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What role does fear play in The Handmaid's Tale?
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In "The Handmaid's Tale," fear is a crucial tool for social and political control in Gilead. Offred, the protagonist, constantly fears punishment, execution, and exile to the colonies. The lack of information and constant surveillance exacerbate this fear. She also fears for her loved ones, particularly Luke and her daughter, and worries about losing her identity, feeling reduced to a mere vessel for reproduction. This pervasive fear maintains the oppressive regime's power.
Fear is the main source of social and political control in the Republic of Gilead, the society of The Handmaid's Tale. Offred, the main character, is hemmed in by fear all the time. When she goes to market with a fellow handmaid, she confronts the dangling dead bodies of people who have been hanged for crimes such as sexual deviancy. When being trained as a handmaid, she lives in fear of the harsh physical punishments the smallest lack of obedience brings. Living in the commander's household, she lives in fear that if she does not get pregnant, she may be sent to the colonies to clean up radioactive waste: a death sentence.
Lack of any information about what is going on in the wider world also feeds the fear of Offred and the other handmaids. They simply have no information with which to orient themselves to a...
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wider world, so must always assume the worst as a default position.
Offred and her fellow handmaids are under almost constant surveillance. Armed guards control the streets, and spies work undercover. Offred must stay in her own world and is afraid even to ask questions for fear that she will be denounced.
The highly restricted world that Offred lives in provides a backdrop of constant anxiety, especially as she often has nothing to do. The novel effectively shows that the everyday knowledge, mobility, and information we take for granted are sources of power that are denied to the lower caste women in this society. Beyond that, the constant and ever-present threat of severe physical harm or execution keeps people in line in an inhumane environment that no normal person would tolerate if he or she had a choice.
Offred also fears for her loved ones—for Luke and her daughter especially. She constructs all kinds of conflicting narratives in her head to account for Luke: in one, he's escaped; in another, he's dead; she just hopes that he's not being tortured somewhere (fearing that he is). Further, the fear of never seeing her daughter again also paralyzes Offred at times. It is agonizing to her to think that she might never find out exactly what happened to her daughter after she was taken, and when she sees the photograph of her daughter, she fears that her new family has killed the girl she once was, forcing her into a role as a starched and stiff Commander's child.
Offred also fears losing herself. She has come to think of herself as a walking womb, a vessel waiting to be filled with the Commander's baby. Since her uterus is the only valuable part of her (according to the community's values), it is easy for her to forget to value herself as an individual.