservience and loss of individuality. Atwood's description of public rituals, such as the violent "particicutions," further intensifies the pervasive sense of control and dehumanization.
Narrative Structure and Perspective
Offred's first-person account immerses the reader in her claustrophobic reality, yet Atwood introduces a significant narrative shift in the novel's epilogue. The story transitions to a futuristic setting in 2195, offering a temporary escape from the immediacy of Offred’s experiences. This time shift frames the tale as a historical document, analyzed by academics at a conference, adding layers of complexity to the narrative.
The Epilogue: Reflection and Satire
Atwood uses the epilogue to satirize academic discourse, critiquing how historical narratives can be manipulated or misunderstood. Professor James Darcy Pieixoto, the male speaker at the conference, epitomizes this critique with his reductionist approach and sexist humor. The revelation that Offred’s story is preserved through tape recordings, rather than written text, underscores the fragility and resilience of women's voices over time.
Postmodern Questions and Interpretations
The novel raises profound questions about authorship and interpretation, as Pieixoto and his team act as mediators between Offred's narrative and the reader. This meta-narrative layer challenges the reader to consider whose voice truly shapes the story. In echoing Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Atwood cleverly intertwines classic literary homage with a critique of patriarchal storytelling.
Literary Precedents
Much has been said about Atwood's clear debt to the tradition of dystopian fiction that came before The Handmaid's Tale, particularly George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). Atwood's novel is anti-utopian, focusing on the power structures through which ideologically driven regimes establish and maintain control over specific populations. She uses distinctions based on gender, race, and class to create a rigidly hierarchical society with absolutist cultural values that allow no compromise, leading to harsh persecution of "deviance." Dystopian stories serve as cautionary tales, warning against what their authors see as society's most dangerous current trends. The genre's characteristic extremism creates a nightmarish atmosphere that permeates The Handmaid's Tale, whose alien philosophical and political foundation paradoxically feels immediate due to its familiar details.
Atwood asserts that every abuse and horror in Gilead's social policy has either been practiced at some point in history or has a direct parallel in the modern world. Some critics have faulted her for not creating as self-contained and original a society as found in Nineteen Eighty-four. However, Atwood contends that Gilead is meant to be a relatively recent historical development, lacking the temporal leap into the future typical of other such fictions. She also avoids calling the novel science fiction, preferring the term "speculative fiction."
Contrasting with this dystopian aspect, relatively little attention has been given to the tradition of feminist Utopian writing that The Handmaid's Tale also engages with. Unlike Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland or Marge Piercy's more recent Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), which depict idealized communities where hierarchical gender divisions and their resulting conflicts are replaced by female-associated virtues like nurturance and egalitarianism, Atwood's novel envisions a dark alternative where female subjugation is the central societal fact.
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