Atwood's Use of Language

In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, her style of writing is not only distinctive but also effective in depicting the deterioration of women’s rights in the Republic of Gilead. Through her choice of words, she entitles men as Commanders and ranks women according to their gender roles as Wives, Marthas, Handmaids, and Unwoman. She effectively portrays the difference in hierarchy between men and women to emphasize the returning of traditional values and gender roles of both men and women in the terrifying dystopian society of Gilead. 

The Handmaids in this novel have names that begin with ‘Of’ because they are referred to as the ‘Property of’ then the commander’s name. When Offred met the new Ofglen she even says ‘that is how you can get lost, in a sea of names’ because their new name strips them from their previous identity (295). The name of these Handmaids truly shows the inferiority of women and how they are regarded as their Commanders piece of property, rather than an actual human being. I thought it was clever of Margaret Atwood to use these names because I think it draws attention to the idea that this dystopian society disregarded gender roles of women, which was something that the author wanted her readers to recognize. 

Another effective style of writing she used was her use of irony. The narrator said that ‘being here with him (Nick) is safety; it’s a cave, where we huddle together while the storm goes on outside’ which is ironic because it contradicts to the sentence after that which was ‘this room is one of the most dangerous places I could be. If I were caught there would be no quarter, but I’m beyond caring’ (281-282). To me this was ironic because Offred felt safe in the most dangerous room and could have been severely punished if someone ever found out. I think this was her intention to suggest the readers that a powerful connection like love can never be overruled, even in a society like Gilead. And personally, I felt like this irony was emphasizing that Offred wasn’t scared to face her consequences. I mean Luke is gone and so is her daughter so even if the Eyes found out what she was doing with Nick, what did she have to lose? 

Atwood’s choice to name the district where all the hanging occurred as ‘Salvaging’ was very interesting (284). The word salvage means to save or to rescue so why did she decide to name the city Salvaging? This ironic name made me really curious and question why out of all the words in the English dictionary, why she chose that specific word for the name of the city. I thought about this for a while and I think her purpose was for her readers to realize that by hanging those who have done wrong, it was actually helping Gilead to grow into a better society. It’s similar to Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest; those who obey the rules will survive while those who commit sin will not.