Fear to Defiance

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel in which a regime in the United States has taken over and created a new society known as Gilead. The coup took place at a time when there was a serious decline in population. The goal of the new regime was to have women with functioning ovaries become breeding machines. If a handmaid were to go against the system the consequences for the handmaid included being hanged at the wall or sent out to die of radiation sickness. Offred, the narrator of the story, was one of the many handmaid’s captured by the new regime. In Gilead, fear is everywhere and can’t be avoided by any handmaid. Offred, unlike her long-time friend Moira, is not naturally blessed with courage. When she is new to Gilead, Offred is always on the look out fearing the eyes that quietly watch her but as time passes and her want for human warmth and affection becomes the only thing she can think about, does she start to defy authority or does fear remain a constant factor in her life?

The first sign of defiance from Offred in the novel is seen when she resists all of the Gileadean propaganda. Although this is not an external showing of defiance, it is still a sign of a more internal and passive form of defiance. Her mind is not as soft and brainwashed as the authorities would like to believe it is. During a ceremony at the red center, Moira and Offred have one of their meetings in the toilets. After some discussion with Moira, Offred realizes that there are small things the powerless can do to make a statement for themselves against the ones in charge. “There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about these in power… It’s like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with” (218,219).

The problem with Offred though was that she never brought what she had inside of her outside. She had the right mind and inner-power to go against the system but she never put it into action. The only time we actively see Offred defy the rules of the regime is when she has her affair with Nick. In Gilead, this is a very dangerous thing to do and if Offred were caught she would face the consequences of either being hung or sent out to die of radiation sickness. However, Offred’s purpose of defying the rules of Gilead was not because she wanted to go against the system but because