How does Atwood’s portrayal of control on pages 22-23 typify Atwood’s treatment of women in the rest of the novel?

In Margaret Atwood’s novel ‘The Handmaids Tale ‘women are objectified and live under an oppressive regime. In this essay I will be exploring Atwood’s presentation of women and women’s purpose in society.

In ‘The Handmaids Tale ‘phallic imagery is used to distinguish women’s position in society. “The commander’s wife directs, pointing with her stick.” Serena Joy’s stick can be seen as phallic imagery; throughout the novel phallic imagery is used to represent the hierarchy amongst the women. At the red centre the aunts carried cattle prods and this solidified their superiority. Serena Joy also carries a stick and this can be seen as the transition of power from the aunts to Serena Joy, the aunts previously had control over Offred however now Offred is Serena Joy’s handmaid the power over her has been bestowed upon Serena Joy. Atwood also presents Serena Joy as ‘The commanders wife ‘, by not calling Serena Joy by her name we are able to understand how powerless women are in the Gilead regime as they are not referred to by their own name but by their husbands title. This then suggests that women are nothing without their husbands and their only duty is to be wives. In Simone de Beauvoir’s novel ‘ The second sex ‘ she focuses on the concept of ‘ the other ‘ , this concept refers to the treatment of women as the ‘ other ‘ in relation to men. I believe this concept is very prominent in ‘The Handmaids Tale ‘as women are treated as ‘the other ‘and live in a clearly male dominated society. Atwood’s intentional presentation of women as ‘the other’ in the novel is clear and it can be interpreted as a criticism of the society we live in and the way in which women are treated.
In the novel the wives are presented as having a lack of control and being purposeless. “Maybe it’s something to keep the wives busy, to give them a sense of purpose.” The Gilead regime attempts to give the wives a sense of purpose by getting them to knit scarves. This very menial task, which would be seen as a hobby in today’s society, makes the wives seem childlike and futile as their only sense of purpose is knitting. This can be seen as ironic as the wives are given childlike tasks due to the fact that they have no children to care for. It can also be interpreted as the wives attempt to gain control over an aspect of their lives and their attempt to fill their days with an activity they believe they have chosen but really the regime has chosen for them. Serena Joy is seen to knit unnecessarily elaborate patterns on her scarves. This may be her attempting to be more sophisticated than the other wives. However through the knitting of the scarves we are also able to see the wives belief in the regime and that they will do anything to help its supposed cause. When compared to the men the wives are seen as inferior and as readers we are able see how submissive they are to the regime. However we are able to question Offred’s reliability as a narrator, we are aware of Offred’s dislike for Serena joy and as Atwood presents the novel through Offred’s memoirs we are unable to distinguish between the fact and fiction of the account. The use of the word ‘maybe ‘allows us to understand that Offred’s story is what she believes to be true. We can then doubt Offred’s story and the purposelessness of the wives as she does not know everything that is happening around her so she may view Serena Joy as purposeless however reality she may not be.
Overall I believe Atwood’s portrayal of control in this extract typifies the treatment of women in the novel as a whole. In this extract women clearly have no free will and every aspect of their lives is controlled by the regime and this is shown all throughout the novel. While we are able to doubt Offred’s reliability as a narrator we are also able to see how Offred views the treatment of women in society. Atwood is able to successfully criticise society through the novel and she is able to shock her readers in to realising that the world they live in is not as far away from the Gilead regime as they think. I believe this was Atwood’s overall purpose for the novel.
Bibliography
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1st edition, France, 1949.