The Importance of Memory in Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale.

For this essay I aim to show the importance of memory and of remembering the past in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale is a ‘speculative fiction’ first published in 1985 but set in the early 2000s. The novel was in response to changes in US politics with the emergence of Christian fundamentalism, the New Right. Atwood believed that society was going wrong and wrote this savage satire, similar to Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’, depicting a dystopia which she uses as a mirror to hold up to society. I will be focusing on the main character and narrator, Offred, “a handmaid who mingles memories of her life before the revolution with her rebellious activities under the new regime” (book group corner), as she struggles to cope in the oppressive world of Gilead which is slowly suffocating her mind, in which memory is her only way of escape, her only way to keep her mind sane. To show the importance of memory to Offred’s life, I must also look at the changes in the Gilead society and how these changes affected Offred. For this I will give a brief summary of the rules set down in Gilead and their reasons for them.
The Republic of Gilead is a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. It is a militaristic Christian state that has replaced the former Democratic Government after a violent takeover following the assassination of the President. The rise of toxic pollution and sexually transmitted diseases has “caused widespread sterility and a decline of Caucasian births” (Cengage). The state is now ruled by a dominant male regime and is founded on fundamentalist biblical principles. There is also a social hierarchy which is specifically designed to promote controlled reproduction. In other words, women have become vessels whose main purpose in this society is for procreation. Women who are fertile and unmarried are recruited as Handmaids, a glorified concubine who is sent to a Commander or other high

Bibliography: Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid 's Tale. London: Vintage, 1996. Print. McDermott, Sinead. "The Handmaid 's Tale." University of Limerick, 19 Sept 2011. In Person. Greene, Gayle. "Feminist Fiction and the Use of Memory." Signs 16.02 Winter, 1991. 290-321. Jstor. Web. 18 Oct 2011. . "Reader 's Companion to The Handmaid 's Tale by Margaret Atwood." book group corner. Doubleday, 1998. Web. 13 Oct 2011.