Handmaids Tale: Religion and Theocracy

Intro:

Handmaids tale is presented not as a criticism of the bible itself but of the ways in which people and theocracies use the bible for their own purposes. Similarly to Handmaid's tale Duffy critiques religion in her poem the Virgin's memo, using ambiguous language much like Atwood. Duffy however, does this to symbolise the loss of female voices while Atwood uses ambiguity in the final chapter of the novel to show the moral uncertainty of Gilead. Duffy also presents similar views to Atwood with her presentation of the toll of motherhood on women. Linking to Atwood's biblical epigraph of Rachel and Leah.

P1: Handmaid's tale the epigraph and c15

- in the old testament Gilead is a very fertile and desirable region in ancient Palestine, Atwood's version is the opposite of fertile instead acting as a way for the gov to appear pure and clean by manipulating reproduction
- offred's job as a handmaid is based of the biblical precedent of Rachel and Leah where fertile servants carry on adulterous relationships to allow infertile women like the wives to have children
- the commander even reads the lines from Genesis before the ceremony in c15
- offred shows how this passage from Genesis has been manipulated in her thoughts of how many of the biblical passages have been changes to suit Gilead's propaganda
- "blessed are the meek. Blessed are the silent. I knew they made that up. I knew it was wrong and they left things out too. "
- it is the Rachel and Leah story which makes up the novels first epigraph justifying and moralizing the crude intercourse about to take place
- the ideal of Rachel and Leah also appear as the true name of the Red centre as revealed by Offred
- in the first epigraph Billah becomes the surrogate for the infertile Rachel
- this provides the biblical precedent for sexual practices in Gilead and opens eh way to a feminist critique of a patriarchal society in which women are regarded as nothing but sexual/domestic objects

P2: link to Work

- Duffy shows the toll on women and the religious expectations of female fertility shown in the epigraph in her poem "Work"
- the poem explores the idea of women providing for others in society and the role of the mother expanding to become unmanageable
- the structure of the poem reflects this
- each stanza contains info about how many people women are providing for beginning with "feeding one" and expanding over the course of the poem to "a billion named"
- the structure stays the same but the content of each demands more and more space, reflecting the huge expectations placed on women to provide for those relying on them
- the phrase containing the number of people the woman is providing for also comes earlier in each stanza
- it is the last line in stanza 2, the second last in stanza 3, even earlier in stanza 4 until the last stanza begins with "the world"
- the demands and expectations placed on women are ever increasing. Duffy uses the structure of the poem to reflect this notion.

P3: Handmaid's tale the final lines

- Atwood uses the end of the novel to provide a final critique of religious oppression
- c46 the final line; "and so i step up, into the darkness within, or else the light"
- Offred is either taken away by Mayday or by the eyes
- this is intentionally ambiguous but the way Atwood phrases the line creates a biblical reference
- the idea of darkness and light appears frequently in the bible with light typically representing Jesus/salvation and darkness typically representing sin/temptation
- offred's speculation about her fate is described in biblical terms to show that she is either going towards the light (mayday) or towards the darkness (the eyes)
- the darkness within could also represent how offred has gone against Gilead's religious ideals and from their perspective is a sinner/a subversive
- ultimately this shows that Offred's idea of light and salvation is her escape from teh religious oppression of Gilead which the historical notes suggest she accomplished

P4: link to Virgin's memo

- similarly to Atwood Duffy employs the technique of ambiguity in her poem "virgins memo"
- in lines 9-11 notably Duffy uses the words "unintelligible" and "untranslatable" to describe the woman's voice being transcribed by presumably a man
- unlike Atwood Duffy's use of ambiguity is to reflect the loss of female voices
- women were not taught how to write or read and the person writing "Mary's" ideas down did not take the time to understand her perspective
- symbolising the lack of value people see in the female voice
- Duffy also suggests female passivity in her poem which correlates with the ideals presented by Gilead for women
- the use of modality in the word "maybe" shows the hesitancy of the female speaker when suggesting corrections to the world
- Duffy's technique of apocrypha further this as the poem is presented as a biblical writing that is unauthentic as Mary doesn't acc express any views on creation
- highlighting once again the lack of female voice within religion

AO3:

- Atwood claims Gilead is conceptualized as a society similar to puritanical new England but reinforced with the modern day fervour of the Christian right
- 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

AO5:

A feminist critique from the second wave of feminism such as Betty Freidan as argued in her novel the Feminine Mystique (1963) that women could not be limited to the home, as only mothers and wives for the benefit of men. Just as Gilead limits women to stay within the home (wives) or within their respective domestic roles.