How dose The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood intersection between politics and social reproduction affects the life of women?

1. Presented for:
Mohammad Akbar Hosain
Lecturer
Department of English
Comilla University
Presented By:
Monir Hossen
Masters: 1st Semester
Roll: 0900152
Session : 2012-2013
Department of English
Course Code: Eng: 515; Title: Women and Literature
Date of Presentation: August 4 , 2015

3. Biography of Margaret Atwood
 Name : Margaret Atwood
 Born : 18 November, 1939. Ottawa, Ontario.
 Parents : Margaret Dorothy, a former dietitian and
nutritionist from Woodville, Nova Scotiaand Carl
Edmund Atwood, an entomologist
 Title : Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic,
essayist, and environmental activist
 Childhood : She was grown up in Northern Onterio,
Quebec, and Torento
 Education:
 Victoria College, University of Toronto, B.A., 1961;
 Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass., M.A, 1962;
 Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1962-63, 1965-67.
 Marriage : She married Jim Polk; they were divorced in 1973. She
formed a relationship with fellow novelist Graeme Gibson

4. Margaret Atwood (1939- Present)

5. Places of Residence:
 Ottawa, 1939-45;
 Sault Ste. Marie, 1945;
 Toronto, 1946-61;
 Boston, Mass., 1961-63;
 Toronto, 1963-64;
 Vancouver, 1964-65;
 Boston, Mass.1965-67;
 Montreal, 1967-68;
 Edmonton, 1968-70;
 England (London), France,
Italy, 1970-71;
 Toronto, 1971-73;
 Alliston, Ontario, 1973-80;
 Toronto, 1980-83;
 England, Germany, 1983-84;
 Alabama, 1985; Toronto,
1986-91;
 France, 1992;
 Toronto, 1992-present.

6. Margaret Atwood (1939- Present)
 Occupation
 Novelist, Poet, Businesswoman, Environmental
Activist, Feminist, Critic and Fictionist
 Employment:
 Lecturer in English, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, 1964-65;
 Instructor in English, Sir George Williams University,
Montreal, 1967-68; University of Alberta, 1969-70;
 Assistant Professor of English, York University,
Toronto, 1971-72;
 Writer-In-Residence, University of Toronto, 1972-73;
 M.F.A. Honorary Chair, University of Alabama,
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1985;
 Berg Chair, New York University, 1986; Writer-In-
Residence, Macquarie Univ., Australia, 1987;
 Writer-In-Residence, Trinity Univ., San Antonio,
Texas, 1989.

7. Associations:
Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers’ Union of
Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of
International P.E.N.,
Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986.
She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents
of the Rare Bird Society within Bird Life International.
Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN
International.

8. Her Works
Novels
 The Edible Woman(1969)
 Surfacing(1972)
 Lady Oracle(1976)
 Life Before Man(1979)
 Bodily Harm(1981)
 The Handmaid's Tale( 1985 Governor General's Award, finalist for the 1986 Booker Prize)
 Cat's Eye (1988)
 The Robber Bride (1993, )
 Alias Grace (1996,)
 The Blind Assassin (2000, winner of the 2000 Booker)
 Oryx and Crake (2003)
 The Penelopiad (2005)
 The Year of the Flood (2009)
 Madd Addam (2013)
 The Heart Goes Last (2015)
 Scribbler Moon (2114)

9. The Handmaid’s Tales (1985)

10. Short Summary of The Handmaid’s Tale:
 The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the futuristic Republic of Gilead. Sometime in the future,
conservative Christians take control of the United States and establish a dictatorship.
 Women in Gilead are infertile after repeated exposure to pesticides, nuclear waste, or
leakages from chemical weapons. The few fertile women are taken to camps and trained
to be handmaidens, birth-mothers for the upper-class. Infertile lower-class women are
sent either to clean up toxic waste or to become "Marthas," house servants.
 No women in the Republic are permitted to be openly sexual; sex is for reproduction only.
The government declares this a feminist improvement on the sexual politics of today
when women are seen as sex objects.
 The novel focuses on one handmaid, Offred (she is given the name of the man whose
children she is expected to bear--she is of Fred). Offred became a handmaid after an
attempt to escape with her daughter and husband from Gilead.
 They fail; her daughter is given away to a needy woman in the upper circles, and Offred
does not know whether her husband is alive or dead, whether he escaped or was
captured.

11.  Offred is in the service of the General and his wife, Serena Joy. Serena Joy hates that
she is unable to bear children and hates Offred for taking her husband seed. If
Offred does not become pregnant promptly, Serena Joy will undoubtedly take
revenge by sending her away, possibly to the toxic colonies.
 Offred does not become pregnant, but she does develop an unexpected relationship
with the General. He plays games of Scrabble with her (all forms of writing are
officially denied handmaids) and gives her gifts of cosmetics and old fashion
magazines.
 One night he dresses her in a cocktail dress and takes her to an illegal nightclub
where Offred runs into an old female friend, now a prostitute in the club.
 Serena Joy, desperate for children, finally arranges for Offred to sleep with the
chauffeur. The two are happy together; she thinks she is pregnant. Soon after,
Serena Joy finds the cocktail dress the General gave to Offred.
 She knows her husband is to blame, but accuses Offred anyway and sends for the
police to take her away to certain death. When the van arrives to take her away,
however, it is driven by rebels who carry Offred to safety.

12. The Handmaid’s Tale depict the intersection
between politics and sexual reproduction
 At first, religion seems to be the central element of Gileadean society, defining
all aspects of life. But, in fact, the entire structure of Gilead, including its state
religion, is built around one goal: the control of reproduction.
 Gilead is a society facing a crisis of dramatically dropping birthrates; to solve
the problem, it imposes state control on the means of reproduction—namely,
the bodies of women.
 Controlling women’s bodies can succeed only by controlling the women
themselves, so Gilead’s political order requires the subjugation of women. They
strip women of the right to vote, the right to hold property or jobs, and the
right to read.

13.  Women are a “national resource,” Gilead likes to say, but they really mean that
women’s ovaries and wombs are national resources. Women cease to be treated
as individuals, with independent selves. Rather, they are seen potential
mothers.
 Women internalize this state-created attitude, even independent women like
Offred. At one point, lying a in a bathtub and looking at her naked form,
Offred tells us that, before Gilead, she thought of her body as a tool of her
desires, something that could run and jump and carry things.
 As a Handmaid, however, she thinks of her body as a cloud, surrounding a
womb that is far more “real,” than she herself is. Offred’s comments show that
even strong women come to see themselves as the state sees them, as
prospective carriers of a new -generation of Gileadeans.

14. Atwood and feminism
 Atwood, who was surrounded by the intellectual dialogue of the female faculty
members at Victoria College at University of Toronto, often portrays female
characters dominated by patriarchy in her novels.
 Still, Atwood denies that The Edible Woman, for example, published in 1969
and coinciding with the early second wave of the feminist movement, is
feminist and claims that she wrote it four years before the movement.
 Atwood believes that the feminist label can only be applied to writers who
consciously work within the framework of the feminist movement.

15. As a 21st century Novel
 Some of the novel’s concerns seem dated today, and its implicit
condemnation of the political goals of America’s religious conservatives
has been criticized as unfair and overly paranoid.
 Nonetheless, The Handmaid’s Tale remains one of the most powerful
recent portrayals of a totalitarian society, and one of the few dystopian
novels to examine in detail the intersection of politics and sexuality.
 The novel’s exploration of the controversial politics of reproduction
seems likely to guarantee Atwood’s novel a readership well into the
twenty-first century.

16. Commentary
 The Handmaid’s Tale is a critique of anti-abortion rhetoric and
some reproductive technologies.
 In Gilead, reproduction is taken out of women’s control. The
novel has been criticized for making capitalist, contemporary
America seem like a free haven. Only the dictators argue that
contemporary (1980-90) gender politics harm women.
 The characters with whom readers are encouraged to agree think
our America is a bastion of equality. Offred, for example,
envisions freedom in terms of fashion magazines, silk stockings,
and traditional motherhood and families. She believes in "family
values," linking her more with the Right than one might expect.

17. Awards and honors
 Margaret Atwood has won more than 55 awards in Canada and internationally, including:
 Governor General's Award , (1966, 1985)
 Companion of the Order of Canada , 1981
 Guggenheim fellowship, 1981
 Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, 1986
 American Humanist Association Humanist of the Year, 1987
 Arthur C. Clarke Award for best Science Fiction, 1987
 Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1988
 Canadian Booksellers Association Author of the Year, 1989
 Trillium Book Award , 1991, 1993, 1995
 Government of France's Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, 1994
 Helmerich Award , 1999,
 Booker Prize, 2000
 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, 2008
 Nelly Sachs Prize, Germany, 2010
 Dan David Prize, Israel, 2010
 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Canada, 2012
 Los Angeles Times Book Prize "Innovator's Award", 2012

18. Honorary degrees
Commandant Eric Tremblay, Royal Military College of Canada awards honorary
degree to Margaret Atwood
 Trent University, 1973
 Queen's University, 1974
 Concordia University, 1980
 Smith College, 1982
 University of Toronto, 1983
 University of Waterloo, 1985
 University of Guelph, 1985
 Mount Holyoke College, 1985
 Victoria College, 1987
 Université de Montréil, 1991
 University of Leeds, 1994
 McMaster University, 1996
 Laurentian University, 2001
 Harvard University, 2004
 Ontario College of Art & Design, 2009
 Bard College, 2010
 National University of Ireland, Galway, 2011
 Ryerson University, 2012
 Royal Military College of Canada, 2012

19. Conclusion