The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood - Essay Example

Margaret Atwood, the second Canadian to bag the Booker Prize is Canada’s most prolific The Handmaid’s Tale, a novel with a futuristic settingand a dystopic theme came out in 1985 when Atwood was forty-six. Belonging to both the genres of ‘speculative fiction’ and ‘dystopia’, the novel envisages a bleak future as the invariable outcome of a series of situations playing dominant in the post-modern, technocratic, cosmopolitan world, and attempts to warn humanity about an impending catastrophe. The erosion of values in the present world with its hiking rate of individual freedom prompt conservative, traditionalists of a sort to resort to checking measures. Whether it results in the reinstatement of moral values to the creation of a better world is the matter of concern here. Based on the principle that “no society ever strays completely far from its roots” (Curious Pursuits, 91), Atwood has created a future society reviving the trends and practices of the Nineteenth Century Puritanism. The novel, which is the outcome of composite factors like vast and thorough reading of history, extensive travel, first hand experiences of real despotisms and experience acquired through a membership in the Amnesty International, perpetrates the author’s conviction that totalitarian regimes breed fear and silence. In such an atmosphere, morality is also a degenerative instrument of torture at the hands of the dictators. Morality, when enforced, becomes nothing but oppression and invariably fails to serve its purpose. The term morality implies the ability to discern right, good and virtue from their counterparts. Human beings are endowed with the ability to rationalize and the free will to face crucial situations in life demanding the exercise of these faculties. Every society has its set of standards in morality, so also each individual. Various factors like cultural parameters, contemporary trends and individual preferences play vital roles in deciding and setting up these standards. The revival of Puritanism in the novel, with its dictatorial enforcement of standards of living pose an outrageous, dismal and despicable picture of an impending possibility fulfilling a dystopia’s mission of warning the world. The simulated American theocracy in the novel is patterned after the Old Testament standards. In the imaginary nation ‘The Republic of Gilead’ which is the United States of America in the distant future, women are withdrawn from the public spheres and are categorized according to the duties they can perform and are strictly confined to home. The small number of people who rise to power are called the ‘Sons of Jacob Think Tanks’ and they establish a totalitarian regime with the Old Testament as their manifesto. Women with reproductive fitness are assigned to elite men promoting biblical polygamy and surrogate motherhood. All second marriages and non-marital liaisons are declared adulterous, all female partners are arrested, their children are confiscated and assigned top childless couples of upper level eager for progeny by any means (The ­Handmaid’s Tale, 378). The morality exercised in the novel is thus regressive. What is significant and applicable to a particular society in a definite time is not always suitable for any society in anytime. Both the nature of the society and the time it is in matter much when it comes to determining its morality. The Gilead is the resultant effect of a pattern of life followed by its predecessors or rather victims. There is a contrast between the moralities of these two worlds. The Gilead, though the novelist’s envisioned world, is already in the offing, what with the dwindling economies, lack of availability of cheap raw materials, widespread environmental catastrophes, all paved way to a great calamity. If morality is the ability to act for the larger humanity, all that the present world is doing is immoral. The harm done to nature, the way the privileged keep rising over the under-privileged, the blind competitions between nations, the dangerous heights to which materialism has risen up, all this can be regarded as undesirable outcomes of living without exercising the innate p[power of discretion inherent in us. Atwood’s visits to Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan exerted vital impact on her fashioning of the totalitarian regime in the novel. The costume of the handmaids, as acknowledged by Atwood is a combination of a nun’s gear, the chador, girls’ school hemlines and so on (Curious Pursuits, 247). The dress code for females does not naturally bring about any ideal moral standard for a society. All evil like jealousy, show-off, flirting, adultery, everything take place in Gilead despite its strictly imposed, curious costumes of its various categories of women, especially the handmaids. Morality is a private matter. No regime can bring it about by force. Power is a corrupting force. In the Puritanic regime of Gilead, despite its stress on morality, those in power utilize the same to violate the very norms of the regime. The last part of the novel, ‘Historical Notes on The Handmaid’s Tale’ brings to light in an analytical manner the way Gilead’s mechanism worked. The method of using women to control women is pointed out to prove how power can be used for repressive purposes. It is said, “When power is so scarce, a little of it is tempting” (The Handmaid’s Tale, 384). The society in the Republic of Gilead is not strictly moralistic. There is hierarchy maintained, freedom and rights of individuals curtailed, unnecessary privileges attributed to the ruling class and all such vices which go against the precepts of basic morality. It is a tyrannous situation where the term morality is used to intimidate and oppress. The purpose of morality is the maintenance of a world that is inhabitable for all forms of life. If each separate element in this world act in accordance with the natural pattern with that concern, not trespassing or violating the order, then it is ideal for all. In Gilead there is no such order, only enforced subjugation and encroachment into privacy. Ordinary human decency is not guaranteed. Though based on the Bible, this regime contradicts the teachings of Christ. The very fact that the Bible is kept under lock and key points to this. The dictators’ vested interests are given free rein and they are essentially not moralistic. They are only outwardly concerned about the maintenance of certain codes of conduct to meet their own ends. References Atwood, Margaret. Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing 1970-2005. London: Virago, 2005. ---. The Handmaid’s Tale. USA, Seal Books, 1998. Read More