Examples Of Infertility In The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale and Infertility

God created male and female. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen. 1:28) Without a doubt a divine mandate that not everyone is capable of fulfilling. Believers or not, many people in the world live with the ghost of infertility behind their backs. Infertility is a condition that consists in the inability to achieve a pregnancy or to bring it to term and is often signaled and condemned by the society that sees it as an abnormality or punishment. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, the story revolves around the issue of infertility as the main problem that humanity could face in a future time. In The Handmaid’s Tale, society considers being a mother as the main role

of women, categorizing infertile women as non-functional which is very similar to what happens in many contemporary societies.
Using metaphors and a large number of symbolisms, Atwood describes through the narrative of Offred, the protagonist character, a dystopian society whose women have lost the capacity to procreate due to high toxicity in the environment. This is nothing far from reality if we consider that air pollution causes a drop in reproductive capacities in exposed populations (Carré et al.13). Most of the women in Gilead are infertile and only a few, the so-called handmaids, are capable of procreation. The handmaids’ only function in society is to have children, so they are seen only as wombs. The wives of the commanders are infertile. They acquire handmaids in order to have babies for them with their husbands. The handmaids perform the sexual act with the commanders for the sole purpose of reproduction. If a handmaid manages to have a baby, she has to hand it to the commander and his wife right away.
From among the wives of the commanders, the story focuses on Serena Joy, who acquires Offred to have a baby with her husband for her.

In her narrative, Offred describes Serena Joy as a cold and bitter woman. Offred does not understand that Serena Joy’s behavior is a consequence of her frustration and pain for not being able to have children. Studies have revealed that infertile women frequently experience a host of emotions and feelings such as sadness, anxiety, guilt, and anger. Most infertile women engage in household activities and hobbies as a strategy to deal with these feelings (Wirtberg et al.). In the story, Serena Joy has two hobbies, taking care of her flower garden and knitting scarves. The flowers are a symbol of fertility, especially her red tulips; growing them is her way to create life. The red flowers of Serena Joy’s tulips represent the birth “The tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they have been cut and are beginning to heal there” (Atwood 12). Offred also comments that “Many of the Wives have such gardens, it’s something for them to order and maintain and care for.” (Atwood 12). One day, Offred found Serena Joy angry, snipping off the seed pods of her tulips with a pair of shears. “Or some blitzkrieg, some kamikaze, committed on the swelling genitalia of the flowers? The fruiting body” (Atwood 153). In Offred’s mind, Serena is so jealous and desperate that symbolically she attacks her by attacking the fertile

flowers.
The symbolisms and the metaphorical language of the writer are present throughout the novel. In The Handmaid’s Tale, there is a clear distinction between fertile and infertile women. The handmaids always wear red, which is highly related to fertility, blood, and life. On the other hand, the commander’s wives wear clothes of a blue color, which symbolizes the coldness of their bodies unable to give life, but also the virgin who takes care of her children although they were not conceived by her. In contemporary society this distinction is not made so obvious, but still infertile women are pointed to their backs, pitied, blamed, pressured and even left by their partners.
Infertility can have many causes and affect men and women equally. One of the causes, is the exposure to radiotherapy, chemotherapy or such as happens in The Handmaid’s Tale, to environmental toxins such as lead and mercury. Even though infertility affects men and women equally, the blame and responsibility falls mostly on the women because, according to The National Infertility Association, men are more reluctant to accept their infertility and to go to specialized clinics (2017). In the novel, “There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law” (Atwood 61). Serena Joy has the responsibility for not having children and carries alone with that guilt even though she suspects her husband's infertility. In her desperation to have a baby and knowing that she has dominion over the handmaid, she proposes her to have sex with Nick, the driver, so that she can finally get pregnant. All this sounds very familiar with the options that currently exist for infertile couples.
Although today there are different options for infertile people to have a child, these options are not available to everyone.

Both in the novel and in contemporary society, people with more resources can more easily access the options to solve their infertility problem. In the novel, only the Commanders and their wives have the power to acquire a handmaid to use her as a kind of surrogate mother. In the contemporary society, low-income and uninsured people are excluded from accessing assisted methods of reproduction because of the high costs of them. The cost for an in vitro fertilization cycle in the United States costs between 10 to 15 thousand dollars or 25 to 30 thousand, in case an egg donor is needed. Surrogacy method is much more expensive, costing between 50 and 80 thousand dollars (4). Most insurance policies do not cover the costs of these treatments or they cover only a part of them which is too high for those with average

wages.
Even though Atwood’s novel is written in such a way that the reader sympathizes with the protagonist, Offred; surely many women feel identified with Serena Joy since her situation as the infertile wife also places her as a victim of society. Her suffering is comparable to that of any of the women in the novel, including Offred. Who could bear to live under the same roof as the woman who has sex with her husband and see her around the house every day in her red dress as proof of her fertility? Thinking about Serena Joy, Offred wonders “Which of us is it worse for, her or me?” (Atwood 95). The story of The Handmaid’s Tale is told from the perspective of Offred; however, it would be interesting to read a new version of the same story told from the perspective of Serena Joy.
In the theme of fertility, The Handmaid’s Tale novel is not far from the reality we live in contemporary society. Nevertheless, no woman should feel rejected or guilty for not being able or wanting to have children. Being or not being a mother is not what defines a woman. As a society we must commit ourselves to respect the rights and capacities of others without judging or harming. Who can assure that the divine mandate refers specifically to having children. All men and women can fulfill the divine mandate to be fruitful because we have the ability to create.