Living in a city with constant surveillance would drive anyone to paranoia. This is exactly what happens in Margaret Atwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale. In this novel about a handmaid named Offred, the multiple strategically placed methods of surveillance drive her to moments of senselessness and cause her to lose sight of control, individuality, and independence.
Gilead has several methods of surveillance set up throughout their community. First, they have the ominous Eyes. These are people secretly hidden amid society in so that no one truly knows whether or not they are being watched. They are used to enforce order and to ensure that no one strays from their daily duties. Another physical method of observation is arranging it so that no …show more content…
Four digits and an eye, a passport in reverse” (65). The first part of this statement displays how Offred is constantly feeling as if she is being watched. The fact that she has not habituated to seeing a tattoo that has been on her body for a long period of time is evidence that no matter how hard she tries, she cannot stop thinking about how her every move is being observed. The second half of this sentence is important because not only does it show that Gilead makes its citizens constantly think about being watched, but they take away individuality. The first connection that can be made with numbers being tattooed on a person would be the Holocaust. Members of the camps were tattooed with numbers and that was their new form of identification. They were no longer known by their names but by these branded digits. This seems to be the same case in Gilead. Offred is not completely without a name, but she is separated from her birth title. Removing someone from their name is dehumanizing and displays an intense effort in removing an individual from their personhood. Finally, “a passport in reverse” is a strange statement that is a little more difficult to understand. With passport being a way to express a person’s identity, the reversal of this would be to have no identity at all. I think that Atwood uses this to …show more content…
When they are not being watched by people placed throughout the town, they are watching themselves because they have been so psychologically brainwashed. It is a scary world to live in and Offred spends her days wandering in and out of the present and the past, desperately trying to hold onto the happier memories of the past and remain sane for the
Gilead has several methods of surveillance set up throughout their community. First, they have the ominous Eyes. These are people secretly hidden amid society in so that no one truly knows whether or not they are being watched. They are used to enforce order and to ensure that no one strays from their daily duties. Another physical method of observation is arranging it so that no …show more content…
Four digits and an eye, a passport in reverse” (65). The first part of this statement displays how Offred is constantly feeling as if she is being watched. The fact that she has not habituated to seeing a tattoo that has been on her body for a long period of time is evidence that no matter how hard she tries, she cannot stop thinking about how her every move is being observed. The second half of this sentence is important because not only does it show that Gilead makes its citizens constantly think about being watched, but they take away individuality. The first connection that can be made with numbers being tattooed on a person would be the Holocaust. Members of the camps were tattooed with numbers and that was their new form of identification. They were no longer known by their names but by these branded digits. This seems to be the same case in Gilead. Offred is not completely without a name, but she is separated from her birth title. Removing someone from their name is dehumanizing and displays an intense effort in removing an individual from their personhood. Finally, “a passport in reverse” is a strange statement that is a little more difficult to understand. With passport being a way to express a person’s identity, the reversal of this would be to have no identity at all. I think that Atwood uses this to …show more content…
When they are not being watched by people placed throughout the town, they are watching themselves because they have been so psychologically brainwashed. It is a scary world to live in and Offred spends her days wandering in and out of the present and the past, desperately trying to hold onto the happier memories of the past and remain sane for the