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Fertility In Margaret Atwood's The Republic Of Gilead

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Margaret Atwood created The Republic of Gilead, which is a society that is based on fertility and being able to have children. Gilead is in the former United States. This area has become overpolluted which has caused the birth rates to rapidly decline. Gilead was established to help save the population. The men are made to either be part of the military or to be a Commander, who runs a household and is responsible to “make” the babies. The Commanders get a Handmaid who is to be the one who has their baby. The Handmaids are heavily protected because they are the only women that have viable ovaries. Fertility is illustrated throughout the society through flowers, the color red or hard boiled eggs. Flowers. Such a simple everyday object. One would have never thought that they hold such a significant value in a society whose population is declining. Flowers are often …show more content…

“The shell of the egg is smooth but also grained; small pebbles of calcium are defined by the sunlight, like craters on the moon [...] I think that this is what God must look like: an egg” (Atwood 110). Offred knows how important eggs are, whether it is the eggs she eats or the eggs that she produces. “The handmaids have no choice about what they eat and are permitted to consume only that which the authorities consider will enhance their health and fertility. Caffeine, alcohol, and cigarettes are forbidden and sugar is rationed” (Parker). All of the Handmaids are required to eat eggs everyday for breakfast. They have to eat eggs to essentially help make their own healthy eggs. “Their meals are brought to them in their rooms and they eat alone. By controlling what they eat, the Gilead regime gains direct control over the handmaids' bodies” (Parker). Forcing Handmaid’s to eat eggs helps to have dominance over their body and make them only eat what the authorities think is healthy for them and good for

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The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protected in Gilead, where they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence. However, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it. An example is Jezebel’s, the club that provides the Commanders with prostitutes to service the male elite. Another example is the Ceremony that compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. Foster suggests, “...sex can be pleasure, sacrifice, submission, rebellion, resignation, supplication, domination, enlightenment, the whole works” (158).

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