Live Essay

Tate 1
Josh Tate
Cline
ENG102
15 April 2011

Totalitarianism and Handmaids

Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is based in a future time where population and reproduction are the predicaments. The government of the Republic of Gilead decides to take matters into their own hands when birth and population rates take a dive for the worst. In order to raise population numbers back to a normal state the totalitarian government gets rid of all infertile women or unwomen as they are referred to throughout the story, and places extreme limits to everyday life for the fertile ones. This entire story is based in the world created by the newly founded totalitarian style government. The only goal in mind is reproduction and everything is directed towards the effort to raise population.
Totalitarianism one of the main themes that plays an important role in the plot of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Totalitarianism is, “Absolute control by the state of a governing branch of a highly centralized institution” (Dictionary.com). Totalitarianism is when the government wants total control to reach certain goals, and in this case the goals are to raise the birth and fertility rates. The first time totalitarianism played a major role in world history was, “when Hitler and Stalin used this style of government to form the Nazi political party and direct all of the resources in Europe towards attaining their goal of extermination, regardless of the costs” (Britannica 1). There is a very real connection between, “Nazism and totalitarianism, they are one in the same thing” (Telzrow 33). The government decides that all fertile women must be sent to the “Red Center” in order to be trained to be successful Handmaids. Handmaids are women, “that must lie on their backs once a month and pray the commanders make them pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable” (Atwood Prologue).

The government of the Republic of Gilead was controlling the very lives of every single person living there by turning the women into sex slaves, and sending the infertile or “unwomen” away to a place known only as the “colonies”. The government used Nazi like mind control methods on the fertile women while they were in the Red Center to train them to accept this new way of life, full of restrictions, and nearly no freedom compared to their old lives. The Handmaids were allowed to go shopping once a day with a partner in the local village, but never without leaving the accountability and supervision of their partner, or the “Eyes” who were, “the secret police of the Republic of Gilead” (Atwood 18). Other than these routine shopping trips the Handmaids were only allowed to stay inside their Commanders’ house and most of that time was spent solitarily in their own room. The only reason the Handmaid’s were at these high end homes was because the Commander and his wife were unable to conceive a child; once a month the Handmaid would go through “the Ceremony” which was when, “the entire household would gather together and read the Bible, then the Commander, Handmaid, and Commanders wife would all go up stairs to try and create a baby” (Atwood 81-83). This was the life of a Handmaid.
Totalitarian thought control is what Atwood uses to explain how this fictional world could ever come to be. The government in “The Handmaid’s Tale” controls every aspect of everyday life in the Republic of Gilead. Only the higher up part of society has freedom and even then it is a very limited amount. There are talks of underground agencies to try and overthrow the government and regain freedom for not only women but every single person living during that time. The underground agency that is working to overthrow the totalitarian government is known as Mayday. The Handmaids are all working to get information out of their own commanders so that they will be able to gain the power to overtake the government. This world could only come to be if a totalitarian style government got a hold of the thoughts and actions of the majority of the population. In this story, that can be described by the dropping birth rate and the fact that the main goal of people would be to drive these dropping numbers back up.
There are many different methods of totalitarian thought control. Devices such as government, media, and religion are all driving forces in getting people to believe whatever the government wants them to. For the reason that this story is based in the future something like this actually could take place if our birth rates were to drastically drop. This is the driving thought and idea that drives Atwood throughout the plot of the book. The Red Center is the main method that would put these young women over the edge into believing in what the government is trying to do; by filling the Handmaids’ heads with whatever the people running the Red Center wanted they could easily succeed in brain washing the young women into sexual slavery. For these Handmaids to openly throw themselves into the world of sexual slavery they would have to feel like there was
no other choice, and a belief in a totalitarian controlled government is the perfect explanation to why they would choose to give up themselves for the sake of someone they
have no previous connection to. The Handmaids have been taken from their old good lives and placed into this new life were they have little to no freedom, but they are said to be under the impression that one day as soon as the birth rates are back to normal life, as they once knew it, would return to normal as well.
The only thing that matters to the Republic of Gilead is producing children and raising the birth rate back to a normal level. Everyone seems to be focused on nothing more than the goal of raising the population and birth rate. Whenever a child is about to be born the whole area comes to watch, and if the child is born defect free there is a huge celebration. Women who are pregnant are rare and looked upon jealously by the other Handmaids. Birth, population, and reproduction seem to be all the people of this time care about and think about. This is not the case as shown by Offred the main character when she has consistent flashbacks about the “old times”, and how life used to be. She longs to be free as she was in the old times and to have relations with a man she truly cares for other than some random commander just to reproduce. The people are under the thought control of the totalitarian government that is in place, when the book is based. There is absolute control by the government such as there was during the time of Nazism and WWII, but the people throughout this time are driven by the fear of dying off. This very fear is what the government feeds off of to keep in tact the totalitarian state that is in place. This affects how the book is read because knowing this background information gives the reader a better understanding as to how this kind of world would ever come to be, and how people are not able to overthrow the government because of their own fear of the governments’ power, and humanities’ extinction as a whole.   





Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. “Shopping and Household.” The Handmaid’s Tale. New York [etc.: Anchor -Doubleday, 1998. 18+. Print.

Telzrow, Michael F. “Nazi Counterfeiters.” General Interest Periodicals 24.17(2008): 33-36. ProQuest. Web. 3 May 2011. http://search.proquest.xom.proxy.yc.edu/pqrl/docview/218091013/abstract/12EE SF2F3AA72602ASB/6?accountid=31701.

“Totalitarianism | Define Totalitarianism at Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com½Free Online Dictionary for English Definitions. Web. 3 May 2011. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/totalitarianism.

“Totalitarianism (government)-- Britannica Online Encyclopedia.” Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Web. 3 May 2011. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600435/totalitarianism.