Ludic Perversions and Enduring Communities in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Abstract

This chapter addresses how Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale builds on Orwell’s work by exploring intersections of classism and sexism. In the spirit of Orwell’s socialism, Atwood’s dystopia critiques capitalism and privatization. Just as Nineteen Eighty-Four demonstrates that progressive rhetoric can be appropriated for totalitarian purposes, The Handmaid’s Tale shows how the language of feminism can be distorted by a chauvinist ruling elite to support regressive gender roles. Atwood also reworks Orwellian thought by having her narrator embrace doublethink as a means of preserving, rather than undercutting, sanity. The bizarre sexual relationship between the narrator and the Commander awakens her moral sensibilities and inspires her to leave her record. Reversing Orwell’s gender roles, Atwood casts the Commander as an unwitting revolutionary from the waist downward.