The Handmaid's Tale

The novel, though based on a society narrowly focused on one passage of the Bible is a, thankfully, unique novel. Such blatant extremism helps to emphasize the wrongdoings of the society, making reading the novel more enjoyable since the less obvious aspects are those that must be carefully analyzed and the obvious aspects are those especially written so they can be discussed. Though the grand majority of allusions in the novel are Biblical, this makes finding the allusions easier and thus more quickly understood. Though certain parts, such as the significance of the colors, merited further research, each specific aspect of the society is carefully chosen and placed accordingly. The novel is carefully written and done so more as a story making the reading of the novel a pleasure to read, despite certain disturbing aspects such as the division of roles.

The Handmaids Tale: treatment and grouping of women

Women in the society of Gilead are separated into several different groups. The Handmaids are the women who give birth to children. Marthas are the women who fulfill the duties of a housewife. The Wives are just women married to the men. Econowives are women who do the jobs of the Handmaids, Marthas, and Wives. Lastly, there are the unwomen who are nuns, lesbians, widows, sterile women, or feminists, and these women serve no purpose in the front of the society. Each woman is treated differently according to their social status. Handmaids are given the luxury of healthy meals, Marthas are given the luxury of showing their head, the Wives are given the luxuries money and status can buy, the Econowives are given the ability to complete all the jobs of a wife, and the unwomen are given shortened life spans, something most of the other women would prefer. No woman in Gilead is completely happy and no woman is given any choice in how they can live. The society of Gilead is based off of traditional values, something that certain citizens fought for, namely feminists, but these traditional values only resulted in the stripping of rights and happiness for the very women the feminists were striving to liberate.

The Handmaid's Tale: Historical Notes

The Handmaid’s Tale is a satirical commentary on extremism, but the Historical Notes of the novel are a satirical commentary on the novel itself. The casual tone and businesslike manner in which the discussion takes place mocks the situations the members of Gilead were forced to endure. The speaker even mentions that the story itself could be a work of fiction, and the tapes found regarding Gilead could be forged as well, dismissing the possibility of Gilead. The speaker says “Our job is not to censure but to understand” (Atwood 302), yet by mocking the society, the scholars are not understanding the society. In order to fully understand the society, the scholars should not label the tapes as possible forgeries, but to study them as if they were tablets from the Pyramids of Egypt. Throughout the Historical Notes, the jokes regarding the society show that the novel is not just a satirical commentary on extremism, but to the reactions towards that extremism.

We

The novel has interesting and relatable characters, which keeps the story from becoming too ridiculous or unbelievable. Though the use of math in the novel makes the text harder to read and enjoy, it also adds to the story, almost as if rationalizing the reasoning behind the society and the novel itself. The plot itself is original for a post-modern civilization story, and the novel ended with the possibility that this event could happen in cycles with the possibility of an end. Unlike most other stories of ‘utopian’ societies, We did not end with the rebirth of society, which set the novel aside from other related novels. This originality made We a pleasant novel despite D-503’s ramblings and obsessive behavior towards mathematics.

We: √-1

The protagonist of We, D-503, relies on mathematical equations to understand life and rationalize every situation. The one portion of math that greatly bothers D-503 is the square root of negative one; an imaginary number. The square root of negative one is an imaginary number that cannot be simplified, which is something D-503 cannot deal with. To D-503, math provides answers to any and every question that could possibly fall in front of him, but the square root of negative one only brings up more questions, thus frustrating D-503 even more. Yet the square root of negative one can also be referred to as the letter i. This letter, in the form of the word I, represents the individual, which is something that does not exist in the society of OneState. Each citizen is given a number, and those numbers wake up, eat, and sleep at the exact time, making the society a machine. Individuality is not something that thrives in OneState, and makes no sense to the citizens, just as the square root of negative one makes no sense to D-503. This one portion of the mathematical language does not just represent the frustrations of D-503, but also of the individual person: a frustration of OneState.  

We: Developing A Soul

The novel We is developed around a society devoid of emotion. All of the citizens are given numbers instead of names, the society runs according to a minute-by-minute schedule, and everything is justified through mathematical equations. The lack of personality and human emotion in the society is why a soul is something foreign and even diseased to the numbers. The soul is described as “Incurable” (Zamytin 87) by the doctor and described as “very dangerous” (87) by D-503 which reflects upon the dehumanized society. By referring to the human soul as a disease, the society is more clearly seen as mathematical and calculating, devoid of even the most simple of human possessions: the soul.