Instrumentalization of Women's Bodies in the Novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The relegation of the body to a lower status in contrast to the mind has resulted in the subordination of women, who supposedly are more closely associated to the body. Due to this displacement, the present thesis aims at illustrating how the Gileadean society, a totalitarian regime in the novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood, instrumentalizes on women’s bodies for society’s own benefit. The analysis follows a Literary Criticism methodological approach, taking into consideration the roles and social positions of the novel’s female characters: the Wives, the Aunts, the Marthas, the Handmaids, the Sex Workers and Econowives, and the Unwomen. This same categorization of women present in the novel is the one I use to lay out the argumentation in the analysis.
The analysis is developed through the in-depth study of societal dichotomies. Here, “societal dichotomies” work as an umbrella term which embeds the following categories of analysis: 1) the mind/body dualism, 2) the women’s body as the lacking Other, 3) the hierarchy of bodies, 4) the lack of subjectivity and 5) the abject. These categories of analysis are applied to the different groups of women in the novel to illustrate the abovementioned instrumentalization of bodies, following the implicit hierarchy of bodies as the organizational pattern.
The results show how although the instrumentalization is undeniable, the level of subordination varies depending on the group of women that is being analyzed. For this reason, this thesis also aims at identifying different survival strategies that these female characters develop to escape the imposed victimization role. Although they do not escape physically, small acts of defiance such as positive self-talk and the creation of a female support network remind us that whenever there is oppression there is also resistance.