The Handmaid’s Tale: An Incessant Battle Of The Mind

The Handmaid's Tale: An Incessant Battle Of The Mind

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.”

This pessimistic quote perfectly reflects the poignant dystopia written by Margaret Atwood and adapted on the small screen by HULU last year. The Handmaid’s Tale follows the tiring fight of a group of women that have been reduced to slavery by a patriarchal hierarchy based on fear and infertility called the Gilead Republic. This year, the story continues…

In a foreseeable future where woman’s rights are wiped out, the masculine sex reigns over everything. Each man, designed by the word “Commander”, possesses three women: a wife, whose function is to served her husband and takes care of the possible future child, a Martha, in charge of the domestic takes and a handmaid that represents no more than a fertile uterus ready to receive his seed. The Handmaid’s Tale displays a society scarred by the extreme decline of the traditional values where the rooted religion takes precedence over morality and compassion. We can use, as an example, the recurrent quotes of some passages from the Old Testament that are used to influence those victims even more.

In the first season, the viewer discovered this theocracy built on morbid foundations through the sad eyes of June Osbourne (Elisabeth Moss), who is now called Offred. All dressed in red, the colour that symbolises fertility, she mingles with the other objectified women who have been denied instruction and all other forms of freedom. Made of misery, the life of those scarlet handmaids can be summarised as a constant fight to escape their precarious and amoral conditions. Bombarded with doubts at some moments, their unique source of power may lie in their unification against this injustice. This is therefore with a rebellion attempt and the abduction of our heroine by the law orders that ended the season 1. One year later, the show resumes on this same picture before broadcasting one of the most harrowing scenes of the small screen. Whether it be with physical or mental torture, it can be said that the showrunners haven’t planned on sparing us this new season. However, the hope that Offred and her fellow maids could escape this asphyxiating hold maintained by this murderous America remains stronger than ever.

The Handmaid’s Tale has established itself as a psychological piece of work that can be seen as an allegory of life in all its cruelty. More than a pure dystopia, the series fully reflects the actual tendency of the incessant search of gender equity. By depicting a world where feminism doesn’t exist anymore and where the only form of authority are men, The Handmaid’s Tale reminds us that our liberties are not eternally acquired and that we must fight to maintain them. In that way, the show is a call for feminism. It has also taken another meaning with the constant assaults on the rights of women following Trump’s election, et more recently, after the Weinstein scandal.

Under cover of a straightforward fiction, Margaret Atwood tackles a sensitive subject that is at its height in 2018. Perfectly adapted by HULU, The Handmaid’s Tale is profoundly moving. This show has already won the Golden Globe for best TV drama this last January. And that’s only the beginning!

Elodie Cure is an Expert Contributor to ComiConverse. Follow her on Twitter @Elodie_Cure and Youtube @DestinationPopCulture.