Handmaid's Tale Essay

In the novel The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, I found many similarities in the fictional novel that takes place in Gilead, with the Holocaust that took place in Germany during the years 1938-1945. I am going to explore how the novel shadows the story of Germany. I will describe the similarities between Adolf Hitlers rise to power and the rise to power of the rulers in Gilead, how the woman are treated versus how the Jews were treated. I will compare the rights of the woman in the novel to the rights of the minorities during the holocaust. In addition I will describe the similarities between Mayday and the Jewish rebels and allies in the world war.

Hitler, the ruler of Germany through World War II, rose to power and became a magnetic political leader. He dispensed with constitutional restraints, and silenced all his opposition. He then called for a general election in which the police, under Goering, allowed the Nazis full power to break up the meetings of their opponents. Only under these conditions did the Nazi Party achieve a bare majority. Hitler ruthlessly crushed opposition inside his own Party to maintain power. Hindenburg's, convenient demise in August left Hitler sole master of Germany. This is similar to how the powers of Gilead gained control. They walked into Congress and simply machine gunned down all the powers of the country leading them in sole possession, and giving them the power to make the laws, mostly favoring their allies, and men. While discriminating towards the women.

The women in the novel have been brought down to the level of a rat. They lost all their belongings and businesses. Everything they had worked for. Had been destroyed in a couple of days. This is much like the Jews in Germany; Hitler blamed the Jews for all that was bad and ordered the destruction of all Jewish homes and businesses, implemented on the day of Kristalnacht. The Jews were neither considered citizens of Germany, nor human beings. It no longer mattered if they were rich or poor, powerful or weak. They were no longer seen as persons favored by the laws of Germany. The women in the novel did have it better. They were aloud to walk freely, and were protected by the law, but only because they were necessities. They were only allowed to stay because they had to repopulate the country.

To discover if the female could reproduce they went through scans, and tests to see if their embryos could be a child carrying vessel. The Jews in the holocaust were sorted out carefully, those who could work and those who could not. The Jews who could work were put into a ghetto and those who could not, were sent to the concentration camps where they would be brutally murdered. The females who could not carry a baby, were declared "unwomen" and sent to the colonies, where they too would arrive at their death beds. Unfortunately the novel does not tell us much of the colonies so we are forced to use our imagination.

The fortunate ones who were declared able to carry a baby, would get the honor of being sent from Commander to Commander to bear their child. Their sole purpose would be to bear children to replenish this "utopian" society. They would have to have "intimate relations" with the Commander. The Handmaid would be lying on the Martha's thigh, and the commander would enter, and do his job, and that's it. Here is the main character, Offred, description of this Ceremony.

"My arms are raised; she hold my hands, each of mine

in each of hers. This is supposed to signify that we are

one flesh, one being. What it really means is that she

is in control of the process and thus the product."

In the Holocaust, women were also brought to their commanders, where they were forced to make love to their commander. Through means of force.

The women in Gilead were forced to wear certain things. The Marthas, the wives of the Commander, would have to always wear blue. A Handmaid had to wear red dresses and white wings on the sides of their heads. These colours were important for recognizing who was who in the society. In Nazi Germany the Jews would have to wear a yellow band around their arm, which sported a "Megan David" a star of David. This was used to tell who was Jewish, and who was not Jewish. This was also to remind the

Jews that they had no rights under German law.

In The Handmaids Tale, a women would be banned from reading, and those who didn't obey were sent to the colonies. Those who spoke out against the ruling power were hanged on The Wall. Those who were homosexual were hanged for being gender traitors. Those who helped a woman were hanged. Those who fought for justice and equality were hanged. Females who could not reproduce as required were sent to the colonies. Similarly, in Nazi Germany, Jews were not allowed to work for a profit. The majority of work was physical labor performed in a work camp. They could be shot down anywhere for no specific reason. In the work camps they were given a glass of water, a piece of bread, and a potato for their meals. They were banned from practicing their religion, and were forced to obey everything they were told. The worst crime was being Jewish and if a Jew stepped out of line they would either be shot in the street, or deported to a concentration camp. There they would be either buried alive, burned in an oven, or poisoned when they took a shower. The best way to die in the concentration camps was being shot in the head because it would be quick and easy. However, every now and then, the Commanders of certain camps, would be lenient to a Jew.

The Commander would take a Jew in (normally a female), and talk with her, joke with her, and even drink with her. He acted in such a way towards these few Jews that you would not be able to tell that he is responsible for the death of thousands. This is similar to Offred's Commander who is believed to be a ruling power in Gilead. He would also bring Offred in and talk, and play Scrabble with her. He would even on occasion buy presents for her. I feel that the Commanders in both cases, did this to try to make themselves feel better, and give the Jew/Handmaid hope. Then the Jew/Handmaid would be thankful to the Commander. They of course would not bless him or anything. They would still wish to be free from their settings.

The rebel forces in The Handmaid's Tale were called "Mayday." They were the ones fighting for freedom, and equality between the sexes. They had operatives throughout Gilead and outside of Gilead. They are the freedom fighters of the novel. They coincide with the Allied Troops of World War II, The Allies had operatives throughout Nazi Germany, and they were the freedom fighters. The Allied troops fought Germany, and won. They freed all the Jews and minorities who were being persecuted, and brought to justice many of the Nazi criminals, and still are today. The outcome for the Mayday troops is as positive. They beat the ruling power of Gilead, however this is only speculation from the "Historical Notes" in the chapter. For all we know, their society just evolved and the Mayday forces lost but the believed outcome was that Mayday won.

The defeat of the Gilead society, which was a sexist society, should have eliminated sexism from the country. However, this did not occur, as we learned from certain comments in "The Historical Notes," of the book. Similarly, the world learnt what racism can do, yet racism is still around, not quite as powerful as it once was, but still here, and escalating.

"History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew.

But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth."

E. L. Doctorow

As I demonstrated throughout my essay the rulers of Gilead oppressed their citizens, echoing the totalitarian rule in Nazi Germany. Women were stripped of their rights as were the Jews. Although The Handmaid's Tale is fictional we must take this as a warning for the future and a reminder of the past.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana

By Michael Sadovnick