The Gileadean Ideal: Handmaids As Technology

On Day 7, we had a fruitful discussion about how we define technology. We discussed many broad definitions, but the one I wrote in my notes before the discussion says ‘technology is anything invented, utilized, or refined by people; anything not naturally occurring or something used in an inventive way to achieve a goal (i.e. a rock can be technology if someone uses it to grind corn).’ Since that class, I have begun to see almost everything as technology. Thus, in the first hundred pages of The Handmaid’s Tale, I was incredibly struck by the idea that the handmaids themselves are a kind of technology. The Republic of Gilead would like women to be as robotic as possible, simply living out their lives in silence, being tools in the holy process of procreation.

In the second chapter, we see the first reference to a handmaid being technological. In this case, Offred is commenting on the doll-like nature of her actions: “They used to have dolls, for little girls, that would talk if you pulled a string at the back; I thought I was sounding like that, voice of a monotone, voice of a doll” (Atwood, 16). Here, Offred resembles technology because she is acting out a scripted role; she is creating a public self that is separate from her natural identity. Later, in the fourth chapter, Offred describes how mechanical her shopping partner, Ofglen, seems: “Without a word she swivels, as if she’s voice-activated, as if she’s on little oiled wheels, as if she’s on top of a music box” (43). Again, a handmaid is being referred to as mechanical or technological, although this time, she is physically doll-like where Offred was emotionally doll-like.

In addition to being technological because they are mechanical and doll-like, the handmaids can be considered a technology because they are something invented and utilized by humans in an inventive way in order to achieve a goal. We can easily see how they are used to achieve the goal of procreation, but their own creation (that is, their transformation into something created) is more complex. Offred discusses her creation while contemplating the act of waiting: “I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born” (66). This, to me, is the key quotation supporting the idea of the handmaids as technology. It encompasses the idea of human invention and creation, poignantly comparing her public self to a speech. Offred composes herself to be the appropriate embodiment of womanhood in The Republic of Gilead, which as I discussed earlier, is ideally a tool used for procreation. The passage also explicitly describes a key difference between the natural and the technological; Offred is “a made thing, not something born” (66). In the hierarchy of person, place, or thing, she has clearly been demoted from person to ‘thing.’

We can see, however, that handmaids are a very valuable ‘things.’ In The Republic of Gilead, women with viable ovaries are considered an economic commodity, in the same way the workers of Metropolis are viewed as a resource, rather than people. “Women were not protected then,” (24) Offred tells us in the second chapter, foreshadowing her discussion of the tattoo on her ankle in the fourth: “I cannot avoid seeing, now, the small tattoo on my ankle. 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, too scarce, for that. I am a national resource” (65). Here again we see that Offred has indeed become a ‘thing,’ perhaps a valuable thing, but nonetheless a thing that is used as a key technology in the process of producing children.

In the latter half of the novel, there is less evidence to support the idea of the handmaids being technology. The difference in our understanding of the handmaids through the novel is explained by the way the novel teaches us about The Republic of Gilead. Though we consistently see the world through Offred’s eyes, the tone of the novel becomes increasingly subjective as Offred takes more risks and becomes more daring. We eventually see that the Gileadean ideal of fertile women being tools for procreation isn’t something women like Offred are willing to live with.

Still, the idea is intriguing. It suggests a society in which everyone is a cog in a machine, working towards one super-goal (in this case, procreation). In a blog comment, Hillary noted “you could also say our own society is like that, everyone playing [their] part, but thankfully we have a bit more fluidity in our society. But maybe we are all cyborgs, or cogs in a giant machine that is the world.” Her comment made me realize that while we may all be cogs in a machine, there is one key difference between being a cog in our society versus being a cog in Gileadean society: free will. We are cogs in a machine in the sense that we all play a role in this society, but the roles we play are much more fluid, as Hillary puts it, than the roles played by citizens of The Republic of Gilead. The cogs of the Gileadean machine were assigned to their roles, whereas we generally have the opportunity to pick ours. In addition, we are free to change our roles at will. In addition to the differences between the ways in which we are cogs in a machine, there is a significant difference between what kinds of machine these two societies are analogous to. Gileadean society is a machine whose main (or sole) purpose is procreation, that is, carrying out God’s plan to be fruitful and multiply. Our society, however, doesn’t have an ultimate goal, which is perhaps why we are not assigned our roles by a higher authority; we are free to choose our roles in society, because the greater purpose of our society is undefined.

• Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1986.

• Hillary, “Handmaids as technology: Comment #4” Gender and Technology Spring 2009. Bryn Mawr College. March 22, 2009. April 2, 2009.