The Handmaid's Tale: Could Atwood's Dystopia Really Happen?

Introduction: Realism Within a Dystopian Novel

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is an engaging and fascinating novel, but few would disagree that it is also darkly cynical, frightening, Orwellian, and cryptic. Notwithstanding its bitterness and dystopian tone, however, Atwood's themes carry a persistent shade of realism throughout. This paper argues that even though the novel contains outrageously inhumane and immoral acts — events and rules that fly in the face of civilized, democratic values — it is not too difficult for an alert reader to imagine something close to this plot and these characters coming into play in the future.

Although the ruling powers in Atwood's fictional state use unthinkably cruel and vicious strategies to suppress freedom and override human rights, the real-world expansion and abuse of executive power since September 11, 2001, makes it less far-fetched to imagine something akin to this novel's plot occurring — or, in some form, already occurring. In that regard, Atwood's writing can be seen as a means of opening society's eyes to the real and present dangers that could be visited upon women, and ultimately upon all of humanity.

This paper builds a critical argument around those aspects of the novel that link characters, scenes, policies, and events in The Handmaid's Tale with counterparts in the real world. Some comparisons may seem like a stretch, and a degree of extrapolation is inevitable in any critical review of this kind. But literature — including Atwood's novel, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four — frequently calls on the reader's imagination to bridge the gap between hard fact and fiction. The questions asked here, between the lines and within the narrative, are: "Could this happen here?" and "Is this already happening to some degree?"

Sexual Servitude in the Novel and the Real World

The novel's protagonist and narrator, Offred — who "belongs" to a Commander named Fred — is subjected to routine monthly sexual encounters by the Commander. These acts are not performed for pleasure but are designed to produce children so that the elites of the totalitarian government can expand their numbers. Handmaids are subjected to this ritual for as long as they remain fertile. Those who fail to conceive after three attempts are sent to the "Colonies," where they join women who are past childbearing age and are forced to clear toxic waste — work that poisons and eventually kills them.

Atwood describes the Commander's demeanor during the ritual with unflinching precision: "He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower without knowing he's humming...as if he is somewhere else, waiting for himself to come" (Atwood, 1986, p. 94). The image of him moving "on and on like a tap dripping" is a remarkably effective metaphor. Beyond the auditory irritation it evokes, it also calls to mind the waste of a precious resource — water running uselessly down a drain. Women, arguably the most precious human resource on earth, are being wasted in precisely the same way.

The women in Atwood's novel are all striving to become pregnant simply in order to stay alive. They would rather endure the monthly ritual — which, though framed differently within the novel's culture, amounts to rape — than be banished to a toxic cleanup detail and die. The protagonist articulates this transformation in her self-perception: "I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure...or an implement for the accomplishment of my will" (Atwood, p. 73). Now, she notes, "Each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure" — because menstruation signals that she has not fulfilled her obligation to produce children (Atwood, p. 73).

On the subject of real-world involuntary sexual contact, United Nations data reveal an estimated 250,000 verified rapes annually across 65 countries. In 2002 alone, there were 95,136 reported rapes in the United States, 13,395 in the United Kingdom, 52,425 in South Africa, and 24,350 in Canada. These figures represent only reported cases; experts believe the true number is substantially higher.

As for sexual slavery, ABC News reported in 2007 that over 800,000 people are bought, sold, and smuggled across borders each year, many of them forced into sexual servitude (Thomas et al., 2007). In 2005, a trafficking cartel known as Carreto lured scores of poor women from Mexico with promises of marriage and a better life in America. Instead, these women were forced into sexual slavery, compelled to charge $25 to $35 per encounter, and beaten regularly to discourage escape.

DePaul University released data in 2001 estimating that two million women and children were held in sexual servitude at that time. The report further alleged that 80% of those sold into sexual slavery were under the age of 24, with some as young as six years old. Approximately 30,000 enslaved individuals — mostly women — die each year due to abuse, torture, neglect, and disease (UPI, 2001).

Environmental Catastrophe and Nuclear Risk

Returning to the central thesis — could this really happen? — the novel's narrator explains how society collapsed into its present state. Scholarly critic Eric Domville, writing in the University of Toronto Quarterly, distills the causes into plain terms: a series of catastrophic disasters, none entirely beyond the realm of possibility. In the novel, earthquakes along California's San Andreas Fault cause nuclear plants built too close to fault lines to rupture and release deadly radiation. "The escape of toxic wastes and dioxins produces rapidly escalating levels of cancer and infertility," Domville writes (Domville, 2006).

In reality, such a scenario is not inconceivable. A November 2008 news report from San Luis Obispo County, California, announced the discovery of a new fault line less than a mile from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. This finding compounded existing concerns about the nearby Hosgri Fault, located approximately three miles offshore. "So exactly how many earthquake faults does it take to shut down a nuclear power plant?" asked David Weisman, outreach coordinator with the watchdog group Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility (Daniel, 2008). Whether a 6.5-magnitude earthquake — the estimated capacity of the newly discovered fault — would cause the plant to rupture and release radioactivity remained uncertain, though the utility, PG&E, publicly downplayed the risk.

Conclusion: Could It Happen Here?

While the instances of apparent Constitutional violations and human rights abuses documented above do not remotely equal the brutal, all-encompassing totalitarianism depicted in Atwood's novel, this paper has made an honest attempt to support its central thesis with evidence drawn from the real world. The Handmaid's Tale is extreme — deliberately so — but the social, political, and environmental forces it dramatizes are not invented. They are present, in various degrees, in the world we already inhabit. Atwood's fictional warning retains its power precisely because the conditions it imagines are not entirely imaginary.

Works Cited

Associated Press. "Millions Suffer in Sex Slavery." Retrieved from Newsmax.com, http://archive.newsmax.com. 2001.

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986.

Daniel, Stacy. "New Fault Discovered Near Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant." KSBY News. Retrieved December 2, 2008, at http://www.ksby.com. 2008.

Domville, Eric. "The Handmaid's Detail: Notes on the Novel and Opera." University of Toronto Quarterly 75.3 (2006): 869–882.

Neuman, Shirley. "Just a Backlash: Margaret Atwood, Feminism, and the Handmaid's Tale." University of Toronto Quarterly 75.3 (2006): 857–868.

Risen, James, and Eric Lichtblau. "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts." The New York Times, 16 Dec. 2005. Retrieved December 2, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com.

Thomas, Pierre, Jack Date, and Theresa Cook. "Modern Day Slavery: Lucrative Trade Thriving." ABC News. 2007. Retrieved December 1, 2008, at http://abcnews.go.com.