The Handmaid's Tale ~ Post 2

The correlation between the consequences of technology in Offred’s society and the consequences of technology in our society today is shocking. The very idea of technological advances bettering humanity and protecting our freedoms is challenged in this novel, just as it is challenged today in age of war. In fact, the novel seems to be arguing that technology (for the handmaid’s at least) is the chain that confines them to Gilead’s patriarchal society. For instance, in the beginning of the novel the handmaid’s, like cattle, are branded and kept in line by the use or threatened use of cattle prods. They are constantly aware of the technology around them, refusing to allow the tourists to capture their photographs for fear that the lens’s of the camera are really the “eyes” of their government (think Big Brother).

Another correlation seen between the use of technology in the novel and in our society is the idea of the media gate keeping. Before the ceremony Offred and the other help is allowed to watch the news. Often what is seen on the news is so horrific that they (especially Offred) begins to see their current situation as a blessing from God rather than an earthly version of hell. The enemy is portrayed in such a light that the very government that has robbed them of their freedoms is seen less as an aggressor and more as a savior. The government, after all, is protecting her from what she is seeing on the television set. What the enemy would do to her is far worse than what she is experiencing now. She, indeed, is the lucky one (at least that’s what she is probably telling herself). She needs these restrictions; society could not exist without them.

This, at least in my opinion, is very similar to all of the war propaganda that floods our nightly news here in the United States. We are constantly shown images from the war that portrays anyone who is not American as the “other” and the “other” as inferior. We are shown images, I feel deliberately, to evoke fear in us of the unknown. American soldiers are often depicted as heroes defending our freedoms so that we don’t end up like “them” (those living behind the veils in chaos). Eventually, even those who do not believe in the war find themselves slowly accepting the place of our troops in their society.

*note I’m not arguing either for or against the war. I’m merely trying to find a possible correlation between the society of Gilead in the text and our society*