The Survival Of Women In The Handmaid’s Tale

As an outstanding female writer in Canada,Margaret Atwood has always been concerned about the fate and survival of women in the patriarchal world.And she points out that an important theme of Canadian nation is “survival”.Margaret Atwood herself also has a strong female consciousness.In The Handmaid’s Tale,people in the Republic of Gilead live in a state of strict discipline,especially women,whose social status is desperate.Women are classified in different classes and treated differently,but they are faced with similar survival difficulties.This thesis aims at exploring women’s predicaments and their strategies to survive in patriarchal society in The Handmaid’s Tale.According to Margaret Atwood’s Survival:A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature,women can be put into 4 stages in this thesis.Women in stage one,such as the Aunts,Marthas and Econowives,have not realized that they are victims.Women in stage two,such as most of the handmaids,have acknowledged that they are victims but do not find the real reason of their suffering.They think that what they have experienced are their fate.They follow the basic survival strategy-to maintain life in the society.Women in stage three,such as the Commander’s Wives,Ofglen,Offred,and women in “the Jezebels”,try to change their conditions and not to be victims anymore.And after Offred escapes from Gilead,she comes to stage four-a creative non-victim.The Handmaid’s Tale reveals the extreme and hypocrisy of the patriarchal society and depicts the survival difficulties and survival strategies of different women.As a successful female survival novel,it warns women that when survival is threatened,there is no way out to compromise blindly.Only by uniting,keeping a clear mind,striving for rights and finding a new way of life can women find real “salvation”.