Kiran's Utopias and Dystopias Blog

    Through Gilead, we can see somewhat of an even earlier picture of 1984's Party. Gilead has just had its take over, to the point of everyone knowing of the before times. On the other hand, the Party is just about 1 generation after the takeover, where the parents still know of before, but the children have grown up with the party. Both are oppressing their own people, although Gilead is oppressing specifically women whereas the Party is suppressing all of its people. Along with this is that in Gilead there is much less censorship and instead they just try to convert the people slowly over time. Instead, the Party's methods are much more forceful, censoring and changing all opposing documents and forcibly changing the public view. This suggests that the Party might be a Gilead taken even farther. The Party even seems to be more well thought out with their ideologies and how they control the populace.     The future of Gilead also suggests what might be seen in the ...

      The Commander is somewhat of a weird topic in The Handmaid's Tale. While he definitely supports the Republic of Gilead, he seems to want the illusion of love. He goes against the structure that he helped to set up in order to try and actually feel something with Offred. He seems to truly believe that women had "too much freedom" despite being such a romanticist. Also, based on the second ending, it is likely that the Commander was the one who designed the outfit of the handmaids, which is completely counter to the fact that he sneaks Offred out to the brothel in a completely different outfit.  The commander seems to be an extreme contradiction who wants to both oppress women and also be loved by those same women. He has created these rules and at the same time thinks that it's fine to break them.

      At the end of The Handmaid's Tale, we have what seems like a time skip into the future with historians discussing the events of The Handmaid's Tale. This ending somewhat changes our viewpoint on the story of The Handmaid's Tale, since their discussion shows that it is entirely possible that Offred never even existed. Perhaps the story was just Mayday propaganda. Along with this is the fact that we still don't know the true ending of Offred. Even if this ending suggests that Offred did exist and that Nick truly helped her escape, we have no idea if she actually made it across the border or if she was caught along the way. Though this does help to paint the first ending of the book in a better light, it still leaves one wondering what truly happened to Offred. The good news is that it does seem like Gilead eventually changed.

     Throughout The Handmaid's Tale, we're introduced to the underground resistance movement known as Mayday. This movement is shown to be very similar to the Brotherhood from 1984, as a kind of hidden movement that we never actually see. However, whereas the Brotherhood is shown to be either non-existent or too small to actually do anything, we never see the organization of Mayday. We only hear about it from different handmaids. Even at the end, it is unclear if Nick is working with Mayday or, similar to Mr. Charrington from 1984, a spy. This changes how we might think of Mayday. Perhaps Mayday is just a lie used to keep the handmaids in check. Depending on how we look at the end of the book we can see Nick as either tricking Offred or actually trying to help save her. Or perhaps even he is being tricked.