The Handmaid’s Tale : A Product Of Debates

The Handmaid’s Tale : A Product Of Debates

Often times a reader finds that a character in a novel resembles the author’s friend or a distant relative. There is almost always some connection to the author, his surroundings, or events in his life. The Handmaid’s Tale reflects the life of Margaret Atwood on a much stronger level. It is a product of debates within the feminist movement of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Atwood has been much a part of that movement. The defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, the rise of the religious right, the election of Ronald Regan and many other historical events led writers like Atwood to fear the antifeminist movements. With these fears came the ideas the antifeminist could not only provide more gains for women but turn back the clock on the rights that they had already fought to receive. Atwood uses her novel to examine some of the traditional attitudes in the religious right which she finds threatening. At the beginning of the novel we are given this bible reference:

Genesis 30: 1-3 “And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.”

This is one of several passages that justifies a man to have sex and children by his servants. Atwood takes this idea and extrapolates from it outrageously. In her “Afterword” she tells the reader that the religious aspects, “go back to my study of the American Puritans.”(Atwood 316) The American Puritans founded a society different than democracy as we know it, a theocracy. Atwood said she found herself, “increasingly alarmed by statements made frequently by religious leaders in the United States; and then a variety of events from around the world could not be ignored, particularly the rising fanaticism of the Iranian monotheocracy.” (Atwood 316 ) During the 1980’s many people debated about the feminist attitudes toward sexuality and their attitudes toward pornography. Many different views were expressed. Some said that all erotica depicting women as sexual objects is demeaning. Others argued that pornography was bad but erotica could be good, that “although pornography is demeaning the protection of civil liberties is a greater good which requires the toleration of freedom for pornographers.