Property and Surveillance: The role of the body in The Handmaid’s Tale

In my first paper, I proposed an owner-property model of the relationship between the self and the body. The self can inscribe itself on the body and in doing so own it. Conversely, the body can determine the self; that is, the body can be the subject that owns the object of the self. In that paper, I then went on to discuss the inherent instability and inadequacy of this model. However, in the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, this owner-property understanding of the self and the body truly underlies Gileadian society. In this book, the society has taken ownership of all bodies, but especially of the handmaids’ bodies. Through a mechanism of diffuse but omnipresent surveillance, handmaids become a collectively owned property whose ultimate goal is to produce collectively owned babies. Throughout the book, this societal gaze-as well as personal gazes-fixates on and has power over the fertile woman and the baby. Yet, fundamentally, this gaze is fixed on an absence, on an ideal baby that never appears. More broadly, the whole of Gileadian society gazes upon an absence, a “freedom from”, which expresses itself in the symbol of the absent baby.

The understanding of the handmaids’ bodies as property underlies all of Gileadian society. Offred makes clear throughout her narrative that she is part of a collectively owned resource. She describes her tattoo as “four digits and an eye, a passport in reverse. It’s supposed to guarantee that I will never be able to fade, finally, into another landscape. I am too important….I am a national resource.” (Atwood 65). The eye on her ankle is an ever present reminder that her body is under surveillance, that it is a tool over which an outside force has power. Offred also sometimes refers to herself in the plural, indicating that her individual identity has been subsumed by a collective identity. She tells the Commander that “our skin gets dry” when speaking of her own skin (158), and describes during the birthing scene that “we are one smile” (126). This collective ownership of Offred’s body replaces her personal ownership of her self. She no longer connects with her body; she exists outside of it (160).

No where is this more clear than in Offred’s relationship to her womb, which is itself a collective entity. She says that “we are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important” (96), and again she speaks in the plural, as a collective handmaid. Her body defines her completely (63); she is a “two-legged womb” (136) that everyone watches and waits for her womb to be filled. Cora and Serena Joy both watch her, hoping for a child, while the monthly doctor’s visits remind her of the collective gaze on her womb. A “gold Eye” on the door of the exam room surveils her-her empty womb is being watched by the state (59). She no longer has control over her body, over her reproductive capabilities. The doctors, the Eyes, the commanders, the wives, they all are the ones who own her womb, that “central object” that is “more real” than Offred herself (74). The ritual of procreation, the Ceremony, is a ritual of state power and ownership. As Jonathan discussed in class, the Ceremony is about control by some invisible entity that is not present in the room, but nevertheless holds power over what occurs in the room.

Offred’s womb remains empty throughout the book, and even wombs that are filled never produce a child. The Aunts at the Red Center lament the widespread sterility (112); Offred witnesses a funeral procession for a miscarriage (44); Janine’s baby turns out to be a “shredder” (214). Nowhere in the book do we see an example of Gileadian society successfully producing a baby. And it is Gileadian society-not the handmaids-that produces a baby. Handmaids are no more than vessels (65), no more than passageways that facilitate the existence of a baby. All of the Eyes, all of the searchlights, they are all gazing on an absence, on an absent child. Gilead is a sterile society built around an emptiness, symbolized by the empty women. As the Aunts said, Gilead gives people a “freedom from” (24), and this negative freedom, this absent freedom, reveals itself in the freedom from successful procreation.

Successful procreation is impossible because Gileadian society has so mechanized humans. In class we talked about how mechanical the Ceremony is, and how both the women’s and the man’s bodies are being used by an outside force. The Commander thrusts mechanically; Offred lays there passively; the whole process is one of mechanical production. But machines cannot produce life. Gileadian society, in carefully watching, controlling, and regulating human existence, has rendered itself sterile. I recognize that in the book, chemicals and nuclear fallout were cited as the reason for widespread sterility (112), but this doesn’t seem sufficient to explain the complete absence of babies from the book. A deeper reason underlies this choice that Atwood made, and I would argue that the absent baby speaks to the unsustainability of mechanizing humanity and the negative effects of omnipresent surveillance.

Gilead is not the only actor involved in the surveillance of a mechanized humanity. The professors in the “Historical Notes” at the end of the book and we the readers watch the individuals in The Handmaid’s Tale. We gaze upon Offred who is in turn being gazed upon by the state. We are eyes, omnipresent and removed-we are voyeurs. In this role, we participate in the collectivization of the handmaids and their bodies. Although we are reading/listening to a single first person narrative, we associate this narrative with the institution of the handmaid, as Offred, whose individual name is never given to us, becomes a spokeswoman for the “us” of the handmaids. At the same time, we also have the opportunity to understand the handmaid as an individual. Stories about Offred’s past remind us that she does have an individual identity, albeit one subsumed in the current society. Since the role of The Handmaid’s Tale is to serve as a cautionary tale to us its readers, this dual function- of both collectivizing and individualizing Offred-reminds us that we have a choice to make in our current society. We can choose an individualizing “freedom to” that leads to creation, or a collectivizing “freedom from” that leads to a sterility.