The Handmaid's Tale Power

The poems Little Girl, My String bean, My Lovely Woman by Anne Sexton, Homecoming by Bruce Dawe and the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, effectively convey different aspects of power. It is evident through the texts that each individual life form contains their own personal power as a result of identity. Women in particular, possess the capacity to bear life. However, it can be interpreted that this power is divested of as a result of physical and hierarchal powers. Alongside these forces is the cyclical nature of life and death, which humans are ultimately powerless to.

The journey of self-discovery and individuality forms one’s personal power which in turn can become powerlessness due to dominant physical forces. The poems

Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman by Anne Sexton and Homecoming by Bruce Dawe, explore the empowering transition of adolescence and the dehumanising effects of war. Sexton establishes personal power in relation to the metamorphosis from ‘girl’ to ‘woman’, and the significance this has in one’s own identity. Through the use of simile in the line, “my daughter, at eleven (almost twelve), is like a garden,” Sexton compares her daughter’s transitioning or stage of life to a garden. The symbolisms of gardens in relation to fertility and variation portray the magnificence of the progression of life.. The repetition of ‘noon’ in the line, “now you must watch high noon enter – noon, that ghost hour,” emphasises this journey, as a time of flourishing. The call of nature through femininity is evident at this stage, and thus a strong individual is born. Sexton uses an address to her daughter Linda, “there is nothing in your body that lies. All that is new is telling the truth,” to exemplify the power of female wisdom being passed down to the generations experiencing this moment in time. Thus, through identity, personal power within an individual is evident, particularly so on the route to womanhood. However, the physicality of war has the tendency to rid the individual of all identity and personal power as explored in Homecoming by Bruce Dawe. Throughout the poem, soldiers have been addressed to as ‘they’re’ as seen in the line, ‘they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,” conveying the dehumanising act war has on the individual, and also depicts the dead to be disposed of as garbage. The physicality of war results in loss of life and the dismissive treatment of its victims proves it unavailing. Alliteration is used in the line, ‘telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree,’’ to depict the horrors of death, represented by the season of winter, and the messages being sent to loved ones of the victims. Thus, Sexton explores personal power within the individual, conveyed through the female metamorphosis, and Dawe the sheer force and impact war has on stripping identity and this power from the individual.

It can be argued that the physical female body has been exploited in the modern day by the media, society, and higher powers.

Through the studied texts, Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman and The Handmaid’s Tale power within the essence of womanhood can be subjugated through political and societal hierarchy. Through the term of endearment in the line “Oh, darling, let your body in, let it tie you in, in comfort,” confidence in one’s womanhood is emphasised as it becomes an essential part of personal identity. Sexton, who portrays the physical female body to be beautiful, is contrasted to the motif of women being reduced to their bodies, becoming vessels of reproductive organs. Margaret Atwood challenges this through the allegory of The Handmaid’s Tale by taking that personal power and completely demolishing it with reference to the female anatomy. ¬¬Rhetorical questioning is used in the line, “and I think about a girl who did not die when she was five; who still does exist, I hope, though not for me. Do I exist for her? Am I a picture somewhere, in the dark at the back of her mind?” where the persona relies on her mental freedom as she is no longer a free, female being herself. This exemplifies the psychological effect in which the hierarchal society has placed on the victimized individual. Through the self-reflection, “My nakedness is strange to me already,” Atwood introduces the authorities placed among woman, which result in the fear of their own natural and naked bodies; bodies that have the ability to bear life, a gift and power in itself. Atwood further reinforces the exploitations of the female anatomy, “I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't want to see it. I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely.” This not only exemplifies psychological impacts, but the loss of the power and beauty in womanhood, the persona now rejecting her own body due to her mistreatment.

Thus, in representing the exploitation of the female body, it is evident that the authorities possessed by those dominant in the fictional society disrupt the balance and power of womanhood.

The power of life and death and the impact of its inexorable cycles provides all living beings with a continual sense of vulnerability and powerlessness. Through the studied texts, Homecoming and The Handmaid’s Tail, the fertility of women in representation to bear life is contrasted the physicality of war, ultimately resulting in death. Women being reduced to their sheer fertility are established in the line, “the best and most cost-effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves.” The exploitation of the female capacity to bear life is evident. Through the use of rhetorical questioning in the line, “She is frightening me now, because what I hear in her voice is indifference, a lack of volition. Have they really done it to her then, taken away something – what? – that used to be so central to her?” Atwood conveys the individual’s uniqueness to be stolen by higher dominance, having fatal psychological effects on the persona. Dawe further explores this motif through the use of visual imagery in the line, “curly heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms,” where the dead are categorised and catalogued by their hair style. This detached, anonymous form of identification results in further loss of identity and establishes the dehumanising effect war has on the individual. Paradox is used in the line, “they’re bringing them home, now, too late, too early,’’ to representing the devastating effect of the physicality of war. Thus, powerlessness is evident through the vulnerability of human life in relation to death, with the assistance of physical brutality.

Therefore, the poems Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman by Anne Sexton, Homecoming by Bruce Dawe and the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood explore certain aspects of personal and physical power, which coincide with the cyclical nature of life and transformation into womanhood. Evidently, these have a significant impact on each and determine the end result of power.