Hierarchies of Gender, Cultural and Racial Expectations

By [unknown]

A Texts and Contexts approach to The Handmaids Tale

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

All texts seek to represent some aspect of reality, and as such, recreate the perceived gender, cultural and racial expectations that underpin societies. As the creation of a completely unbiased text is impossible, these expectations are explored through the construction of social hierarchies. It is this exploration of possible social hierarchies that forms the basis for Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a near future dystopia, which extrapolates the emerging religious fanaticism and feminist backlash of the 1980s. Through the creation of the theocratic dictatorship of Gilead as the future of modern-day America, Atwood provides a forum in which to expose the inherent flaws in any attempts to rewrite a person’s gender, cultural or racial identity, making “…palimpsests…” of them. Instead, by highlighting the imposed hierarchy of Gileadean society, she foregrounds its conceptual flaws within startlingly realistic realms of possibility.

The central social hierarchy within the novel is the gender hierarchy, placing men in a position of extreme power. This is evident in every aspect of the book, as the entire Gileadean society is a male nexus of power. The male persona is perceived to be incorruptible and perfect:
There is no such thing as a sterile man any more, not officially. (p71)
(sterility symbolic of all evils and failings within Gileadean society). This is the ethos behind the entire Gileadean Rhetoric pervading this novel. Whereas women are often compromised by a forced sexual nature, thereby allowing them to be blamed for problems of conception, men retain a “…cloth power…” (p266), a dignity, which places them above women in the gender hierarchy of the text. This level of dignity is maintained through a number of male conduits of power. There is a strong sense of male ownership throughout the novel. All female characters in the text are only mentioned in relationship to a male owner of some sort. This is most vivid in the fact that the handmaids are renamed with the name of their Commander attached to the prefix Of-, as in the patronymic titles Offred, Ofglen and Ofwarren. Even the wives are generally referred to as Commanders’ Wives instead of as individual names (with the occasional exception of Serena Joy). Even the Econowives are so-named not because of their economic situation, but because of the rank of their husbands. Male power is foregrounded, as the entire home unit is within male jurisdiction:
The Commander is the head of the household. The house is what he holds.
To have and to hold, till death do us part.
The hold of a ship. Hollow. (p91)
Officially, men are in control, yet that control is limited within the text, as Offred’s narrative subverts the major power structure of the class of male overlords. The Gileadean rhetoric itself works to promote male superiority by taking complete control of the official discourse and of all forms of technology and learning. Men are the only ones who may drive cars, own property, have bank accounts, work, or even read from the Bible or any other text. They are also invested with political power, as they are the ones who overthrow the previous American government, making it implicit in the text that they are responsible for writing the oppressive regulations for women, promoted by the Aunts. Because of these power conduits, the chapters in which Offred plays scrabble with the Commander become power plays, in which she seems to win because he has the power over the discourse enabling him to let her win. He has the power to make that choice. She is placed at a disadvantage, noted as she describes the effects of her disempowerment as:
… like using a language I’d once known but had nearly forgotten, a language having to do with customs that had long been passed out of the world… (p164)
This is evidence both of her estrangement from egalitarian gender relations, and implicit of his power as one aware of the “…customs…”. By constructing a male society with powers over the discourse of the text, physical ownership of other characters, political power, and with an assumed level of male superiority and infallibility, Atwood explores possible gender hierarchies in society.

As men are constructed as the dominant gender, women are portrayed as the submissive gender, depicted as a nation occupied by brutal invaders. The submissive nature of women acknowledged by Gileadean society is made clear within the first pages of the novel. The first word in chapter one is “…we…” (p13), showing that there are no individuals within this conquered gender. The reference to “…old sex…” (p13) is an introduction to the major point of conflict in the text, that women are merely sexual devices, a national resource of reproductive capacity, with no further past or future besides the sexual role. The sexual role later becomes a sexual imperative as the credo “…Give me children, or else I die…” (p71) is recited. Women are also given a “…talent for insatiability…” (p13), which is a euphemistic reference to the dreadful abuses of their liberty, and humanity that they suffer, to such an extent that their desire for equality and freedom is never to be satisfied. The major figment of female disempowerment throughout the text is the novel’s constant preoccupation with sexual activity and submissiveness. Not only are the women disempowered by their classification and function, defined along purely reproductive lines, men are deemed sexually perfect, so there can only be “…women who are barren…” (p71) to blame for the extremely low Gileadean birthrates. This is used against women by men such as the doctor, who tries to take advantage of Offred for his own sexual gratification by mocking sympathy for her survival need to bear children. However this weak image of women officially recognised by the Gileadean society of The Handmaid’s Tale is contrasted with assertive images of women, such as the feminists in pre-Gileadean times, and Offred’s own ecriture feminine and attempts to maintain her female dignity. The presence of the novel itself is a part of the storytelling which empowers Offred, giving her a discourse in which she has the power to make “…reconstructions…” (p150) of events as she pleases. She is able to challenge the degradation of the female body as a sexual tool through her own reflections on her body. These reflections are not cold and functional, but instead regard her body as almost a sacred mystery:
I sink down into my body as into a swamp, fenland, where only I know the footing….
I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping. Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night and dark and curved like that, though black-red rather than black. (p83-84)
Atwood’s background in poetry is utilised with the elaborate metaphors and similes, which are used throughout the book to describe and empower Offred’s female experiences. Such imagery forms part of the ecriture feminie, a style of writing which reflects the emotional tides of women, which when combined with the feminine literature of diaries, creates a strong voice in opposition to the male writings of Gilead and even the male Historical Notes. Other means are also used to reassert power against male oppression. Though female names are replaced by patronymic titles, this allows the women to use their original names as a secret bond between friends, strengthening relationships in resistance to the dominant male rule. This is seen in the exchanging of names between girls in the Rachel and Leah Centre, as well as the token of trust passed between Offred and Nick:
I tell him my real name, and feel that therefore I am known. (p282)
Aggressive opposition to male domination is also expressed in the flashbacks to feminist activities carried out by Offred’s mother and Moira. However, these are presented as an extreme, to the point of dominating over men (completely in the case of Moira’s lesbianism), and are not promoted in the text. There is a quiet criticism in the tone describing these past events, as it is the anti-feminist backlash caused by such militant feminism that is extrapolated to form the dystopic Gileadean world. Feminist slogans such as “…Every Baby A Wanted Baby…” (p129) and women’s culture are silently mocked by the text. The Gileadean culture is a women’s culture in that it revolves around the functions of women and their roles (sexual), and each baby born in Gilead is indeed wanted (because death is the punishment for being barren). Atwood herself has said:
“Woman” is the sum total of women. It doesn’t exist apart from that, except as an abstracted idea. (Conversations, p201)
and thereby rejects notions of a collected women’s culture or female power drawn from the collective. In fact, Atwood challenges literary conventions by creating women who are empowered as individuals and men empowered with group identities (the longstanding literary convention being to create female power through the collective and male power individually). Characters such as Offred and Moira are empowered as individuals with unique histories, however those disempowered are the collective Aunts (named after Biblical women), Wives, Marthas and Econowives. The same is also true of the collective men, the Commanders, Eyes, Angels and Guardians. Though the men have power within Gileadean society, they are pushed to the margins of the text, referred to as merely collective identities, thereby disempowered. However, ultimate power within the gender hierarchy of the text rests in men, as though women may assert power through their own private discourses and reassure themselves with chants of:
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. (p62)
these attempts are undermined by the male domination (turning the chant of empowerment into a schoolboy joke). It is a complex exploration of gender hierarchies which is presented by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale.

One technique that is used in the exploration of both male and female gender expectations is cognitive estrangement of the readership, as Gileadean society actively encourages anti-stereotypical behaviour in both genders. Stereotypical female qualities including emotional involvement, sensitivity and passiveness, however these do not aid women in Gileadean society. In order to exist as a handmaid, what one “…must present is a made thing, not something born…” (p76) and certainly not something emotionally involved. The sexual act in the Ceremony must be devoid of emotion. However, that contradicts female stereotypical trends. Female passiveness and sensitivity is also compromised in the Particicutions and the Aunts who have “…electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts…” (p14). The same is true of men, as Gileadean society encourages the suppression of sexual desires:
If they think of a kiss, they must then think immediately of the floodlights going on, the rifle shots. (p32)
The cognitive estrangement not only arises from the encouragement of these anti-stereotypical roles, but from their connotative reversal. The stereotypical male roles (those deemed anti-stereotypical for women) are given to the submissive women in society, and inversely the stereotypical female role (deemed anti-stereotypical for a male) is given to the dominant men in society. The reversal of roles and the reversal of conventional power relations associated with those roles encourage readers to reassess their understandings of gender relations. Cognitive estrangement is also used within the three-player sexual act of the monthly Ceremony. The three persons involved are the Commander, the handmaid, and the needs of the state (as the handmaid’s reproductive capabilities are merely seen as a national resource in a time of low birthrate). The unnatural and detached sexual act removes all Romantic or erotic notions from readers’ mind, forcing them to focus merely on the power relations implied by the act:
What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it… (p104-105)
Though the novel contains elements of the Romance genre, in the presence of such images of the estrangement of emotion from sexual intercourse, readers cannot possibly interpret future events as romantic; events always have power implications. Cognitive estrangement works to effectively emphasise the gender hierarchy ever present in Gileadean society.

The Handmaid’s Tale not only creates an extreme gender hierarchy superimposed over modern America, but also attempts to rewrite all of American culture to be replaced with the fanatical Christian culture of Gileadean society. This takeover is visible in many ways, such as the renaming of car models as “…Whirlwind…Chariot… Behemoth…” (p27), each of which are Bible references. Stores are also renamed with Bible terms such as “…Lilies of the Field…Milk and Honey…” (p35). The Christian influence is throughout the novel as every Gileadean teaching is taken from Bible precedent (the opening quote from Genesis 30:1-3 providing the precedent for the formation of a handmaid class of surrogate mothers). The name Gilead is itself from the Bible, the town where Jacob settled to raise his family and follow the laws of God. However, like many fanatical sects, Gileadean society manipulates Biblical terms, quoting where it pleases and inserting other sayings as well. The Handmaids at the Rachel and Leah Centre are made to recite Biblical quotes however these include “…They also serve who only stand and wait…” (p28), which is from John Milton, and “…From each…according to her ability; to each according to his need…” (p127), from Karl Marx. Crucial Christian precepts are emitted altogether, such as the three strongholds of Corinthians, being faith, hope and charity (love):
There must have been three, once. Hope and Charity, where have they been stowed? (p119)
Because of this Biblical corruption, it is incorrect to say that a truly Christian culture has highest place on the text’s cultural hierarchy. True Christianity is not discussed, and readers are left to gather that opposing Christian denominations have been removed from Gileadean society altogether, hence explaining the literary gap. Gilead has attempted to rewrite American society, using the cultural expectations as a “…palimpsest…” (p13), to be erased and replaced. However, just like a palimpsest, a shadow of the original image, or in this case original Western culture, remains visible beneath the imposed culture. This is clear in the text as the narrative gives the impression of double vision, a simultaneous reflection on the way things are and the way things were. This is most evident in Offred’s descriptions while shopping, as she relates both what she is doing and the history behind it:
Lilies used to be a movie theatre, before. Students went there a lot; every spring they had…Lauren Bacall or Katherine Hepburn, women on their own, making up their minds. They wore blouses…that suggested the possibilities of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not…. We seemed to be able to choose, then. (p35)
The significance of this constant double vision is that it shows the ineffectiveness of Gilead in removing the past cultural identities. Though the novel says “…The Republic of Gilead…knows no bounds…” (p33), it is actually not able to be as “…retroactive…” (p43) as it supposes to be, it cannot erase the previous culture. To enforce this understanding that being the top of a cultural hierarchy does not mean having the ability to remove other cultures completely, the novel also contains parodies of previous Western society. The scenario at Jezebel’s and the “…bizarre…” (p154) scrabble games all act to mock any pretensions at normality within Gileadean society. They also confirm Gilead’s position as the dominant hierarchy, as its effect is one that cannot be erased, just as previous cultural expectations cannot simply be reverted to. Atwood has explored the nature of cultural redefinitioning, and its inherent failure to erase past cultures, through the establishment of a cultural hierarchy in the text.

Though the novel does reinforce the proposition that texts set up a cultural and gender hierarchy in their exploration of cultural and gender expectations, it may be argued that it challenges the notions with regard to race. As an extremely personal story of the experiences of a white handmaid, the text itself is limited and unable to even comment on any Gileadean racial hierarchy. However, this may also be considered a conspicuous absence, when taking into account the substantial presence of minority racial groups (Native American Indians) in the Historical notes. There references are made to a Professor “…Crescent Moon…” (p311), a “…Professor John Running Dog…” (p311) and a “…Sing-Song…” (p311). This can be interpreted as token of the extreme marginalisation of minority racial groups within Gileadean times, which has resulted in a social swing returning to an over emphasis on these groups of people in the two hundred years leading up to the Historical Notes. The only direct mention of other racial groups in the body of the novel would be notices of the deportation of Semitic people’s back to Israel. However, it is made implicitly clear in the text that white Christian people make up the dominant social group.

The Historical Notes themselves make even further comment on gender relations. Throughout his lecture, Professor Pieixoto makes sexist jokes. The zeugma “…enjoy…” (p312) refers to the enjoyment of the sexual act; the word ‘tale’ in the novel’s title is said to refer to a woman’s bottom; and the “…Underground Femaleroad….since dubbed the Underground Frailroad…” (p313). These comments all reveal a subtle continuation of sexist attitudes towards women and a continuing male domination (although the Chair is said to be a woman). In contrast to the rest of the text, the Notes place the abuse within the naturalised experiences of the reader (as opposed to the estrangement in Offred’s narrative) and thereby act as a linking device between the more extreme sexism of Gilead and modern subtle sexism. Whereas traditional dystopias would have used a moral tag, Atwood uses the Historical Notes to perform the same function. The Notes also provide guidelines on how not to approach the text. Professor Pieixoto ignores the experiences of Offred, discredits her worth as a historic source and concentrates on identifying the Commander. This again demeans women (as Offred’s observations that the Commander was in market research are ignored in the Notes, discrediting female witnesses) but also misinterprets the text by ignoring its deliberate focus on emotions and female experiences. The Historical Notes thereby act as a waring on how to read the text and as a means to applying theories of gender hierarchies formed in the novel to the less extreme circumstances of modern life.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, provides an in-depth exploration of gender, cultural and racial hierarchies within the near future dystopia of Gilead which she has created. A variety of techniques are used to develop these hierarchies. Various conduits of power including discourse, patronymic titles, as well as physical and political power are used to empower men. Women, while described as submissive, are given avenues to explore themselves through the creation of an alternative discourse of ecriture feminie. This gender hierarchy is emphasised by the excessive use of cognitive estrangement, which encourages readers to reassess notions of gender expectation. Cultural hierarchies are also formed; these being explored in the ways one culture may try to displace a previous culture. The conspicuous absence of racial tensions in the text only works to highlight the oppression of minority groups. To combine all these understandings and relate them to contemporary society, Atwood has transformed the conventional moral tag into a futuristic Historical Notes, which provide both further revelations of gender and criticise possible misinterpretations of the text. Through each of these thematic strands, Atwood has foregrounded the rising fanaticism and pollution levels of the 1980s, and thereby warned against the direst of consequences.