Gender Roles In The Handmaid's Tale

First written in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a theocratic nation known as The Republic of Gilead, defined by its significant social boundary between males and females. Influenced by the strict and traditional lifestyle of the seventeenth century American Puritans, Margaret Atwood based her narrative on the disparity between the role of the man and woman in their culture. Especially in the 1970s, America was swept by rising movements based upon the Republican party ideals which heavily supported the values of religion in school and stood against abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment, both pieces of legislation that supported women. In response to this growing religious movement, Atwood’s presentation of the misogynist and oppressive …show more content…
As Offred narrates her story, the audience is constantly introduced to a discrepancy between her old life in which she had many freedoms and her new identity as a Handmaid in Gilead. In one instance of the novel, the protagonist describes her identity when she says, “It’s strange to remember how we used to think, as if everything were available to us, as if there were no contingencies, no boundaries; as if we were free to shape and reshape forever the ever expanding perimeters of our lives. I was like that too, I did that too” (Atwood 227). Even as Offred gives increasingly personal details about herself and her previous life, the audience is never made aware of her real name or very specific details about her physical description. This characterization by Atwood is critical to the novel as it presents Offred as a individual with her own distinct personality, but also as a universal character for many women who are defined by their gender expectations and are forced into social behaviors as a result of that. Offred’s real name and previous identity is never revealed not only because her new role is as a Handmaid, but because her name acts as a connection to her past and individuality which her society tries to destroy (Fuer). Aside from this, the fact that Offred is not shaped to be an excessively moral and pure woman allows the audience to connect Offred to women outside the novel, with their own desires and ideas of feminine sexuality. Just as how the protagonist realizes she has taken her previous rights for granted, Atwood emphasizes to her audience that “it is necessary for them to examine the changing roles and status of women over a considerable period of time in order to appreciate how few rights women had in the comparatively