How Does Margaret Atwood Use Flashbacks In The Handmaid's Tale

Time perception is defined as the awareness or experience of the passage of time taken through personal understanding. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a dystopian novel that displays a woman being forced to live as a handmaid (mistress) under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship. The author utilizes the manipulation of time to display how power and control predominate Gilead. The Handmaid’s Tale manipulates the reader's perception of time in terms of the future by setting the story in the near future. It is also in terms of the past through non-linear flashbacks.

The novel presents a world that is set in the near future yet is still drastically different from modern reality. Atwood's use of a future setting creates a sense

The protagonist, Offred, often recalls her life before the regime took power, and these memories are interwoven into the narrative of the novel. These flashbacks are used to contrast the past with the present, highlighting the obvious differences between the two to emphasize the loss of freedom and individuality that has occurred under the regime in the present. They also provide context for the reader, allowing us to understand how society reached this point instead of just jumping straight into it. As stated above, the fate of other characters close to Offred from her past, such as Moira and Luke, is also revealed gradually throughout the novel. This gradual release of information allows the novel to build suspense and tension, as readers are left wondering about important questions and events, including what a potential cause was of society that led to Gilead dominating. We are not given a clear explanation until later in the novel. It also creates a sense of uncertainty and instability, as readers are left to further question what else they might not know or understand about the society in the

These flashbacks provide important context for the events of the novel and help to analyze Offred's character. For example, in Chapter 13, Offred flashes back to her time at the Red Center, where she and other women were trained to become Handmaids. This particular flashback was when Janine was telling everyone else about how she was gang-raped at age fourteen and when one of the aunts asked the group whose fault was it, they all replied “Her fault, her fault, her fault, we chain in unison” and when they were asked “Who led them on?”, they all responded “She did. She did. She did” (Atwood 52). This flashback provides important information about the indoctrination process that the Handmaids go through because the Red Center is forcing girls to believe that trauma is always the victim’s (female) fault and never the man's. This flashback is one of many found in the book that is not presented linearly. Offred's memories jump around in time, providing glimpses of different aspects of her training at different points in the novel. There is a separate flashback from Moira escaping from the Red Center to Offred reflecting on how much life has changed since her arrival at the Red Center. This non-linear presentation of Offred's memories coming from the same place creates a sense of disorientation and confusion that mirrors Offred's own experience. It also reinforces the idea that memories are