The theme of alienation and resistance permeates throughout Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Alienation, disillusionment and fear are dominant elements in dystopian societies. In this paper, I seek to make the argument that alienation makes resistance to oppression difficult since individuals are separated from each other and the products that individuals produce. I argue that The Handmaid’s Tale shows how difficult it is for women to wage a successful resistance movement against a male dominated society. Even though Marx did reduce all human relations to means and modes of production, it is important to note that his concept of alienation applies to the women of Gilead, in particular, Handmaids.
Atwood’s Republic of Gilead is a Christian state that was established after murder and removal of the president of the United States. The creators of Gilead believed that all of Gilead’s problems can be solved by the control of women’s bodies. The fall in pregnancy rates, increases in women’s rights and environmental problems are issues that the Gilead government tried to solve by the creation of a surrogate mother state. The mothers are called Handmaids and they are not paid for their work of improving fertility. They are forced to wear particular kinds of clothes and they are not allowed to read and read. One of the characteristics of dystopian societies is the denial of knowledge and this manifests itself in the burning of books or outright destruction of education means.
The one significant aspect of the dystopian society is the commodification of human services which leads to the total alienation of the individual. In The Handmaid’s Tale, it is the woman’s womb that is commodified together with the general essence of womanhood. In understanding commodification, individuals get to understand the basis of female oppression in Gilead. The commodification of women’s bodies is correctly captured by Offred who in explaining the living conditions of Handmaids in Gilead notes that “above me, towards the head of the bed, Serena Joy is arranged, outspreadshe holds my hands, each of mine in each of hers. This is supposed to signify that we are one flesh, one being. What it really means is in control, of the process and thus of the product.” (109). Offred here is alluding to the babies as commodities. Karl Marx noted that “a commodity appears at first sight, a very trivial thing and easily understood” (Marx in Dillon 65). This is deceiving since a commodity has the capacity to control individuals. Gilead is an a capitalist society but it is a society riddled with oppression.
Life in Gilead is like what Dillion observes to be reminiscent of capitalist societies. Day to day life of the state, education, courts or media is characterized by capital accumulation and in societies like Gilead primitive accumulation. It is unfortunate that this accumulation is tied to the extreme subjugation of women. The women’s wombs are laboratories without significant value other than to produce for men. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the commodification of women is more evident in Commander Fred’s claims that “ we have given more than we’ve taken awayDon't you remember the singles’ bars, the indignity of high school blind dates? The meat market.,,, some of them were desperate, they starved themselves thin or pumped their breasts full of silicone” (249). Commander Fred thought that taking away freedom and making women Handmaids was liberating when in reality it was oppressing.
According to Dillon, karl Marx argued that the commodification of labor such that workers are reduced to commodities (with exchange and use value) produces alienation, or alienated labor (62). The alienation of labor is an after effect of capitalism. Capitalism thrives on the division of labor and this process makes it easy for individual to be less attached or related to the product they produce. When individuals participate in the production of goods and services, they are alienated in terms of labor and product. Handmaids in Gilead are not that much different from individuals producing machines at the assembly line. They have lost their sense of individuality and freedom.There sense of self-worth is defined by how many babies they produce and in the event that they fail to meet the production goals, they get to be discarded by the Gilead system.
It is critical to understand alienation in the two spheres of labor and product. In terms of product, an individual has no control over their labor. It is the employer who has control of the worker’s abilities. In terms of the product that the worker produces, it does not belong to them but their employer and the consumer. Success of the capitalist economy hinges on the notion that those who produce products are not necessarily the same people that consume them. In the dystopian society of Gilead, women are called upon to produce for the Christian government.
Gilead’s government intends on making women producers of babies for the patriarchal society. The purpose of procreation is not for family, love and the mere advancement of the human species but about the control of sexuality and female bodies. Talking about babies as products is tantamount to undermining human integrity but marx provides critical lenses to understand the society of Gilead. Offred is the Handmaid of Gilead, she is tasked with the work of reproduction. Offred as the narrator is aware of the male control on female bodies. In one of her recollections of the constant denial of female humanity in Gilead, Offred recounts an incident where she was “walking in art galleries, through the nineteenth century: the obsession they had with harems. Studies of sedentary flesh, painted by men who’d never been there” (Artwood 79). Offred by the time she starts narrating her story, she discovers that by being silent and contributing to the production of babies for oppressing males, she was complicit to the creation of the monstrous state of Gilead.
One of the striking features of an oppressive society is that victims of brutality through alienation and normalization begin to believe that their conditions are normal. Karl Marx noted that the normalization of oppression is done through the use of religion and culture. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred because she is now used to the new conditions starts viewing those who do not hold or embrace the culture of Gilead as weird. When she sees Japanese tourists she describes them in a non flattering manner. She observes that the tourist’s “heads are uncovered and their hair is too exposed, in all its darkness and sexuality. They were lipstick, red, outlining the damp cavities of their mouths, like scrawls on a washroom wall, of the time before.ofglen stops beside me and I know that she too cannot take her eyes off theses women. We are fascinated, but also repelled. They seem undressed. It has taken so little time to change our minds about this” (Artwood 38). This episode reveals the arresting nature of oppression. Offred and Ofglen are unable to see that they might be the one who are blind to the oppression around them. They have been programed not to understand difference or freedom.
It is this programming that makes it difficult for Offred to take a more active role the resistance movement against the forced production of babies. Ofglen is more determined than Offred in resisting the oppression of Gilead. Gilead benefits from the lack of enthusiasm that is shown by people like Offred. Gilead is a male dominated society but it also has women who help maintain prop up the system through silence and direct participation in the subjugation of other women.
It is important to note that according to Marx, there are no exclusive written laws of oppression. The worker or individuals is forced by circumstances to sell their labor and dignity. In Gilead, the oppression of women became normalized to the point where most women thought that their conditions were just and unchanging. Offred observed that;
Women were not protected then. I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: don’t open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don’t stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don’t turn to look. Don’t go into a Laundromat, by yourself, at night (34).
Women is Gilead cannot function without the new rules created by the government even though it lies that it liberated women from sin and infertility. The process of alienation is completed by the act of making all women dependent on a system that oppresses them.
In conclusion, The Handmaid’s Tale shows how difficult it is for the oppressed to rise against their oppressors. Using Karl Marx’s ideas about the structuring of society, it is evident that economic factors play a role in the commodification of women’s bodies. Those who resist lack enough means to change the oppressive system.
Works Cited
Atwood. Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Great Britain: O.W Toad, 1986. Print.
Dillon, M. Introduction to Sociological Theory: Theorists, Concepts, and their Applicability to
the Twenty-First Century. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer A. “From Irony to Affi liation in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s
Tale.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 45.1 (2003): 83-96.
