Feminist and Marxist Theories Applied to The Handmaid’s Tale

Marxist and Feminist theories applied to writing open up the blooms of context that the author writes in between the spaces of semantics. Strengthened by analysis, weakened by assumptions, each theory offers insight into novels such as The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, which is subject to conjecture due to the specific nature of each analysis. A potentially whole bodied analysis would include parts of two or more theories to remove weaknesses and strengthen analysis. Feminist and Marxist theories provide a dual lens to magnify aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale, to showcase a society that “rejects the premise of industrial society,” and conveys metanarratives of a world run by men, run by women (Rivkin, 355). The crack in this premise that is seen through Marxist and Feminist theory lenses tells a story of surface appearances that do not represent the reality underneath. The Commander may appear to be the boss, but it is the women who control the workplace.

Atwood tells a story about a dystopian society that rearranges the hierarchy of citizens from the world familiar with modern times to one with a male Commander in charge and all women in servant roles. Feminist analysis sees women represented as suppressed and the Marxist analysis sees the Handmaids specifically as unpaid sex workers. The value of labor in Gilead is placed on the production of the women to support the religious, patriarchal structure that governs them, but just like a black market underground of any society, the women of Gilead control…