Smith, 1

Charlotte Smith

AP English IV

Ault

11, May. 2023

The Handmaid’s Tale and its Haunting Prophecies

By: Charlotte Smith

Silent, heads bowed, the activists in crimson robes and white bonnets have been
appearing at demonstrations against gender discrimination and the infringement of
reproductive and civil rights. The outfits are inspired by the characters in “The
Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. The 1985 novel, which was made into a series
on Hulu this year, tells the story of a religious coup that gives rise to a theocracy called
Gilead, where women are stripped of rights and forced to bear children for the society’s
elite. (Hauser)

This was an article that ran in the New York Times on June 30th in 2017, with the title “A

Handmaid’s Tale of Protest.” The article details how the symbolic costumes used in The

Handmaid’s Tale to signify control are being utilized as weapons of protest, showcasing how

lawmakers are taking women’s rights away. Since 2017 the laws have only gotten worse in the

United States, including most recently a ban on abortion, and a proposed law, to take away

no-fault divorce. Many works have been sensing the reduction of women's rights for some time.

In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood she creates a dangerous warning about the

confines of male control and superiority, while in the poem “What Kind of Times Are

These” by Adrienne Rich, she implores us to protest the stripping of our autonomy so our

free country won’t be forgotten. Recent news articles about proposed laws on abortion and

women's rights along with divorce, document the reversal these authors have been sensing.

They show the undeniable growing war on women and the slow, but sure tightening of
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control, rendering The Handmaid’s Tale as a prophetic work of literature that has strongly

foreshadowed the current political climate in our country.

The tightening of control is often so subtle that people don’t notice until there is no

freedom left. In The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood shows this progression through a series of

flashbacks about the protagonist. The following is a conversation between the protagonist,

Offred, and her best friend Moira:

Women can't hold property anymore, [Moira said]. It's a new law. Turned on the TV
today? No, [Offred replied]. It's on there, [Moira said]. All over the place. She was not
stunned, the way [Offred] was. In some strange way [Moira] was gleeful, as if this was
what she'd been expecting for some time and now she'd been proven right. She even
looked more energetic, more determined. Luke can use your Compucount for you, she
said. They'll transfer your number to him, or that's what they say. Husband or male next
of kin.(Atwood 124)

In this excerpt Offred has just been informed that she cannot hold any property or bank

accounts. At the time this takes place in the novel, this is the first real law against women, which

elicits shock from Offred. Atwood capitalizes “Husband” in the paragraph, innately showing that

this word is more important and mirrors the way men were portrayed in the Handmaid’s Tale.

This is done to show the connection between the word of their husband being an extension of the

word of god.

Similarly, in the poem “What Kind of Times Are These” Adrienne Rich insinuates the

same power dynamic, in the line “I already know who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear”

(Rich 12). This line is predicated by a description of a shadow of dread, depicted by the

metaphor of a dark forest. In this line, Rich is hinting at American lawmakers, predominantly

men, who wish to use their power and money to make the questions surrounding their laws

disappear. This builds onto how Atwood writes about men, showing the different levels in power.
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It seems outlandish as a woman in the 21st century to be worried about our property like

mentioned above, but we are seeing these sentiments ring true with a new bill that was proposed

in the Texas legislature to end no-fault divorce.This would mean that unless a woman had

concrete proof of infidelity or abuse, the divorce would not be honored. An article in Rolling

Stone reports, “Republicans across the country are now reconsidering no-fault divorce. There

isn’t a huge mystery behind the campaign: Like the crusades against abortion and contraception,

making it more difficult to leave an unhappy marriage is about control” (Stuart). While this law

would affect both genders, Rolling Stone goes on to say “Today, more than two-thirds of all

heterosexual divorces in the U.S. are initiated by women” (Stuart). This law is no accident; it is

meant to disproportionately affect women, attempting to break the equal gender roles in

marriage, and is no doubt a foreshadowing of other bills of similar caliber that would inherently

give power to the man. This is a modern day example of The Handmaid’s Tale, mirroring the first

laws Gilead saw before total control.

The reversal of the No-Fault Divorce Law mirrors The Handmaid's Tale more

specifically in the role of gender in relationships. In The Handmaid’s Tale, this is portrayed by

the various relationships the women have with the Commander. No one can leave if they feel

uncomfortable with a situation, and his wife cannot leave him if he is cheating. They have been

taught to put all the blame for these kinds of situations onto themselves, giving him all the

power, and them all the fault, guilt, and pain. This is most brilliantly showcased in one of the end

scenes, in a conversation between The Commander's Wife and Offred, after the wife finds out

her husband has been meeting with Offred in secret. “‘[The Commander’s wife starts] I told him

… Just like the other [Handmaid]. [Offred] You’re a slut. You’ll end up the same’”(Atwood 200).

At the beginning of this quote, The Commander’s Wife, Serena Joy, is trying to put blame
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evenly onto the Commander, but then stops and redirects it all to Offred. By trying to pin some

of the responsibility on the Commander the reader can glimpse that normally, Serena Joy would

leave a relationship like this but is trapped, she cannot and therefore redirects all anger to Offred.

This is the same trap that would fall onto women of Texas and other states, if this proposed

reversal is passed.

When women are constantly torn down and ridiculed it takes a toll on mental health. This

is why the trap is so devastating; a woman stuck in this relationship wouldn’t see a viable

solution. She cannot divorce her husband, and if she runs away, she would still legally be

married and tied to her abuser, or someone holding her back. Rolling Stone comes to the same

conclusion saying “Researchers who tracked the emergence of no-fault divorce laws state by

state over that period found that reform led to dramatic drops in the rates of female suicide”

(Stuart). This quote says that after No-Fault Divorce Laws became legal, women felt like they

had a way out, and suicide rates plumeted. If these laws are reversed back, we would see a steady

incline in suicide rates amoung married women, because that choice has been taken away.

The Handmaid’s Tale not only has foreshadowed the growing control on women in our

country, but the lack of autonomy as well. Reflected in the novel, when a woman gets pregnant,

she is forced to deliver the baby, even if it has life-threatening birth defects, and the mental and

physical toll that takes on her body is entirely overlooked. This is portrayed in the scene of

Offwarren giving birth, and the speculation around if she will give birth to a baby, or deformity.

Atwood writes “There's no telling. They could tell once, with machines, but that is now

outlawed. What would be the point of knowing, anyway? You can't have them taken out;

whatever it is must be carried to term” (Atwood 77). This is a parallel to the recent United States

overturn of Roe vs. Wade, and to the stricter abortion laws now present in many right-wing
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states. These laws dictate that a woman may only seek an abortion if she is in a life threatening

situation. While there is slight disconnection, because the Handmaid’s cannot terminate even in

those circumstances, it essentially the same because it removes the choice for the woman.

A firsthand example of the harm the total abortion ban in Texas has caused is the story of

Amanda Eid. Eid had been struggling with fertility problems for years, before her and her

husband Josh finally got pregnant in 2022. Four months into her pregnancy her water broke, and

she was informed that her baby would not make it, and while doctors all agreed the pregnancy

was not viable, they had to wait until the baby didn’t have a heartbeat, or Eid was so sick with

sepsis, her life was at risk. Eid reccounts in a recent CNN article “My doctor said it could take

hours, it could take days, it could take weeks” (Cohen and Bonifield). Living in Austin, the

nearest drive to a safe state is at least eight-hours, and after the diagnosis, Josh and Amanda

deemed it too risky. CNN medical writers Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifeild describe Eid’s

condition as, “Amanda found herself shivering in the Texas heat…Her temperature was 102

degrees. She was too weak to walk on her own” (Cohen and Bonifield). Despite finally being

able to terminate the pregnancy, Eid had developed sepsis. CNN reports “… Amanda was so sick

that antibiotics wouldn’t stop the bacterial infection raging through her body. A blood transfusion

didn’t cure her, either” (Cohen and Bonifield). Amanda survived, but still doesn’t know the

lasting effects the sepsis and trauma left on her body, and mental health. While she wasn’t forced

to carry her pregnancy to term, the simple fact that she wasn’t allowed to exercise control over

her own body, to terminate a pregnancy that would have inevitably led to a miscarriage, is starkly

similar to the Handmaid’s Tales portrayal of the war on women, because she didn’t have any

choice.
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Adrienne Rich conveys this pit of disappointment and hopelessness in the phrase from

her poem “What Kind of Times Are These” by saying, “There's a place between two stands of

trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows” (Rich

1-2). The grass growing uphill incites images of something moving backwards, and paired with

the usage of the word “shadow” it portrays something dark, growing as we move farther and

farther away from the standard of women's rights that a revolution fought to accomplish. After

mimicking this feeling of despair many women feel after hearing of these new laws, Rich closes

her poem by saying “… it's necessary to talk about trees” (Rich 15-16). She is referring to the

protests and conversations that have to follow after women’s rights have been stripped away.

Rich implores us to stand up and regain control of our bodies, by creating this sensation of fear

through the metaphor of the forest in her beginning lines, and then giving us hope, and

something to strive for at the end. Atwood uses a different technique to motivate her audience: a

cliffhanger. The uncertainty of the fate of Offred is the same uncertainty that Atwood argues we

should feel when laws of similar caliber are passed.

As detailed in the first paragraph, many protesters have picked up the commonalities

between recent bills and The Handmaid’s Tale and have started to dress in the iconic Handmaid’s

costumes in silent protest of the laws. This has taken place all over the country dating back to

early 2017, when a proposed health care law wanted to defund Planned Parenthood. The

worldwide recognition of the striking coincidences that have started to appear between recent

United States laws and the Handmaid’s Tale, leaves everyone with a sense of despair and anger.

Together these two pieces of literature create a very strong warning on the slow gain of control

on women, and one that the audience should not take lightly, due to the scary similarities we are

seeing in our current times, and being documented in the news.

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Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. 1939-. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Anchor Books, a division of

Penguin Random House LLC, 1998. Accessed on 4, May. 2023.

Cohen, Elizabeth, and Bonifield John. “Texas woman almost dies because she couldn't get an

abortion”. CNN, Cable News Network, 17, November. 2022. Accessed on 5, May. 2023.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/health/abortion-texas-sepsis/index.html

Hauser, Christine. “A Handmaid’s Tale of Protest.” New York Times, 30, June. 2017. Accessed

on 6, May. 2023.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/us/handmaids-protests-abortion.html

Rich, Adrienne. “What Kind of Times Are These?” Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems

1991-1995. W.W. Norton, 1995. Accessed on 4, May. 2023.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51092/what-kind-of-times-are-these

Stuart, Tessa. “The Next Front in the GOP’s War on Women: No Fault Divorce.” RollingStone,

2, May. 2023. Accessed on 5, May. 2023.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/stephen-crowder-divorce-1234727777/
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