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Control In The Handmaid's Tale

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Leaders of Totalitarian governments show great enthusiasm towards running all aspects of society, they have a great passion for employing power over their people. These governments are not finite to just politics, they find a way into the private lives of citizens. They invade into the way that a population thinks, feels and act in their everyday lives, they quite literally have no control over how their lives play out because it all depends on what the government wants. This is an extreme way of living and the question is how are these governments able to gain control? Even when their intentions are not all good the people still seem to follow the leader. Methods that are used to convince a society to follow a leader were displayed throughout …show more content…

In totalitarian governments such as Gilead, the citizens are controlled through fear, abasement and ignorance, this allows the government to become powerful while leaving its citizens ineffectual. Fear is used as an effective method to limit freedom and force people to live within limits. This is proven to be a valid method of societal control throughout The Handmaid’s Tale because of the way that the leaders of the Gileadean regime controlled the handmaid’s by imbuing them with the immense fear of not fitting in with the society and what would happen to them if they were unable to become pregnant. In the society of Gilead, the government made it so that the handmaid’s ‘jobs’ were seen as normal and not getting pregnant was seen as a violation of the societal norms. In the novel, the reader is able to see Offred’s struggle with the need to become pregnant and how the handmaids will go to all ends in order to become pregnant, “’You want a baby, don’t you?’ ‘Yes,’ I say. It’s true, and I don’t know why because I know. Give me children, or else I die. There’s more than one meaning to it” (Atwood 68). This quote refers to when the doctor offered to help Offred become pregnant,

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Offred, being a Handmaid herself, is desperate to have a child because of the fear instilled of not surviving without this act of service. During her monthly check-up with her doctor, Offred states her troubling options when she expresses in her mind, “Give me children, or else I die.” (Atwood 68). Infusing the horror of ceasing to exist ensures that Offred and the other Handmaids will understand that they can not go against the regime and must have a child with their Commander if it is possible with their fertility. Relatively, the doctors of Gilead are suffering with torment because of a life-changing choice they could make for the wellness of their patients.

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