On The Symbolized Female Body In The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood,known as the "Queen of Canadian Literature",is an influential poet,novelist and literary critic in the contemporary world.Her novels mostly focus on women,describing the psychology of women,the relationship between women and men,the interrelationship within the female community and women's living conditions in the society.Her sixth novel,The Handmaid's Tale,is a great success and wins the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award.This novel has attracted extensive attention from critics and has been interpreted from different perspectives.In recent years,with the rise of body research,the body in this novel has also begun to become a subject of critics'research.But so far,the research results are still very few.In view of this,this thesis focuses on the representations of the symbolized female body in the novel,to make a thorough exploration of how and why the female body is oppressed and reduced to symbols from three aspects,and further analyzes how the symbolization of the female body influences the female subject,so as to reveal the essence of Gilead.The main body of the thesis includes three parts:Chapter Two focuses on the concrete representation of the symbolized female body.In the novel,all the female bodies are endowed with different symbolic meanings:the Handmaids without human rights are symbolized as reproductive machines;women who refuse to obey are forced to become the hidden sexual objects in the society;the Wives and Daughters are symbolized as domestic angels respected by those who are below their social ranks;and the Aunts are totalitarian machines serving the Gileadean regime wholeheartedly.Chapter Three explores how and why the female bodies are reduced to be symbols from three aspects;religion,social convention and politic power.In order to fool women thoroughly and constrain them,the religious authority constrains women with the literal meaning of the Bible,and practices radical Asceticism to forbid all the physical enjoyment of women so as to degrade the female bodies to flesh with bare functionalities.In addition,because of the social convention in the patriarchal society,women are pushed to return to their families,while men regard women as their private property.In this case,women are completely constructed as men's subsidiaries.Moreover,Gileadean regime classifies women strictly.Women of different classes have different functions and powers,as well as different spaces.Wherever they are,they are under the surveillance of both men and women.Once they make any mistakes,they will be severely punished.Consequently,women's bodies are completely reduced to symbols abused and manipulated by power.Chapter Four mainly analyzes the influence of the symbolized female body on the female subjects.Body and mind are not absolutely a binary opposition.Because of the oppression and disciplining of power on the female body,women gradually interiorize the norms imposed on their bodies and submit to the male totalitarianism,which inevitably leads to the distortion of the minds,and their sense of resistance slowly and unconsciously wears out.Through the interpretation,it reveals that the female bodies are not only the symbols carrying patriarchal culture,but also become symbols revealing the collusion between theocracy and political power.What the symbolization of the female body conceals is the hypocrisy of religion,the suppression of women by male totalitarianism,and the unscrupulous means of discipline by those in power.