What is the role of handmaids in Gilead?
Introduction to Gilead's Social Order
In Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, the Republic of Gilead is a totalitarian, patriarchal regime that rose after a second American Civil War. Confronted with a catastrophic global crisis of plummeting fertility rates, the regime organizes society into a rigid hierarchy based on religious fundamentalism and state-controlled reproduction.
At the very center of this reproductive slavery are the Handmaids.
Definitions and Core Responsibilities
What exactly is a Handmaid? In the legal and social structure of Gilead, a Handmaid is a fertile woman stripped of her individual identity, legal rights, and personal freedom, whose sole purpose is to bear children for the ruling elite, known as Commanders.
Key aspects of their designated role include:
- State-Sanctioned Surrogacy: Handmaids are assigned to Commanders and their Wives. Once a month, they participate in a ritualistic ceremony designed to impregnate them.
- De-individuation: Upon entering the training center, women lose their birth names and are designated by the possessive form of their assigned Commander's name (e.g., Offred means "Of Fred").
- Strict Dress Code: Handmaids are forced to wear long, solid red dresses and white wings (coifs) that severely restrict their peripheral vision, symbolizing modesty, sinlessness, and their biological function.
Quick Reference Table: Social Classes in Gilead
To fully understand the role of a Handmaid, it helps to compare her status to other female roles within the societal hierarchy of Gilead.
| Social Class | Color Worn | Primary Role / Function |
|---|---|---|
| Wives | Blue | Domestic managers, companions to Commanders, highest-ranking women. |
| Handmaids | Red | Forced reproduction and childbearing surrogates. |
| Marthas | Green | Domestic servants, cooks, and housekeepers. |
| Aunts | Brown | Instructors, enforcers of discipline, and minders of Handmaids. |
| Econowives | Multicolored | Working-class women who fulfill all roles (wife, mother, worker) for lower-class men. |
Real-World Historical Parallels
Margaret Atwood famously stated that she did not include anything in The Handmaid's Tale that had not already happened in human history. The role of the Handmaid draws heavily from several historical precedents:
- Biblical Precedent: The name and foundational logic of the Handmaid system are derived from the biblical story of Genesis 30:1-3, where Rachel, unable to bear children, gives her handmaid Bilhah to Jacob so that she may "bear upon my knees."
- Totalitarian Indoctrination: The Aunts, who train the Handmaids using psychological torture and peer pressure, mirror historical re-education camps and state-run enforcement mechanisms found in 20th-century authoritarian regimes.
- Forced Natalism: Historical governments facing population crises, such as Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu, implemented extreme anti-abortion and pro-natalist laws that treated women's bodies as instruments of the state.
Common Pitfalls in Interpreting the Role
When analyzing the literary function of Handmaids, readers sometimes fall into a few analytical traps:
- Misinterpreting Compliance as Consent: Handmaids often appear passive or compliant, but this is a survival mechanism under the threat of torture, permanent exile to the Colonies, or execution.
- Viewing the System as Merely Sexual: While the role involves forced sexual intercourse, the regime frames it strictly as a religious and civic duty, completely stripping away any notion of pleasure or personal agency.
- Ignoring Intra-Female Oppression: It is a common misconception that all women in Gilead are united; in reality, the regime uses strict hierarchical divides—such as Wives overseeing Handmaids—to prevent solidarity.