Total Control In The Handmaid's Tale, By Margaret Atwood

Taking Over

The novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood explores a new “America” in the future where the government gains total control. Restricting almost anything, these handmaids had very few rights and were valued only if their ovaries were viable. As the government started to push religion around, the handmaids were being affected by having strict clothing, punishments for disobeying, and fear that this world would never end. Forcing these women to the lower class, all freedom was lost, fear was a normal thing and they had to cope with it. All throughout The Handmaid's Tale, the command hierarchy of the Republic of Gilead abused religion turning it into a tool to create an encumber of psychological and physical fear in the handmaid's.
The handmaids are forced to wear red skirts to there ankles, long sleeves showing no skin, and when they leave the house, they have to cover their faces with these white wings. One handmaid named Offred said “the white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen” (Atwood 8). As religion is very powerful in this republic, skin is rarely ever to be seen, and these wings confine the face. These wings are being used to control what the handmaid's see, how much they can see, and where they can look, making sure fear is in place if they do something wrong. With Offred expressing fear of total control of power in the book, she says “a rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze” (Atwood 165). With religion and the strong power of the government, they serve as the maze while the handmaids are the rats inside it, going where they have too and right back. Everywhere they go, they run into the “maze,” getting hit by the rules of the government and the customs of the religion. If these are disobeyed or there jobs are not properly done right, the handmaid's could possibly be sent to the Colonies or Jezebels, where life will not be sustained very long. In this republic, the word ‘control’ is overly abused, the religion is victimizing the handmaid's, putting fear into them, forbidding them from
As Offred attends her regular appointments, the doctor wanted to help her in getting pregnant, but she thought “does he know something, has he seen Luke, has he found, can he bring back?” (Atwood 60). Unquestionably, Offred wants to believe that her husband is still alive prospering, but with religion being used as a tool, he may be dead or even kept in the Center as a prisoner which inclines her fear. Afraid of never seeing her husband again, every thought of the past, each handmaids memory slips away that the thought of life will never be the same, pinning fear in their future of what is next to come. Not only did Offred lose her husband, she lost her daughter too, seeing a picture of her she said “... she exists, in her white dress. She grows and lives. Isn’t that a good thing? A blessing?” (Atwood 228). Granted this picture, it is the only proof that she is still alive somewhere, but has been stored somewhere unknown. Fear that Offred lost her whole family to this society, this unknown place speculates that they could be holding her husband and daughter. Hope is all they have left but with religion and the cruel day to day lives they live, everything in the past might disappear and establish a constant fear of what is next to