Totalitarian leadership leads to the oppression of the weak and minorities. Totalitarianism is a government and political system that forbids all opposition parties (Congleton 112). In addition, it criminalizes individual and group opposition to the state and its claims and exercises an extremely high level of control and regulation over public and private life. Grinin and Korotayev considered it the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism (108). Despite this unpopular view, totalitarian governments had existed before and earned the support of their citizens (Grinin and Korotayev 110). This support is derived from the government’s use of education, religion, police, propaganda, and violence, as seen in The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood.
Autocrats, like dictators and absolute monarchs, often hold political power in totalitarian states. According to Grinin and Korotayev, a totalitarian state sees no limit on its power in any public or private life sector and expands that authority to any length it believes viable (2). This definition agrees with Hardiman, who officially proclaimed that the ideology of totalitarianism involves penetrating the deepest reaches of societal structure (80). A totalitarian government seeks to control its citizens’ thoughts and actions completely.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale effectively represents a dystopia where authority controls and regulates society. The novel’s setting resides in the Republic of Gilead, a late 20th-century futuristic and totalitarian society set in the former Cambridge, Massachusetts (Atwood 1-9). Several unstated natural disasters caused the infertility of many women; those who were fertile were forced to be handmaids. The Handmaid’s Tale is a literal warning to citizens to watch out for and avoid totalitarian leadership because it denies citizens’ rights and freedoms, leads to violence against minorities, and abuses power.
The Handmaid’s Tale‘s most powerful tool in encouraging compliance is propaganda. According to Oates, propaganda is any ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s a cause or damage an opposition (78). Using mass media propaganda and fear-based and deceptive campaigns to produce camouflage language, the users mold popular perception and manipulate social action to control the masses (Arkut 23). Such techniques are portrayed in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. The Republic of Gilead has achieved compliance through a strict class and hierarchy. Since the government expects everyone to have a specific function, leadership is strictly controlled.
On the surface, Gilead appears to be a perfect society. Nevertheless, the totalitarian aspects of Gilead deny all the citizens fundamental rights and freedoms. Even though American society has evolved out of strict hierarchy and class roles, aspects of the government remain alike. Change in linguistic communication is one of the chief signifiers of propaganda. For example, language is a potent symbol of defiance that may cut through the most potent effects (Arkut 30). The administration can ensure stability and authority over the province by extinguishing or modifying terms that could lead to insurrection. Furthermore, governments utilize propaganda to encourage compliance through utilitarian rule. Zubair et al. state that utilitarianism is the foundation that states the good of an act as measured by its contribution to the overall public-service corporation (7). In The Handmaid’s Tale, its contribution to happiness or joy is summoned among all persons. The government exploits the utilitarian principle to justify the employment of Handmaids as the generative variety meats of Gilead. All fertile women in Gilead are assigned to the Red Center. Here, they are re-educated to become housemaids for the commanders. Atwood illustrates that propaganda can be used to force people into roles they would never have accepted otherwise.
Moreover, compliance is enforced through the education system. Whether used positively or negatively, education is undoubtedly the most powerful weapon to change the world. In The Handmaid’s Tale, a book in the wrong hands may lead to death or exile, a world where knowledge is revered for its power and routinely exploited to oppress everyone. Women are the most affected, and Atwood shows how education can lead to rebellion once they have access to knowledge (Atwood 67). Through special education, handmaids are transformed and view their oppressed status as a prestigious position in Gilead.
The Bible is the law of Gilead, as there is no separation of state and religion. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the political government forbids servants from reading, composing, or discoursing with other Amahs. They separate the servants within Gilead’s walls; they form a barrier between ideas and potential acts. They confine the servants behind Gilead’s walls, creating a barrier between ideas and prospective acts. Academics and scientists are slaughtered and left hanging from vast walls as examples of what happens when humanity rejects God. Only the higher classes are permitted to be educated if one can call it that. Offred and the other handmaids will be slaughtered if they even carry a book near them. Education equals resistance. Literacy is a way of asking why, how, and when. Therefore, one can assume that The Handmaid’s Tale predicts what will and may happen to American culture if this seeming disregard for education continues. The Red Center is a beautiful reminder that literacy and education are not luxuries but necessities (Tonn 427). Knowledge is the only route out, the only road to freedom, and should be valued. Society has no chance of remaining afloat without it.
The effectiveness of education as a tool of compliance is witnessed through words. For example, Offred is taken aback when Commander Waterford offers her a game of Scrabble. He, too, wishes he could use his intellect again, as his freedom is also limited. The difference is that he is left to feel that agony. Men have an advantage over women because they can feed them information without the women having the opportunity to verify it. If they are discovered playing a cerebral board game, the hand will not fall on him as on a woman. This compliance technique is similar to the activities of the Catholic Church before the Protestant Reformation when the Bible was only printed in Latin, a language that most people could not read or understand. It is named after Rachel and Leah from the Bible, whose tale inspired the role of handmaids as breeders in the Republic of Gilead. The Center not only houses the Handmaids but is also where they are taught and indoctrinated in Gilead’s ideological system.
The Handmaid’s Tale shows how the police can be used as a hidden tool to force compliance. The Gileadean regime’s secret police force is the Eyes of the Lord (or simply the Eyes). The Eyes are Gilead’s most influential and feared government. Their strength originates from their massive stores of intelligence information, which leaders may deploy at any time to assassinate even the most influential men in Gilead. When they find indications of revolt or dissent, they abduct the perpetrators, torture them, and bring them over to be executed by hanging or participation.
Compliance is also enforced through the state police. The “Eyes of the Lord,” the Gilead government’s secret police force and intelligence arm, are so-called because they have eyes everywhere, always hunting for infractions of the country’s draconian regulations – and no one, not even commanders, is exempt from vengeance. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the commanders of Gilead have all the riches, rank, and public parks of authority, but the ultimate power of the dystopian state lies in the Eyes.
Though their primary function is gathering intelligence, the Eyes are meant to create dread and silence, even the tiniest rumors of revolt in Gilead. Their continual silent presence, combined with their abrupt, violent public arrests, has transformed Gilead into a panopticon, where inhabitants are unsure whether they are being watched or not. Plainclothes agents are sometimes assigned subordinate positions as a cover for observing individuals. Commander Waterford’s driver, for example, is Nick. Moreover, when Fred sneaked June out of town for filthy evenings at Jezebel’s, he did so under the careful eye of an Eye, and the other commanders at Jezebel’s were very sure being observed as well.
This monitoring reveals another critical aspect of the Eyes: while they constantly gather evidence of Gilead’s laws being broken, those crimes are only punished when the sinner is low-status (such as a Martha, an econowife, or a handmaid. When the crime is committed in public (such as Serena’s was) or when it becomes politically expedient to remove a commander. The Eyes allow illegal companies like Jezebel’s to thrive despite breaking Gilead’s rules as long as they operate with discretion. Furthermore, the Eyes can exploit any activity to compile a dossier of arguments for killing, imprisoning, or exiling any commander who becomes too unpleasant. Furthermore, compliance is maintained through a state religion to justify state actions. Religion is the internal system of people who adhere to unique beliefs and patterns. The Republic of Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale is a conservative Christian theocracy, which means there is no division between the state and religion (Sethna 64). This idea illustrates the politics of abortion and religion that have been used to justify controlling women’s bodies. Gilead is based on the biblical concept of males being more important than women. The Bible is also used to name items, structures, and individuals. For example, Margaret Atwood utilizes Biblical terminology in The Handmaid’s Tale to highlight how religion can dominate people’s minds and behavior. The Bible is utilized in television series in the same way other religious literature is used in reality. The leaders rule over the inhabitants of the Republic of Gilead via the religion of Christianity and its values. The Republic of Gilead implemented several modifications that aided the authorities in maintaining total control over its people.
People all across the globe practice values that the Holy Bible deems to be correct. For example, giving men children before they die is a reference from Genesis 30:1-3 (Claassens, 2-6). This reference relates the trauma women experienced in the Bible with the trauma women of Gilead undergo (Congleton 130). This trauma arises from the unquestionable belief and following of religious texts. In addition, in The Handmaid’s Tale, faith plays a significant function in brainwashing the Handmaids. Gilead has an authority where there is no separation between province and faith (Howells 154). It is, in other terms, a theocracy. Gilead’s official language communication comprises spiritual jargon and religious references.
Compliance in new oppressive positions is encouraged through the invention of fictional words. These words might be considered discrete units of analysis in which we can examine how international relations theory works. The Handmaid’s Tale‘s caste system is founded on scriptural principles. Servants are known as Marthas, but constabulary officials are known as Guardians of Faith, warriors are known as Angels, and commanders are known as Commanders of the Faithful (Boaz 250). Biblical passages inspire the business names. All Flesh is the name of the butcher shop, and Milk and Honey is the name of the dairy business. Because these statements are repeated daily, it is a technique of brainwashing the Handmaids into thinking Gilead is acting on the authority of the Bible.
Sexual violence arises from the creation and formation of gender in The Handmaid’s Tale, producing an atmosphere where women are preyed upon, sexually abused, and raped. Through interactions between men and women, gender expectations are put on women and individual women’s perception of the world around them and their role in it. What it means to be a woman is determined not by women but by totalitarian governments and societies. In episode 8, Nick’s flashback shows a stage in the development of Gilead’s organization.
Violation is seen in the state’s ceremony designed and put in place. That is, it is not a creation of the commander himself. This control can be seen by Offred, noting that the Commander “too, is doing his duty” (Hulu episode 8). The commander has to have sex with Offred against her will to father children. The commander has so much more power than the women of the household. The power gap is witnessed particularly over Offred, which can also be explained by what happens on a state or societal level. Due to this power gap, women are forced to comply with his demands.
Waterford, a founding commander of the Gilead nation, argues that the wives would never agree to such an arrangement. Hence, the third commander offers that the wives be there during impregnation, as it is less of a transgression. This scenario demonstrates that Gilead’s male architects know that what they do is rape. As architects, they have the authority to weave sexual violence into the very core of their society. The state is the body that strips women of their rights to education.
Furthermore, it denies women their ability to work and makes the male of the household the commander of the household. The state also decides that men with infertile wives are to be given a Handmaid, her sole purpose being to give them a child. Thus, the state is the agent that forces Offred into becoming a sex object.
Furthermore, as mentioned in the introduction, women are forced to become handmaids. To comply with the new oppressive status, they are stripped of names and given a name created with the preposition ‘of’ (which means belonging to) followed by their commander’s name. Their names thus signify that they are not individuals, not human beings, but instead someone else’s property; they are items and objects.
This act has grave consequences for the gender expectations that people (and the doctor) have of these women. These low expectations are because items and objects cannot be raped, sexually assaulted, or violated. Instead of the horrible crimes, the handmaids are being subjected. The perpetrators, instead, are seen as taking something that is another man’s property. Thus, the Handmaids’ subjugation arguably leads the men of Gilead society not to see what they are doing to them but to see it as doing something wrong but much less horrific. Through this justification, citizens can turn a blind eye and comply with the commander’s request.
Not arguing with order or regulation is known as compliance. This can also refer to following requirements, norms, or rules. These notions of compliance are vital for society and help us grasp our freedom. When someone is deceived, they accept things, no matter how unpleasant they are. It is tough to fathom how humanity might live as a species based on the technologies employed in The Handmaid’s Tale. Therefore, it is not so much what we manipulate but how we do it. Society is sustained only through education, independence from police monitoring, and freedom of expression, as evidenced in the Handmaid’s Tale resistance movement confronting the totalitarian dictatorship.
Works Cited
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