In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood creates an extremely marginalized society. Atwood’s different writing techniques and different styles (switching back and forth between Offred’s current life as a Handmaid and her life before she was transported to Gilead) help the reader define the marginalization in each of the characters. The internal thoughts of Offred also show the relationship between individual marginalization and the marginalization of a group. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood uses Offred’s interior monologue to show the connections between systematic marginalization and internalized marginalization. In The Handmaid’s Tale, every social group in Gilead is excluded or marginalized in some way. However, the Handmaids are marginalized the most out of everybody. They only serve one purpose in life, which is to have children for the Commander’s barren wives. The fact that they have only one life purpose to serve makes them feel extremely isolated and objectified, because they are only called upon when they are needed in the Ceremony. The Handmaids are also consistently treated like objects to be used and doormats to be walked all over.
The Handmaids, throughout the novel were constantly being isolated. When they first arrived in Gilead, they were not allowed to speak to each other and were being monitored at all times by the Aunts. “We learned to whisper almost without sounds. In the semi-darkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren’t looking.” (Atwood 4). This quote depicts the isolation that the Handmaids are experiencing, because they are not allowed to leave the gym unless it is for their required walks twice a day. This description of how these Handmaids live their lives and are treated matches the lives of an animal in captivity. This is an extreme way of proving how all the people in Gilead who are ranked higher than the Handmaids are dehumanising them. This also brings to light their isolation from the rest of society.
In addition to being isolated, the Handmaids were also being objectified much throughout the novel. The Ceremony that the Handmaids have to go through is something that highlights the objectification that they endure. “I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for.” (Atwood 94). What Offred is describing during the Ceremony is essentially the definition of objectification. She is just a body, if that. The way she describes it, “nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for” makes it seem like the people of Gilead have attempted and succeeded to brainwash the Handmaids into believing that they do in fact have choices in their lives, like their lives aren’t actually controlled by the Aunts, or the Wives or the Commanders. Even the Commander doesn’t seem interested in what is happening in this scene, like he is only doing it because it is part of a ritual. “like a man a man who has other things on his mind. It’s as if he’s somewhere else” (Atwood 94). On page 95, Offred again is describing the Ceremony as “not a recreation, even for the Commander. This is serious business. The Commander, too, is doing his duty.” This quote seems more dark and more sad than the other ways Offred described the Ceremony, because it seems like, in all her life as a Handmaid, Offred only does one salient thing, which is preform the Ceremony and hope to get pregnant for Serena Joy and the Commander. This is evidence of objectification, but also extreme isolation of Handmaids in Gilead.
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If being isolated and objectified wasn’t enough, the Handmaids were also very restricted and extremely silenced when it came to language and speaking. Offred, in the beginning of the novel, recalled a time when one of the Aunts told the Handmaids not to speak unless spoken to by another person. “Aunt Lydia said it was best not to speak unless they asked you a direct question.” (Atwood 14). This quote makes it clear that the Handmaids really had little to no power over anyone or anything in Gilead, and that they were at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
