Context In Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

In our third writing assignment it was required to observe an event that might be characterized as intercultural. Reading this novel feels most similar to the experience I had during the third writing assignment because as Offred is narrating her experience in Gilead, I am able to analyze the situation from an ethnographic perspective where a researcher would normally observe society from the point of view of the subject of the study The context of culture and power as you examine any intercultural interaction. Context is the physical and social situation in which communication occurs. We need to look at context when examine intercultural communication because the environment in which communication occurs can dramatically affect the strategies

In the society of Gilead, women are defined only by the roles they can execute with their gender, such as wife or handmaid. The women of Gilead are stripped of their individuality when forced to be renamed and divided into functions that are reflected by the color of their dresses and the stores women shop at. An example of this is the store “Milk and Honey”, the name signifies fertility and is only accessible to handmaids. Gilead’s oppression of female individualism reveals the power that names can have in influencing perception. Language can then be used to segregate or discriminate individuals of different genders. These preconceptions in turn affect how we interact with others and may thus affect their behaviors, becoming self-fulfilling

The assigned article of The Rodney King trail was a product of how a defense attorney provided the jury with particular linguistic categories that persuaded the jury to re-interpret what they saw. (Goodwin, 1994). In other words, coding, transforming a natural phenomenon into an object of knowledge, or highlighting, making something salient, allowed the defense to reclassify an act of violence as an action of professionalism. (Goodwin,1994). The women in Gilead have names that places them in categories. Having the “of” before the commander’s name as your own name reinforces the totalitarian agenda, by highlighting the fact that these women are possession of the commander. Similarly, each woman is labeled with a color that translates to their role in society. However it is not just the naming of individuals, but the renaming of their stores that also contributes to the enforcement of expected gender roles. Offred grocery trip has her mention, “a store with another wooden sign: three eggs, a bee, a cow. Milk and Honey” (Atwood 1985). The name of the store, “Milk and Honey”, is another biblical reference in the novel that represents fertility. Naming the store a term that means fertility, and only allowing Handmaids there, openly reinforces the handmaids act within the role society has labeled them