Context (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes

Context

Understanding the historical and cultural context of The Handmaid's Tale is essential for appreciating Atwood's dystopian vision. This novel was written in 1984 during a period of significant political tension, social change, and environmental awareness. Atwood drew on real-world events and movements to create the chilling world of Gilead.

Margaret Atwood: the author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, Canada. Her father worked as an entomologist, studying insects, which meant Atwood spent much of her early years in the Canadian countryside. This rural upbringing fostered a deep connection with nature and would later shape the environmental themes present throughout her writing.

Despite being an avid reader from a young age, Atwood did not attend formal schooling until she was twelve years old. She went on to pursue a Master's degree at Harvard University in Massachusetts, USA. This experience at Harvard would later provide the geographical and academic inspiration for the setting of The Handmaid's Tale. During her studies, she focused on Puritanism, a religious movement that emphasised strict moral codes and religious devotion. This research directly influenced the theocratic society depicted in the novel.

Atwood's literary career and activism

Atwood has had a distinguished career as a writer and academic, teaching at various universities across the United States. She has published widely across multiple genres, including poetry, prose, essays, and literary criticism, though she is perhaps best recognised for her fiction. Her work frequently engages with contemporary political issues, and she is a passionate advocate for women's rights, freedom of speech, LGBTQ+ rights, and action on climate change.

Themes in Atwood's work

A central concern in Atwood's writing is the examination of power dynamics. She is particularly critical of how women are oppressed under patriarchal systems and uses her fiction to explore these themes through everyday, ordinary situations. Though her work often contains dystopian and surreal elements, Atwood maintains that even the most disturbing aspects of her stories are grounded in real events that have occurred in the United States or elsewhere in the world. This approach makes her writing disturbingly plausible, even when depicting extreme scenarios.

In The Handmaid's Tale, we see this philosophy at work in the portrayal of Gilead's rise to power. The novel suggests that people failed to recognise the growing threat until it was too late, largely because they were complacent and believed that such political upheaval only happens in other countries. Atwood's work serves as a warning that political stability and civil liberties can never be taken for granted.

Writing during the Cold War

Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale in 1984 whilst living in West Berlin. The city was at the heart of Cold War tensions, physically divided by the Berlin Wall into the US-controlled West and the Soviet-controlled East. Having grown up during the Second World War, Atwood understood how quickly established political and social structures could collapse. In her 2017 introduction to the novel, she explained that she wrote the book whilst surrounded both physically by the Berlin Wall and metaphorically by the constant threat of Soviet attack.

Atwood describes The Handmaid's Tale as a work of speculative fiction that examines the idea that dramatic change can happen with frightening speed. As she noted, the comforting thought that 'it can't happen here' is unreliable - given the right circumstances, anything could happen anywhere.

The Cold War and nuclear threat

Understanding the Cold War

The Cold War was a period of intense political tension and psychological confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, along with their respective allies. Lasting from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was termed 'cold' because it did not involve direct, large-scale military combat between the superpowers. Instead, this conflict manifested through psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, economic embargoes, support for proxy governments with similar political ideologies, and demonstrations of technological superiority, such as the Space Race.

The nuclear threat

By the time Atwood was writing The Handmaid's Tale, the Cold War had been ongoing for nearly her entire life. During the Second World War, the United States had dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, establishing a precedent for nuclear warfare. Subsequently, both Eastern and Western nations raced to develop their own nuclear weapons in order to maintain power on the global political stage.

A concept known as mutually assured destruction (MAD) emerged - the understanding that initiating nuclear conflict would inevitably lead to the complete annihilation of all involved nations due to the devastating power of nuclear weapons. This threat of total destruction served as a deterrent, but it also meant that an entire generation grew up under the constant shadow of potential nuclear war.

Nuclear anxiety in popular culture

Growing up in 1939, Atwood experienced this ever-present nuclear threat throughout her formative years. The mid-twentieth century saw a surge in fiction and popular culture exploring themes of nuclear holocaust. Examples include:

• John Wyndham's The Chrysalids (1955)
• The film series Mad Max (1979)
• The Japanese manga and film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1982)

Nuclear themes in The Handmaid's Tale

Whilst The Handmaid's Tale does not directly depict nuclear apocalypse, the threat of radioactive contamination lurks at the edges of the narrative. Characters face the terrifying prospect of being sent to the Colonies, areas contaminated by radiation. Much of the speculative fiction inspired by nuclear anxiety focuses on the struggle for resources in a depleted world, and The Handmaid's Tale is no exception. The declining birth rate in Gilead, which has led to the institutionalisation of sexual slavery, is presented as a consequence of environmental damage and disease - both potential outcomes of nuclear and chemical warfare.

Environmental concerns

Atwood's environmental background

Atwood's childhood in rural Canada, shaped by her father's work as an entomologist, instilled in her a lasting interest in and appreciation for the natural world. She has been a committed environmentalist throughout her career and frequently discusses how climate change exacerbates existing social inequalities. The relationship between human society and the natural environment is a recurring theme in her work.

The environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a rapid growth in environmental awareness across the United States and the Western world. A pivotal moment came in 1962 when American biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a groundbreaking book that exposed the harmful effects of pesticides and chemicals on the environment. Carson's work revealed how these substances were not only detrimental to natural ecosystems but also posed serious risks to human health.

Some pesticides proved so dangerous that they began to be prohibited by the US Government. These environmental concerns reflected a growing recognition of humanity's destructive impact on the planet.

Environmental themes in The Handmaid's Tale

This environmental consciousness filters into The Handmaid's Tale in subtle but significant ways. Offred observes that shops selling food items like those at 'Loaves and Fishes' (a Biblical reference) rarely open anymore because the seas have become so polluted that fish stocks have collapsed. This detail illustrates how environmental degradation in Gilead has practical, everyday consequences for the population, creating scarcity and further justifying the regime's extreme measures.

Feminism and women's rights

What is feminism?

Feminism refers to a range of movements and ideologies concerned with establishing and defending equal rights for women and advocating for gender equality. The Western feminist movement is typically understood as having progressed through four distinct waves, each with its own focus and characteristics, beginning with the suffrage movement in the mid-nineteenth century.

The waves of feminism

First wave (mid-nineteenth century to the Second World War): This period was characterised by the suffragette movement, which campaigned for women's right to vote across Western nations. This wave focused primarily on legal rights and political representation.

Second wave (mid-twentieth century): This wave, most relevant to understanding The Handmaid's Tale, was characterised by advocacy for women's rights in the workplace, within marriage, and in society more broadly. Until relatively late in the twentieth century, marital rape was still legal in many places. Key texts from this period include Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1969). These works articulated the frustration and sense of inequality experienced by growing numbers of women who were questioning traditional gender roles.

Third wave: Beginning with zine culture and the riot grrrl movement in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, emerging from punk and DIY scenes, this wave saw the work of Black feminists like bell hooks and Audre Lorde gaining wider recognition. A crucial development was the concept of intersectionality - the understanding that different forms of oppression and privilege overlap and interact in complex ways. Intersectional feminism recognises that whilst all women face oppression, this oppression manifests differently depending on other aspects of identity such as race, class, sexuality, and gender identity. For example, Black women face different forms of oppression compared to white women, and Black trans women experience different challenges compared to cisgender Black women.

Fourth wave (2012 onwards): Defined largely by social media activism, fourth wave feminism addresses issues including sexual harassment and violence, post-colonialism, and the disparities between women's rights in the West and in other parts of the world. This wave is characterised by campaigns such as the #MeToo movement, the Women's Marches of 2017 and 2018, and intersections with the #BlackLivesMatter protests, which have sparked important conversations about inequalities between white women and women of colour.

Second wave feminism and The Handmaid's Tale

Writing The Handmaid's Tale in the early 1980s, Atwood was heavily influenced by second wave feminism, which was reaching its peak momentum alongside increased growth in feminist literature. In the novel, Offred mentions her mother, whom we can identify as a feminist activist. Based on the timeline, Offred's mother would likely have been involved in the second wave feminist protests of the 1960s and 1970s, when Offred was a child.

In Chapter 7, Offred recalls going for a walk with her mother in a park and encountering a group of people burning pornographic materials. Significantly, these are not religious fundamentalists but feminists protesting against what they viewed as the misogynistic nature of much pornography. Offred's mother appears to support the burning, and Offred herself is encouraged by onlookers to throw a magazine into the fire.

Moira, Offred's closest friend from her time before Gilead, is also a vocal feminist. When they were both at college, Moira organised an 'underwhore' party to sell lingerie, deliberately reclaiming the word 'whore' and using humour to undermine sexism - a tactic she employs throughout the novel. The two most important women in Offred's life are thus clear proponents of feminist ideals, yet Offred herself seems to observe their activism from a certain distance. Her primary focus is on mental strength and survival.

Is Offred a feminist?

This is a complex question that students should consider carefully. Compared to her mother and Moira, Offred might not initially appear to be a strong feminist figure. She does not openly rebel against the Gilead regime or attempt a daring escape like Moira does from the Red Centre. She does not even accept Moira's suggestion to join her as a sex worker at Jezebel's, which Moira argues would provide greater autonomy.

However, Offred's focus on her own mental struggle can itself be understood as a form of resistance. For her, physical and mental survival are paramount concerns. She rebels in more subtle, covert ways:

• Stealing butter to use as hand cream (an act of self-care and vanity forbidden in Gilead)
• Beginning a secret affair with Nick
• Maintaining her relationship with Ofglen, who is a member of the underground resistance movement Mayday

As the novel progresses, Offred becomes increasingly subversive in her behaviour, suggesting that survival itself can be an act of resistance under totalitarian oppression.

Politics and religion in 1980s America

The Reagan administration

At the time Atwood was writing The Handmaid's Tale, the United States was in the second year of the Reagan administration. Ronald Reagan, a Republican President who served from 1981 to 1989, was a former Hollywood actor known for his charismatic public speaking. His presidency was characterised by:

• Tax cuts
• Significantly increased defence spending (driven by Cold War tensions)
• Reduced investment in social and public services
• Strong anti-Communist rhetoric

Reagan was particularly popular with Christian America and represented a shift towards conservative values.

The Christian right wing and the Moral Majority

The 1980s saw increased pressure on the US Government from the Christian right wing. During his time in office, President Reagan emphasised conservatism and championed what he called 'family values', by which he meant traditional, heterosexual, nuclear family structures. This messaging appealed to white, working-class Americans who felt resentful about the progress Black people had made during the civil rights movement. It also resonated with religious organisations such as the Moral Majority.

The Moral Majority was founded in 1979 by members of the Christian right and the Republican Party. They formed in response to what they perceived as a decline in moral standards in American society. The 1960s and 1970s - the two decades preceding the organisation's formation - had been a time of increased sexual freedom, religious diversity, the civil rights movement, the movement for gay rights, and the rise of second wave feminism. Traditional assumptions about women's roles as housewives, sex before marriage, and women's sexual autonomy were all being challenged.

Gilead as speculation

In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood directly speculates about what might happen if an organisation like the Moral Majority achieved ultimate political power. We can reasonably assume that the inspiration for Gilead's social structure came directly from the kind of rigid, religiously-dictated order desired by fundamentalist Christians such as those in the Moral Majority. The novel serves as a warning about the dangers of allowing religious extremism to shape governmental policy.

The AIDS crisis

Emergence of HIV/AIDS

The first cases of HIV/AIDS in the United States were reported in 1980. By 1984, nearly 4,000 people had died from the virus, and a homophobic moral panic was spreading through mainstream media. AIDS became the first major pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920.

At the time Atwood was writing The Handmaid's Tale, the prognosis for someone diagnosed with AIDS was death within approximately one year. The disease was poorly understood, and fear surrounding it was exploited for political purposes.

AIDS and The Handmaid's Tale

In the 'Historical Notes' section at the end of the novel, we learn from Professor Pieixoto that the reduced fertility rate in Gilead resulted from a sexually transmitted disease that caused infertility. Public fears about AIDS fed into propaganda from the Christian right that opposed sex outside marriage and promoted hatred towards gay people. This propaganda, which blamed the AIDS crisis on supposed moral decay, directly inspired the political context of Gilead. The regime uses the fertility crisis - linked to sexually transmitted disease - as justification for its system of institutionalised rape and the reduction of women to their reproductive capacity.