The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a first person narrative from the view point of Offred, a handmaid in the Gilead Regime. Offred tells the reader about her day-to-day life as a handmaid as well as parts of her past. A handmaid in the Gilead Regime has one job, to procreate a child for her Commander. Offred expresses in the beginning of the novel that no one, in any position, has any sexual freedom; no freedom to marry, no sex unless for procreation, no homosexuality, and no real love. As Offred spends more time in her new world she finds her value, as a person is worthless compared to her value to create a child. In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, the role of women in society is as a sexual object no matter what her intelligence

or physical appearance; the relations that are had between a woman and her commander have no emotional value.
In the times before the Gilead Regime women had the same liberty’s as we do today; the freedom to dress, act, and say whichever way we choose “The women teeter on their spiked feet as if on stilts, but off balance; their backs arch at the waist, thrusting their buttocks out. Their heads are uncovered and their hair too is exposed, in all its darkness and sexuality.” (Attwood, 28). The women of the past were able to show off their bodies in whatever way they wanted, showing as much skin as desired. “It’s strange to remember how we used to think, as if everything were available to us, as if there were no contingencies, no boundaries; as if we were free to shape and reshape forever and ever- expanding perimeters of our lives. I was like that too, I did that too.” The handmaids all had lives, dreams, and personalities that they left behind. What they have become is an object, not a person. “Modesty is invisibility, said Aunt Lydia. Never forget it. To be seen- to be seen- is to be penetrated. What you must be, girls, is impenetrable.” Aunt Lydia isn’t just talking about not letting men see your body; men cant see your soul, they can’t see who you really are inside. If you take away someone’s individuality, you take their ability to be more than just an item.
Before the Gilead striped women of their freedom, sexual acts other than for procreation were acceptable.

Women could be with whomever they wanted, and whom they didn’t. ‘“… What’s your paper on? ‘I just did one on date rape’. ‘Date rape, I said. You’re so trendy, sounds like some type of desert.’” (Atwood, 38) Rape was seen as something that isn’t acceptable, and wasn’t the woman’s fault. “It was my fault she says. It was my own fault. I lead them on, I deserved the pain” (Atwood, 72). In the Gilead, rape is the woman’s fault; she showed off and asked for it. Careless sexual acts are the fault of the woman; the only act that is acceptable is between a handmaid and her commander.
In the Gilead, sex has no value or emotion, its procreation only. There is no longer the love or emotion once felt from sex. “The stains on the mattress. Like dried flower petals. Not recent. Old love; there’s no other kind of love in this room now” (Atwood, 52). There is no love, just duties. It is an emotionless job that needs to be done. “What is going on in this room, under Serena Joy’s canopy, is not exciting. It has nothing to do with passion or love or romance or any of these notions we use to titillate ourselves with.” (Atwood, 94). Sex and love is just an old thought, a leftover memory in Offred’s mind.
The Handmaids and other women of the Gilead Regime are not allowed to express who they are, not in mind or body. They are used as an item to create new life and aren’t appreciated for who they really

are.