conflict in the handmaids tale essay

Person vs. Society Conflict in Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” Essay

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Mary Atwood is the author of one of the most famous books, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is written in the main character’s diary. In her book, often called a feministic dystopia, she argues about women’s role in society and presents her own reality of women treated as children incubators. At the beginning of the masterpiece, the handmaid Offred who is the main character and is supposed to carry a baby for her lord tries to withstand against established laws, and she is angry about the existing social principles. However, by the end of the book, she turns into an average woman pressured and oppressed by society. This is the best description of the person vs. society conflict; it allows the reader to understand, analyze the handmaid’s feelings and emotions, and come to a logical definition of the subject of this confrontation.

The modern series “The Handmaid’s Tale” is created on the grounds of Mary Atwood’s novel, and it broadens the book’s main idea. This piece of art represents women’s fight for their rights. However, the resistance of the main character against social norms takes a more massive and rebellious turn. Offred organizes a women’s community that aims to break the existing laws and establish equality (Hulu, 2017). This group of women almost starts a war to win this confrontation against society. However, the series is not finished yet. Therefore, the ending is unclear.

People face various problems. However, not all of them can be considered the person vs. society conflict. We can speak about such confrontation when an individual withstands against some social norms or principles they consider inappropriate. In some countries, women still do not have rights or cannot find an appropriate job because companies do not want to hire them. Who can be the modern example of women versus society conflict for equality?

Hulu. (2017). The Handmaid’s Tale: My Name is Offred [Video]. YouTube. Web.

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IvyPanda . (2022) 'Person vs. Society Conflict in Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”'. 11 November.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Person vs. Society Conflict in Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”." November 11, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/person-vs-society-conflict-in-atwoods-the-handmaids-tale/.

1. IvyPanda . "Person vs. Society Conflict in Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”." November 11, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/person-vs-society-conflict-in-atwoods-the-handmaids-tale/.

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IvyPanda . "Person vs. Society Conflict in Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”." November 11, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/person-vs-society-conflict-in-atwoods-the-handmaids-tale/.

A-Level English With Miss Huttlestone

A FULL MARK ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Essay

The following essay, penned by Heidi in year 12, captures the essence of the top band – it is developed, has true voice, and supports each ambitious idea with extensive textual evidence. Heidi’s knowledge of theorists, and her passion for debate adds enviable flair to the response .

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is not primarily about the suppression of women but about their defiance. To what extent to you agree?

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is a piece of speculative fiction about both the extensive oppression of women and their attempts to defy it, however their attempts exist in accordance with the misogyny that existed in the time before Gilead and this greatly limits the effectiveness of it. As philosopher Christopher Lasch would say, their protest is incurvatus in se or turned inward. This means that the protest throughout the narrative is lacklustre and far more about the actualisation of the self than the organised movement against total oppression. Atwood’s writing in the era of Reganism, where the rights of women were being pushed back against and thus the narrative reflects the internalised misogyny that each woman possessed via social conditioning that lowers one’s ability to protest effectively. Characters who defy do so by becoming more masculine as the culture hegemonic standard is that men are strong, and women are weak that existed long before Gilead came to be. Atwood seems to say with the lack of effective protest that the suppression of women existed before, it harmed women before, and it will continue to do so unless far greater pushback is made.

Firstly, the character of Serena Joy is created such that her defiance comes from her personal brutality and masculinisation of the self. She is a character who smokes, a recurring motif seen in all protesting characters, however smoking itself is seen as a masculine trait throughout history, with instances such as the Nazi regime totally banning smoking for women when they came to power. Further, the image of a cigarette is incredibly phallic, and the fact that this phallus is used as a semiotic representor of protest reflects the nature of such an act for women. They see no other alternative but this masculine object to use as their defiance, the social conditioning from year of demonisation of feminine power stemming long before Gilead has run so deeply into the psyche that the characters look for a phallic object to protest using. Serena, in her smoking is described by Offred by putting ‘the cigarette out, half-smoked, decisively one jab and one grind’, this imagery is violent, it is the pressing of the cigarette downwards and crushing of its end. The use of the repetition of the determiner ‘one’ creates the imagery of conclusion, she has done this action before and she is used to pushing the cigarette out, she needs no further courses of action. These traits embody the stereotypical masculine, she has decisiveness and not the stereotypical questioning femininity that has been so greatly propounded by wider society. This line also relates to Offred later recognition that she must ‘steel herself’ when partaking in the ceremony, Serena seems steely here, she seems solid, she seems in practise and almost robotic. Further, the way Serena acts is told to be opposing those in in the same social class as her and Offred goes on to say that they ways she puts out her own cigarette is different to the ‘many series of genteel taps favoured by many wives’. Not only does this quote indicate that there is protest and the taking up of black-market objects across the female hierarchy, but it separates Serena and solidifies her as a far more masculine and expectation defiant character. The other wives are dainty and adhere to gender norms that were present pre-Gilead, their actions are graceful and ladylike, they are far more the ‘Angel in the House’ than Serena seems to be. In addition to this, to tap a cigarette is to remove the ash, presumably a fully smoked one, since the Wives cannot work they are reliant on their husbands for the money to buy the black-market cigarettes, yet Serena disrespects this, her cigarette is wasted. She defies the view of ‘waste not want not’. Atwood has stated previously that there are droughts and struggles to get things into the regime, but Serena does not care, her protest here is one of apathy. She removes herself from the feminine doting stereotype who cares over all small details. The character of Serena Joy is one of two opposing sides, on the one hand she is the defiant strong masculine woman who acts aggressively and appositionally, yet her protest is about becoming a man more than it is becoming a defiant individual. She is far more preoccupied with masculinising herself to remove from the expectation of women than fostering true escape from Gilead. This makes her character one entangled with both the suppression of women and the feminine and the defiance of expectation. 

Moreover, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ presents the extent that misogyny invades the self through the internalisation of Gileadean and pre-Gileadean ideas of women and stereotypes. Throughout the novel, the ideas of Gilead are presented through the character Aunt Lydia, who remains a construct within the mind of Offred until the near end of the book. In turning the character in to a construction, Atwood is able to expertly show just how pervasive and condemning misogyny is to the minds of women, just how easily it finds itself inside the heads of those it infects. She uses no quotation marks around Aunt Lydia’s remarks to emphasise the degree at which it has been absorbed into each person. ‘Yours is a position of honour, she said’ is something Offred repeats in her internal narrative within the story. This idea has embedded itself in the protagonist and she speaks of how her ‘flesh arranges itself differently’ and she is less a woman and more of a ‘cloud’. Through this metaphorical imagery, the reader is shown the degree at which Gilead breaks the psyche of women. Offred is within Gilead to the point at which it ahs changed her flesh entirely and is no longer herself, no longer bodily autonomous. To include this detail, Atwood creates the impression that the ideas of the patriarchy imbed themselves so deeply within the women subjected to them that they gain the ability to almost change their existence and self-perception entirely. A feminist reader would conclude from this that the character of Offred is one afflicted with internalised misogyny, she becomes her own oppressor and the oppressor of those around her due to her social conditioning. This is backed up by the recollection of a session within the Red Centre that was reflective of the struggle sessions of Maoist China where in abuse was shouted at a central, labelled dissident – in this case Janine. She says that ‘We meant it’, the ‘it’ in reference to the psychological attacks levied against the rape victim, yet she refuses to label it such due to well-placed shame, replacing it with a mediator, replacing it with the innocent and decent sounding ‘it’, she attempts to remove herself from her own actions. In using a collective pronoun, she is implicating the entirety of the Handmaidens who were with her in this abuse, she acts as though she understands their thoughts and in many ways she likely does as they were all put through the same cycle of abuse. It also creates the idea of togetherness and sisterhood; however, this is sisterhood that has been manufactured by the state to abuse someone, it is sisterhood that exists because of women coming together to attack another. So often in the modern media, women are pitted against one another and there seems a great manipulation to make them hate each other. This sisterhood is contrived, it is there because Gilead understands that they must give these women a slight amount of togetherness, so long as it is to attack another individual. This defiance here is a reflection of the patriarchy.

Despite this internalisation, there are many instances of the creation of distinction between us and them within the narrative. Although much of what Aunt Lydia has told Offred is presented uncommented on and internalised, we are still seen some instances of the opposition to her word such as the criticism of her cherry picking of the Bible verse ‘Blessed are the meek’ and her decision to not ‘go on to say anything about inheriting the earth’. The Bible verse blessed are the meek was debated in DH Lawrence’s novel ‘The Rainbow’ wherein his defiant female Ursula character criticized the term due to the connotation it holds that you must be poor and weak to be ‘blessed’ by God. Her character believed that this term is used to satiate the poor and those in unfortunate positions. In many ways, Aunt Lydia’s statement of this term represents that, she is trying to say that the women are weak and must stay ‘meek’ to be drawn under God’s Grace, however Offred unpicks this and criticizes her use of the term in the fact it has so clearly been cherry picked for this purpose. It is meant to satiate the handmaids, lower their drive to protest and suppress them. Yet in Offred educated background she is aware that this is not the full quote and defies expectation by finishing it herself. A reader may believe that this means she sees a life outside of Gilead, that she believes she will ‘inherit the earth’, or rather there will be some form of balance restored. The use of ‘they’ within this recital also indicates a belief in a collective of Handmaids that will work to subvert the rule of Gilead, she does not talk about herself here and rather talks about a collective of the ‘meek’ who shall take over and repossess what they have been stripped of. Further, this idea of the collective ‘meek’ being together is emphasised in the idea that comes after Ofglen’s taking of Offred into the resistance. Offred thinks ‘there is an us then, there is a we’ before going onto say ‘what about them’. These three collective pronouns create the idea that there are two groups of people in Offred’s mind and that she is separate from the regime and its agents. The ‘them’ is in reference to the state actors that exist within Gilead and their violence. Offred separates herself from the violence in the recognition of a ‘them’, she is no longer a part of what has placed others on a wall, what has murdered those around her because she is able to self-actualise and join a group, to join a ‘we’, to join an ‘us’. and while this sentiment is incredible, it is short lived and just a few pages onward Offred reverts to the personal. The chapter ends with the pronoun ‘me’ in Offred joy that she was not taken away by the Eyes. This is a sad reflection that relates to the thesis that protest within Gilead is protest governed by laws of self-actualisation and not true revolutionary action. Offred creates an ‘us’, joins it, and, due to social conditioning, leaves it at the first sign of struggle.  

Finally, the way protest within the novel creates itself is in line with the concept of inward protest rather than outward revolutionary action. This is called incurvatus in se in the words of Christopher Lasch and generally forms itself in the self-actualisation over active opposition against injustice. One example of this is the stealing of a ‘withered daffodil’ from the kitchen by Offred. The daffodil is named after the Greek myth of narcissus and semiotically reflects narcissism. For Atwood to specify this flowers breed she creates the impression that what Offred is doing is to oppose standards of beauty set out by Gilead. However, a Laschian reader would take this symbol far differently. The fact that her protest is the taking of a symbol of narcissism is a reflection of the inability to protest non-narcissistically created in the 1980s during the creation of neo-liberalism. This phenomena praised the individuals actions over anything else and thus the individual saw themselves as more important than the collective group. Atwood, writing at a time where neoliberalism was being created, places her character past in the same time line as her own and thus Offred is afflicted by the same hegemonic standard. Offred exhibits much of the narcissistic tendencies that are noted by Lasch, namely the taking without much real action and what little action that does take place being to self-actualise. Her decision to take the Daffodil was arrived at because it ‘will not be missed’, this is an example of ‘meek’ defiance, and the aforementioned internalisation of such a thing. We have seen how Aunt Lydia wanted the handmaids to be ‘meek’ and Offred still acts in this way, she still internalises her message. The daffodil is ‘withered’, it is presumably about to be thrown out, it is dying. And Offred recognises this and takes it, because this protest is about self-actualising more than it is protest. 

Overall, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is a novel that cannot be split into the suppression of women and their defiance. It must be viewed as a conjunction of the two; how the suppression of women harms their protest, how the protest of women changes their suppression. These two concepts exist in symbiosis, the protest of the female characters is in accordance to hegemonic weakening female stereotypes, the women are forced to internalise ideas about their own gender that are near impossible to refute. 

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The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret atwood.

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Every major character in the story engages in some kind of disobedience against Gilead’s laws. Moira rebels most boldly, disguising herself and managing to escape from the Handmaids’ imprisonment, though her daring escape proves futile, and she ends up at Jezebel’s, resigned to her fate. Ofglen ’s rebellion is more community-minded, since she works as part of an organized resistance, although her careful plotting also ends badly. More unexpected are the small-scale rebellions from the Commander and the Commander’s Wife .

The Commander seems to have every advantage, being a man, powerful in the new regime, and wealthy. Gilead should be his ideal society, especially since the book suggests that he had a role in designing it. Yet he desires a deeper emotional connection, and cares enough about Offred ’s well-being to break the law and consort with her beyond his duties. The Commander’s Wife also tries to get around the strictures of Gilead, setting Offred up with Nick in an illegal attempt to make a family.

These rebellious acts, coming from Gilead’s privileged group, add complexity to their characters and to the dystopia as a whole. No one in the book is purely evil, and no one is so different from real-world humans to fully embrace the lack of independence in Gilead. Whether large or small, attempting to destroy the Gileadean government or merely to make one’s personal circumstances more tolerable, each character commits rebellious acts, highlighting both the unlivable horror of Gileadean society, and the unsteadiness of its foundations.

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Rebellion Quotes in The Handmaid’s Tale

We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability?

Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?

Nolite te bastardes carborandorum.

I’ve crossed no boundaries, I’ve given no trust, taken no risk, all is safe. It’s the choice that terrifies me. A way out, a salvation.

A thing is valued, she says, only if it is rare and hard to get.

And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.

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Conflict in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: A Critical Discourse Approach

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Handmaid's Tale — Gender Issues and Identity Crisis in “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Edible Woman”

Gender Issues and Identity Crisis in "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Edible Woman"

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Published: Jun 10, 2020

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• DOI: 10.24093/awej/vol13no3.26
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Conflict in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: A Critical Discourse Approach

• Ola Razzaq Naji , Nawal Fadhil Abbas
• Published in Arab World English Journal 24 September 2022
• Sociology, Psychology, Linguistics

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Additional Reading & Videos:

• Essay: The Handmaid’s Tale Through the Lens of Marxism
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