The Handmaid’s Tale lays out a future dystopic world where a ¬¬new elite has come to power on the ostensible basis of religion. The story follows a young woman and her struggle to deal with the society built around her and her soci¬¬¬al position within it. This struggle provides a new insight when examined through a Marxian lens, with an emphasis on the theories of Gramsci and Althusser, by providing illumination on the novel’s existing political hierarchy and the basis for the struggle itself. It is first important to analyze how this society came to fruition. One of its root causes is the birth rate. In The Handmaid’s Tale historical notes, it gives us evidence¬ of the pre-Gileadean age by attributing growing social problems to “an age
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Using Marx’s historical materialism, the idea that productive forces and material conditions are the driving forces of …show more content…
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian communist most noted for his contribution of a Marxist cultural theory. Gramsci’s idea of ‘Cultural Hegemony’ is most relevant when it comes to The Handmaid’s Tale. Cultural Hegemony is concerned with the upper class using culture to justify current economic conditions, a superstructure reinforcing an economic base. This also relates to Althusser’s idea of ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’, how the state transfers ideology to its subjects. The Gileadean government being theocratically based primarily uses religion to achieve this. The most strident example is Aunt Lydia drilling the beliefs of the new society into the handmaids. Aunt Lydia’s goal is to make the handmaids accept this new ideology and Atwood writes Aunt Lydia as saying “This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will, it will become ordinary.” Handmaids do come to accept it too. The handmaid Janine, who is described during her teachings as having several humiliating experiences, comes to fully accept the society’s teachings. When Offred encounters Janine during the salvaging, Janine’s total ideological assimilation is stated by “But she’s let go, totally now, she’s in free fall, she’s in withdrawal” (281). Another example of ideological acceptance is when Offred is in the marketplace and Atwood writes “Janine looks at
Using Marx’s historical materialism, the idea that productive forces and material conditions are the driving forces of …show more content…
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian communist most noted for his contribution of a Marxist cultural theory. Gramsci’s idea of ‘Cultural Hegemony’ is most relevant when it comes to The Handmaid’s Tale. Cultural Hegemony is concerned with the upper class using culture to justify current economic conditions, a superstructure reinforcing an economic base. This also relates to Althusser’s idea of ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’, how the state transfers ideology to its subjects. The Gileadean government being theocratically based primarily uses religion to achieve this. The most strident example is Aunt Lydia drilling the beliefs of the new society into the handmaids. Aunt Lydia’s goal is to make the handmaids accept this new ideology and Atwood writes Aunt Lydia as saying “This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will, it will become ordinary.” Handmaids do come to accept it too. The handmaid Janine, who is described during her teachings as having several humiliating experiences, comes to fully accept the society’s teachings. When Offred encounters Janine during the salvaging, Janine’s total ideological assimilation is stated by “But she’s let go, totally now, she’s in free fall, she’s in withdrawal” (281). Another example of ideological acceptance is when Offred is in the marketplace and Atwood writes “Janine looks at