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The Handmaid's Tale Power

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Power is the currency of the world. Those with power have the ability to influence others and rapidly initiate change into their surroundings. Even the slight chance of acquiring great power pushes people to compete against each other in order to get ahead in life. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Aunt Lydia claims to protect the Handmaids from society’s sex-crazed men. However, the pleasure she gets out of patronizing women brings her down to the morality similar to that of the men she advocates against because they all berate the Handmaids in order to aggrandize their power. Aunt Lydia incessantly reminds the Handmaid’s that their work is “empowering” and allows them to be free from bad influences of past generations. In an effort …show more content…

When conferring about recent changes, Offred says, “‘Better?’ I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better?” while the Commander replies, “‘Better never means better for everyone’ he says. ‘It always means worse, for some’” (274). While the Commander is aware of the horrifying situation the Handmaids are placed under, he glosses over their lack of freedom because he knows his power will continue to grow. Similarly, Aunt Lydia overlooks the women’s struggles because their pain allows her to succeed at her job. Men in Gilead believe that they are shielding women because they assume that women are clueless and naive. As a woman, Aunt Lydia should be understanding of the immense pressure the Handmaids are put under. Instead, she leaves them defenseless because like the men, she relishes in the authority she has over the women. Aunt Lydia persistently reminds the women to stay focused, once saying, “No mooning and June-ing around here, girls. Wagging her finger at us. Love is not the point” (285). Aunt Lydia treats the women as objects to be used because the narrator repeatedly mentions how she “wags her finger at us” like one would to a dog. She uses this technique to view the Handmaids as inanimate entities rather than people. Atwood uses the men in Gilead and Aunt Lydia to show that while the two sides may claim to follow different mindsets, they both contribute to the women’s

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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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Throughout the novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood portrays a world built upon the ideals of male leaders through the lens of a woman subject to the terrors that this world inflicts. In response to falling fertility rates and progressive ideologies, a group of powerful men are motivated to concoct a society based entirely upon their religious ideals to further both their reign over the female population and their success as leaders. Through the experience of a woman living at the expense of these ideas, Atwood communicates the negative consequences of idealism in the hands of a man, and the consequences of a religion-based idealistic world. Throughout the Handmaid's Tale, Atwood portrays a dystopian world by the name of Gilead, where

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