Why Is The Handmaid's Tale A Dystopian Society

For centuries now, women have been seen to be the weakest social group. They are disallowed to act the way they want. They are disallowed to freely say what they want. They are silenced. In the Handmaid’s tale, the Gilead regime, a totalitarian state, and religious autocracy take full power and completely forbids communication. They aren’t supposed to use their minds in this world. They’re forbidden from reading, speaking, and thinking out loud. Whispering is the language which they use. “We learn to whisper almost without sound. We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other’s mouths.” (p.14) A limited amount of dialogue occurs in this book. A dialogue would rarely happen from a woman to someone else.

This is truly a way that women are dehumanized. A human needs to communicate, as it is a major trait. Gilead treats women like a dead person without a tongue. As this is a dystopian society, silence falls within the characteristics where “information, independent thought, and freedom is restricted”. The information that goes around is “muted” or in other words silenced from them. Nobody truly knows what is happening, they have to keep guessing inside their heads since nobody can talk to each other. The independent thoughts inside your head are silenced. Women are not allowed to communicate so they talk within their heads, but even that can be a challenge. A woman can be so used to not talking that even her mind becomes blank and her thoughts are restricted. They can start to make up scenarios inside their heads but they fear what the Gilead would do so they even restrict that. Lastly, freedom fits well with silence are what they wanna do is “silenced”. A woman could be doing anything but since it is quiet nobody would notice, so that shows that you can’t do whatever you want. Laws falls into place. They are so caught up in a regime that when people ask them any questions they reply with no consciousness of what is