The Handmaid's Tale Analysis

Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale would seem, on the surface, a straightforward feminist text. The narrative is set in a speculative future, exploring gender inequalities in an absolute patriarchy in which women are breeders, housekeepers, mistresses, or housewives—or otherwise exiled to the Colonies. In Atwood 's fictional Gilead, all of the work of twentieth-century feminism has been utterly undone, and the text explores the effects of this from a first-person point of view that elicits the reader 's sympathy. Offred 's tale functions as a critique of women 's oppression, as we can see from one of her earlier statements problematizing biological determinism: "I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it 's shameful or immodest
It offers alternatives to Gilead 's problematic definitions of women. In this sense, Offred 's tale is what Rachel Blau DuPlessis calls a "displacement," a representation of "the other side of the story" that offers positive images of women (108). Offred 's friend Moira, for instance, is often cast as a hero and rebel. Offred 's mother, a feminist activist, is also seen in a heroic light as the narrative unfolds and Offred better understands her struggle for women 's rights. Scenes of feminists marching in the streets and of Moira 's daring escape attempt are beacons of hope, counternarratives to the grainy television image of Offred 's mother enslaved in the Colonies, and to the final image of Moira as a resigned Jezebel. The narrative potentially positions Offred herself as a heroine, in that the discovery of her cassette tapes in Bangor, Maine, suggests she has escaped and survived to tell the tale.

As shown in the text 's "Historical Notes" section, Offred 's account ultimately functions as an alternative to the official history of Gilead. Conventional historical accounts strive for objectivity and factual truth, and typically focus on the macro scale; Offred 's story is clearly a subjective, even autobiographical, account, and one that focuses on everyday, domestic reality. She is not the hidden, omniscient narrator of history textbooks, but rather a deeply unreliable storyteller. She admits to a limited
In its explicit critique of gender inequalities and positive images of women, the text answers to the demands of academic feminist criticism. In its elusiveness and playfulness with meanings, it reflects a preoccupation with the instability of language and radical potential of rewriting and retelling, thus conforming to many feminist approaches. Yet the text is sometimes a satire of feminist politics, too, just as it is a satire of patriarchal ideology and authority. As Fiona Tolan observes, the terrifying Aunts "ironically echo the slogans of early utopian feminism": Aunt Lydia 's society of "freedom from," though repressive and dystopian, is in some ways a solution to earlier problems of "freedom to" (Tolan 152-53). Atwood 's images of women are not all positive, and the text does not always offer happy endings, as we see in the case of Moira. This does not detract from the novel 's feminist import. On the contrary, The Handmaid 's Tale illustrates that both positive and negative endings—like straightforward and elusive narratives—can highlight social injustice, criticize repressive ideologies, and prompt the reader to think about the effects and applications of language, especially as they relate to gender inequality.

Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid 's Tale. 1985. London: Virago, 1987.

Cixous, Hélène. "Sorties: Out and Out—Attacks/Ways Out/Forays." The Feminist