Adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale tells the story of happenings in the Republic of Gilead, the reinvented United States, following a second Civil War. After the United States faced an issue of fertility, the country went to war and, as a result, Gilead was formed; sexually transmitted diseases, pollution, and radiation caused many women to become infertile or unable to have children without being stillborn or possessing a slew of physical and mental disabilities. This new totalitarian and extremist Christian government uses force, sadistic punishment, and its version of the death penalty (hanging, being ripped apart by dogs, drowning- all dependent on the “crime”) to push its agenda onto what were once the free citizens of the United States.
In Gilead, men serve all roles of dominance in any sense of the word. Commanders, the highest ranked males, are tasked to create offspring via Handmaids and to make executive decisions while other men serve as functioning members of Gilead through positions such as Eyes (Gilead's spies who look for traitors), Doctors, or Security Guards.Women are known as second class citizens who are no longer allowed to read, write, own money, or make any sort of independent decision; they serve as Wives, Marthas, Aunts, Jezebels (a kind of prostitute), or Handmaids, the caste levels of which fall in that order and make a serious difference in the way they lead their lives. Handmaids are what is left of the United States’ fertile women who are now forced to use their ability to breed for the greater good of Gilead. They have no choice but to participate in a ritualistic ceremony with their Commander and his Wife to try and conceive a child. Following the story of June, a Handmaid, the audience is guided through the physical and psychological struggles she faces in her day-to-day as she tries to retain her sense of self and find a way to escape with her daughter to Canada. The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a dystopian world that feels eerily plausible and, though very present in the science fiction genre, it holds itself to a higher standard, bringing in aspects of horror, drama, and postmodernism to contribute to the lives of Gilead’s inhabitants; it challenges socio-cultural verisimilitude to create a “captivating, harrowing, and cautionary” tale (Peabody, “The Handmaid’s Tale”).
Understanding society and having a sense of social norms and conventions is key to understanding the impact of The Handmaid’s Tale as it challenges what is known at every point. It uses a carefully crafted balance of socio-cultural and generic verisimilitudes to build Gilead and make June’s life one that is believable for the storyworld. This balance of “codes and conventions… that accord with broader culturally and generally accepted notions of what is believed to be true and real” combines with “what is plausible or likely within the expectations” of the created Gilead to form heartfelt characters in horrifying situations (Creeber, 57). It takes everything the audience thinks they know about how society operates- down to the fundamental principle of personal freedom- and turns it on its head. It shows flashbacks of moments of normality for each character before Gilead was founded even going so far as to show the moment when June, with her husband and daughter, are at the border trying to escape. These moments show the stark contrast of the old United States and the new Gilead, building on the foundation for its creation and making it seamlessly believable. They highlight how Gilead takes “virtually every important characteristic of the human condition- memory, self-expression, self-identity, community, and freedom- [leaving it vulnerable to face] the possibility of irreparable damage” by reminding the audience what life was like before its reign (Gulick, 103).
As the new country of Gilead is explained to the audience, so too is it explained to June. The caste system, though not exactly outlined by rank at first, is clearly divided by color. Handmaids wear bright red dresses that are the only thing bright seen on screen; Wives wear muted blues, Marthas muted green, Aunts brown, and Men, in general, black. Though historically recognized as a more powerful color, the Handmaids’ red dresses read more like a scarlet letter allowing them to be seen and looked down upon from far distances; not only this, but it hinders their ability to hide or run away. The strictly implemented dress code in combination with the visually stunning shots: “dark interiors, [and] washed-out exteriors that are each as lifeless and threatening as the other” create a mood that cannot be avoided (Peabody, “The Handmaid’s Tale”). There is no choice but to feel the watch of and the horror created by Gilead’s officials. This concept of watching or being watched “is an essential motif in The Handmaid’s Tale [as] the regime’s spies are called Eyes, and a common salutation is ‘Under His eye’” (Sariaya, “The Handmaid’s Tale”); just as it cannot be escaped by the characters within the series, so too is it the same for the audience. Gilead’s looming presence and the fear that stems from it creates moments of high tension and sadness as the story is lived from June’s point of view.
As the plot progresses and Gilead’s boundaries are laid down, June stops just shy of getting herself killed trying to find a way to escape. She manipulates Commander Waterford, her Commander, by making sexual advances which he ultimately believes; this leads to a “consensual” love affair when, in reality, June has a different agenda. She too begins an affair with an Eye named Nick and they eventually conceive a child, though they and the Commander’s Wife, Serena, hold to the lie that the baby is Commander Waterford’s child. Serena knows that Commander Waterford is infertile, but the revelation of this truth would most likely lead to their hanging or dismissal from power. At this point, The Handmaid’s Tale begins to feel less like a science-fiction series and more like a drama. The rules and roles for Gilead have been established and, though they do not disappear and the characters still live in a dystopian world, the focus shifts back and forth between that and relational issues. Whether these issues are between Handmaids themselves, Commander Waterford and Serena, or some other combination, the world of Gilead has been accepted and is no longer what is the main focus even though it is the reason for the trouble in the first place.
Themes range from freedom to hypocrisy to power and mix together to create a hybrid series that is all-encompassing. By “rejecting historical authenticity [and] mixing styles and genres”, The Handmaid’s Tale pushes the boundaries of what it means to label a series as science-fiction, bringing in new elements and focuses that lead to a postmodern interpretation (Creeber 68). It is important to note, too, that June narrates the series. Her voiceover narrates to the audience as she comments on her feelings of boredom or anger and her plans. She asks rhetorical questions which force the audience members to step into her shoes. This concept “draws attention to [the series’] own constructedness,” further embodying postmodernism, while at the same time heightening the stakes of the events to come by allowing the audience into June’s mind (Creeber, 68).
Even though the looming presence of Gilead feels suffocating and inescapable, The Handmaid’s Tale still “offers an enduring hope in the human spirit- that [June], against all odds, will one day be able to take off the red” (Saraiya, “The Handmaid’s Tale”). It’s storytelling modes and means of visually communicating moods effectively push boundaries in any sense of the word. The Handmaid’s Tale leaves viewers wanting more with each episode as it depicts a horrible reality with heartfelt (and sometimes hated) characters and displays, both visually and through the text, nothing shy of excellence.
Works Cited
Creeber, Glen. (2015). The Television Genre Book (3rd Edition). British Film Institute.
Gulick, Angela Michelle, “The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: Examining its utopian, dystopian, feminist and postmodernist traditions” (1991). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 57. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/57.
Saraiya, Sonia. “The Handmaid's Tale.” Weekly Variety, 25 Apr. 2017, pp. 106–107.
“The Handmaid's Tale.” Peabody Awards, Grady College of Journalism and Mass
Communication, 2017, www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/the-handmaids-tale.
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