Margaret Atwood's Gileadean Society

Moreover, while the system does try to manufacture individuals, it cannot completely control their psyche, inspiration and motivation and therefore humanity becomes an undeniable freedom. In Atwood’s novel Gileadean society controls class structure with utmost care and attempts to restrict the powers that spring from an identity, still, the handmaids maintain their own identity and explore their own bodies and minds beyond what their status allows them too. Offreds role as a Handmaid defines her in biological terms as a breeder, a “two-legged womb” and yet she manages to survive physiologically and emotionally through resisting Gilead’s definition as she writes about her body in terms significantly different from patriarchal prescriptions. Offred thinks of her body as if she is exploring her inner space like a dark continent within her. …show more content…
Through the imagery, she transforms her body into a fantasy landscape free of Gilead control. Further, she resists society as she identifies her handmaid sisters while they “learned to whisper almost without a sound” sibilance reinforcing the idea of the discovery of individual identities through the exchanging of names which are illegal under the regime. Through these small acts of rebellion that allow the handmaids to hold onto their humanity Offred feels “hope is rising in me, like sap in a tree. Blood in a wound” the handmaid's simile emphasising the insistent nature of hope and other human emotions that cannot be forced off the Gileadean people. The dystopian society is not completely at the will of the authorities as the people have their own inspiration and identities that cannot be