Enduring Understanding

In both of the settings of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Wilderness Tips both explore the societal dynamics and restraints in a civilization where men have the upper hand. In both Atwood writes a story of the journey it is to navigate an unforgiving environment where only the fittest can thrive. 

The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a dystopian, totalitarian society named Gilead. Due to the evolved environmental pollution women find themselves infertile, which is where Offred comes in, a handmaid forced to bear children for the elite men. The setting is distinguished by the strict social expectations, class system, and manipulation within the country to uphold its power. The setting is less of a physical space but instead an overbearing presence that looms over Offred. Gilead becomes a power in Offred’s life that torments her, becoming her metaphorical prison. Atwood writes The Handmaid’s Tale as a cautionary tale, taking the threats and unjust treatment of the past and present day and revealing the consequences of a world without women’s rights and extreme pollution. The oppressive setting is where Atwood writes the protagonist, Offred, into a woman searching for a glimpse of justice and equality in a cruel world. Offred finds herself on page 51 reminiscing about her past with freedom she thinks to herself, “We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?” In Wilderness Tips the characters experience a variety of issues, from domestic abuse to loneliness. Instances that Offred would trade them to have the life of. Both instances are terrible and in comparison reveal the life lasting effects of societal expectations. Such as, the inescapable nature that takes over with societal control even in less oppressive settings. 

Margaret Atwood’s Wilderness Tips uses setting as a tool. She employs many different landscapes, ranging from remote wilderness to urban surroundings, in order to shape the multiple short stories and deepen the complexity of a slow life and human relationships. The urban setting represents the tangled mess characters find themselves in with the expectations and normalities of society that are pressured deep, shaping their identities. The setting is written to reflect the characters emotions, like The Handmaid’s Tale, where the weather or gloom intensifies as they face the results of the effect of the patriarchy around them. In the short story, Weight, the urban setting reflects the constant overbearing judgment that the protagonist experiences in the bustling streets and overcrowded spaces. Weight contrasts the other short story included, Hairball. In Hairball the protagonist finds herself in a remote cabin, attempting to find peace in her internal battles. She feels pressure around her with the societal expectation to have children and to also understand the ever changing trend and style around her. She thinks looking into a mirror on page 11 of the short story included in Wilderness Tips, “Part of the life she should have had is just a gap, it isn't there, it's nothing. What can be salvaged from it, what can be redone, what can be done at all?” The expectations of this society and the society of Gilead in different ways put the women into metaphorical prisons, trapped in a world where only the behaved, pretty, skinny, and smart (but not too smart) can survive. In the settings of The Handmaid’s Tale and Wilderness Tips they are set in different time periods with different levels of the extremities women are put through. However, in both the protagonists are the victims of the world's expectations of society. 

Margaret Atwood through her writing tells a story of a first person, female protagonist. Her writing reflects a difference in the power struggle between men and women. Atwood is able to challenge modern societal issues and use them to unbalance the relationship between a man and women. In Wilderness Tips and The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood utilizes this through both of the female protagonists and the male characters that are written with complexity, each having several layers readers must thoroughly dissect. The protagonist has a sense of feminism and a need to break through traditional stereotypes. Atwood’s male characters have power over the female protagonist in order to highlight the patriarchal issues in not only the book’s dystopian society but also in today’s modern world. 

In Margaret Atwood’s work, her protagonists are the heart and soul of her novel’s. Her female characters throughout her writings transform from weak to something powerful and strong minded. They tend to be in a situation where they aren’t in control of their surroundings and are trapped either emotionally or physically. Through the story, Atwood writes them to become something more, something empowering, to find feminism and take their strength back. In the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, the protagonist and first person narrator is called Offred, meaning “Of Fred'' her Commander, her real name never being known to readers. Offred, a handmaid, in a force induced job to bear children for the elites of Gilead, a totalitarian civilization that took control over the United States. The evolved environmental pollution has caused women to be infertile. Which brings the story to Offred, one of the fertile women left who is forced to become a handmaid. Though Offred is passive and observant she learns through observing the limits of power of Gildead over their subjects. Offred compares herself to“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.” (Atwood, 1985, pg. 167) Offred is strong through her passiveness. Her ability to seem obedient and devout to Gildead is the strength that grants her the rebellion power she needs. In Wilderness Tips, Atwood writes ten short stories that hold adventures of several different women and what it is like to live through the struggles of the 1950's to 1990’s. She tells the stories of women who “have her job stolen by her boss, the one whose jealousy of men will put her in need of revenge, and the one whose man is constantly cheating on her. The one who sleeps with men easily cannot have an abortion, does not want to get married, and loses her best friend, beaten to death by her husband.” Atwood is able to write of the hard, cringe-worthy moments women went through day after day. Reading them in the modern day poses a question about, how far, really, have women come since then? 

The men in Margaret Atwood’s work tend to be a symbol of power throughout the story with the character that the protagonist has to overcome in some sort. Specifically, Offred’s Commander in The Handmaid’s Tale is described as a “semi-retired man” with “silver hair” making him look unthreatening, while also making him hold the patriarchal power over her as an older, white male. The Commander is a complex character that has several layers to him. On one hand he sympathizes with Offred and tries to make her life more bearable for her, but on the other he is at fault for the reason she is there. Though Offred finds him unthreatening, she knows that the system Commander pities her for is the same system he played a role in creating, establishing, and benefits hugely from. The Commander explains to Offred that, “Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.” (Atwood, 1985, pg. 366) The duality of the Commander shows how people who are capable of evil things often justify the actions of themselves for selfish reasons. In Wilderness Tips, the men within the stories hold the same traits. Though less severe than enslaving women for their fertility, they take readers back rather than towards the future. They entail the real-life scenarios of life that women went through at the hands of men that benefit from the suffering for selfish reasons.