The Handmaid's Tale Context

Canadian identity

Canadian identity

• Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa Canada

• Atwood interested in the Canadian identity

• Many critics argued handmaids tale could be viewed as the relationship between Canada (the handmaids) and America (Gilead).

• Atwood resists the interpretation but is well known for avoiding labels.

Social realism

• Atwood was asked if handmaids tale was a feminist text but claimed it was purely social realism

The testaments

• published in 2019 became the sequel to handmaids tale

• takes place 15 years after Offred’s story in Gilead

• won Atwood the 2019 Man Booker prize

Setting

• attwood places the action in the real life setting of Cambridge Mass. she plays on the irony of this being home to Harvard uni and historically the site of Salem witch trials in the 17th century

• Harvard uni is for liberal thought, freedom and acceptance but atrocities like the wall, salvagings and partcicutions take place.

• offred describes her surroundings as a "palimpsest" in c1 which is something that has been altered holding traces of what came before

Salem witch trials

• the Salem witch trials took place in mass. Atwood implies that when lessons from history are not learnt we are doomed to keep on repeating them. Shown by the mistreatment of women in Gilead.

• people were tortured and murdered after being publicly accused of being involved in witchcraft

• any individual who didn't conform to societal norms or who was thought to be a dissenter was accused put on trial and most likely killed to allay fears and paranoia

Historical notes

• the novel ends on historical notes set in the uni of Denay Nunavit in 2195. Atwood may have chosen this ending to emphasise the restorative power of knowledge and education. But the sexist attitudes of the professors implies that gender relations are still complex and problematic.

The Canterbury tales

• according to the historical notes the title of the novel is an inter textual allusion to chaucers work the Canterbury tales.

• in the Canterbury tales the many stories are titles by the job of the narrator (the knights tale) : the handmaids tale

• a tale is often fictional which throws doubt to offred’s authenticity

Oral tradition of story telling

• Atwood may be referencing to the oral tradition of storytelling as women would share their experiences by speaking to family and friends as they weren't educated enough to be able to write down their stories

• we are told that offred records her voice on a series of cassette tapes. This gives the oral tradition of storytelling to legitimise women’s experiences a more technological twist

The scarlet letter

• Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the scarlet letter in 1850. The novel is set in puritanical mass in the 17th century and influenced HT

• protagonist is unmarried woman who refuses to say who the father of her child is and as punishment is forced to stand on stage and be humiliated

• she has to wear letter A (standing for adultery) for the rest of her life

• the colour red symbolises sin in both text linking to the idea of shaming women for their sexuality and bodies

Dystopian fiction

• Atwood was quoted saying the science fiction was all "monsters and spaceships" whereas speculative fiction like HT "could really happen"

• part of dystopian fiction presenting warning or danger to reader by setting stories in similar worlds or nightmare versions of future, it is often satirical aiming to criticise the world

Parallels to Orwell

• 1984 was written in 1949 about the Everyman protagonist Winston smith who tried to survive totalitarian society of Oceania where everyone is watched by big brother the faceless authority

• both authors use neologisms (new words)

• both have the constant threat of surveillance

• both deal with violence being used for controlling the masses and deflecting focus from those in charge

• both protagonists are beaten down by the regime willing to say anything and incriminate anyone to survive

Political context - Berlin and Iran

• Atwood wrote handmaids tale partially in West Berlin in 1980s

• the novel was published in 1986 - 3 years before Berlin Wall fell

• the Berlin Wall is a symbol of segregation and isolation influencing the wall idea in HT

• professor crescent moon makes comment in historical notes about the Iranian revolution "Iran and Gilead: two late-20th century monotheocracies" where the revolution saw the overthrowing of monarchy and est of the new Islamic republic

• this revolution led to womens rights being diminished including mandatory veiling of women and public stoning of people believed to be dissenters

Political context - America and the new right

• lots of Atwood’s research focused on increasing political strength of right wing religious fundamentalist groups like supporter Ronald Reagan

• he promoted transitional family values, conservative beliefs and a strong evangelical Christian faith

• president 1981-1989

• his religion warned against the sins of homosexuality, abortion and divorce

• ideologies of women being primarily for procreation and seen as inferior to men in marriage

• fears in America at failing fertility rates saw new right promote traditional heterosexual family values and role of women as procreators

Puritan New England

• puritans aspired to create a utopian society but did so through fear, intimidation and patriarchal rule and harsh living conditions

• women were classed as inferior and forced into passive domestic life to remind them of preordained role god chose

• they had to wear functional clothing covering themselves from everyone but their husband

• they hoped for nothing but to bear children and be a good dutiful wife

The underground female road

• every thing that happened in the novel happened IRL

• the Underground Railroad refers to secret smuggling slaves into safe houses and secret routes in the US in early 1800s to get them to Canada or free states

• it is the underground network of people who worked under threat of imprisonment and death to help those enslaved

• by end of civil war estimated 100, 000 black slaves being smuggled

Children of Ham and Soul scrolls

• Atwood references prejudice against African Americans with news from tv reporting "resettlement of the children of Ham"

• suggests being segregated bc of their race

• refs slavery in US and across globe

• "resettlement" could also be ref to Apartheid in South Africa which means "apartness" in Afrikaans this was the wide spread discrimination of non white people both politically and economically

Offreds tattoo

• Offred’s tattoo is a visible sign that she is part of the regime and makes her easily identifiable

• ref to tattooing numbers on prisoners in WW2. Jews in nazi concentration camps would have their identity reduced to number on their arm

• way of controlling objectifying and dehumanising individuals

Particicutions and salvagings

• countries like Iran and North Korea hold public death sentences executions and allow people to participate in murder

• Iranian history female rape victims have been accused of adultery and buried to their neck and stoned to death by men as others watch

Abortion

• the decree 770 was a law in Romania passed in 1967 which made abortion and all contraception illegal

• the gov was worried about decreasing birth rates and wanted to make their country larger and stronger

• this led to strictly enforced conditions on women including monitored trips to gynaecologist and secret police surveilling hospitals making sure women were trying to get pregnant and not controlling their own bodies

Unwomen and the colonies

• 1970s Soviet Union made prisoners work in uranium mines to collect enough of the chemical element to develop arsenal of atomic weapons

• many died

• in HT it's suggested the unwomen try to clear the land of nuclear waste and end up with life expectancy of 3 months

Indian adoption project

• child welfare league of America of 1958 developed the Indian adoption project which was widespread kidnapping and relocating of native Indian children to white middle class families

• motivated by ideology that children were being neglected without American values

• children were taken by the gov along with help of churches and given to more "deserving families"

Biblical significance

• epigraph shows Gilead is a fundamentalist Christian theocracy

• name of Gilead comes from bible mentioned in first book of genesis as hill Jacob flees to as a witness of god

• it is a place renowned for its fertility

• holds special balm meant to heal creating the phrase "there is a balm in Gilead"

Jacob, Rachel and Leah

• epigraph implies the practice of a handmaid as a way of having a child had now become part of the ceremony and that biblical scripture is used to imprison and oppress handmaids

• the red centre in the novel stands for the Rachel and Leah centre which refs the story of both wives of Jacob using handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah to bear children

Patriarchal Lexis

• language used by handmaids is prescribed from the bible

• means patriarchal language is used to strengthen oppression of the handmaids and status as "walking wombs"

• "praise be" "blessed be the fruit" "may the lord open" "under his eye"

Shops in Gilead

• all shop names come from bible

• Lillies of the field, all fresh and milk and honey refer to the Old Testament

• juxtaposed with the actual grocery shop of Gilead which has run out of produce

The real dystopia

• Although HT may be seen as science fiction or "speculative fiction" (Atwood) it draws on many real historical events

• Atwood even said: "there's nothing in the book that hasn't already happened"

• the historical notes even refer to the real events of the 1970's

AIDS

• AIDS and HIV were first recognised in America in 1980's shortly before Atwood wrote the HT

• it has killed millions of people and there are millions more suffering from it

• it is most commonly transmitted through sexual activity

Nuclear plant accidents

• Pieixoto refers to nuclear plant accidents

• Three Mile Island incident in 1979

• no one was harmed or killed but there have been doubts about the incidents affects on the environment and on human/animal health

• ironically the most notorious nuclear accident happened just after HT was published

• Chernobyl in Ukraine

Romanian children

• The historical notes mention the banning of birth control in Romania (1966)

• the Romanian president wanted to increase the country's pop so banned all birth control and abortion

• women of child-bearing age were expected to have 5 children

• as a result thousands of children were born unwanted and thousands were abandoned

• Atwood uses this example to make us question Gilead's laws on childbirth and its anti-abortion stance

Polygamy

• Historical notes make reference to the handmaids as a form of "simultaneous polygamy"

• refers to the Mormons who encouraged polygamy

• Mormons began in the 19th century America

• however this is more rare now

• however this is more rare now