The Handmaid's Tale Post 1

The Handmaid’s Tale was a book that I found to be very good while also extremely depressing. The fact is that it seems as though this sort of thing could actually happen. Perhaps not in today’s America and perhaps not to the extent that it happened in the book. However, it is quite possible for a society to be overtaken by an opposing government and women forced to act as common slaves.

This book centers on Offred, a woman with a previously content life. She is forced to serve as a form of sex/reproductive slave for a Commander and his wife after the fall of United States turns it into the Republic of Gilead. Offred was separated from husband and child after attempting escape to Canada. She is forced to have sex with the commander at least once a month in the attempt to give he and his wife a child in a time of reproductive crisis.

Overall, the most significant part of the novel focuses on the technology, or lack thereof, represented by the women. Here you have extremely strong women, such as Offred, her best friend, and mother, who have never been run over in their lives. They always controlled their own destinies and desires prior to the fall of their country. However, at the time of this Republic of Gilead, they are completely and absolutely powerless. The point I am trying to get to, I suppose, without going into too much further detail is the idea in the novel that technology is what gives authority in the republic.

This may not be seen clearly at first glance. In fact, right after completing the novel, I sat and thought “What does this have to do with technology and science?” After re-reading some key passages and thinking for a day, I came up with the technology and power correlation. The book displays a lack of power to those with little or no access to resources or technology. For example, the women in Gilead- namely those serving as handmaids- have absolutely nothing. They have no access to any forms of technology (guns, cars, etc.) or even to anything that will make them more educated or resourceful (books, magazines, government). They don’t even have glass in their rooms or places to hang a rope to prevent suicide. In fact, in retrospect they are actually used as a form of technology themselves. Their bodies are used as machines- a form of science used to do nothing more than please men and provide offspring.

Those with power, however, have unending access to technology. They have guns, cars, and even cattleprongs to keep the women “in line.” It is these people who have word in how Giliad is run and in defining who matters in the republic and who does not. What is quite ironic is the strength of the women in the book despite their severe hardships. They are still having affairs, conspiring against the government, and taking their own lives.

What I found to be so significant about this point is the fact that it definitely correlates to today’s society. We live in a time when technology is everything. Those without technology in America are basically powerless. They have less money, respect, and resources than those with computers, Blackberries, weapons, etc. This republic is not much different than our society today in that respect.