Ecocritical Considerations for The Handmaid’s Tale
Ecofeminism and The Handmaid’s Tale.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale offers itself to many critical takes common in the arena of literary criticism. One such reading that actually deepens and complements any other critical reading would be that of the ecocritical nature. This essay should serve to define how ecocritical ideas are both omitted and utilized to add another layer within the onion that is The Handmaid’s Tale. Specifically, this paper will explore what Parker describes as reverential writing of nature within The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood’s employ of anthropomorphism in tandem with ecofeminism, the lack of deep ecology concerns, and Gilead’s normalization of the disregard for the environment by use as a punishment to send infertile Unwomen, and other exiles, in the Colonies.
Much like first-wave feminist critiques, where the focus was on the celebration of women, early ecocritics focused on reverential writing about nature. They would explore passages within texts that developed a sense of wonder and awe at nature. However, a few passages in The Handmaid’s Tale seem to neglect this feeling of reverence at natural sights. Atwood does, however, use some reverential writing and anthropomorphism in regards to the Handmaids, more on that later. First, let us examine the brief passage: “I walk along the gravel path that divides the back lawn, neatly, like a hair parting. It has rained during the night; grass to either side is damp, the air humid. Here and there are worms, evidence of the fertility of the soil, caught by the sun, half dead; flexible and pink, like lips” (Atwood 17) where we see an example of Atwood’s description of natural things. The gravel and the description of the worms are related to human qualities, while the grass, air, and soil are given simple descriptions. Atwood leaves the opportunity for anthropomorphic elaborations on the table, but in doing so she strengthens the focus on the body of women, as in ecofeminist theory, as being part of nature. She attributes a few natural things in relation to human description, the opposite of anthropomorphism where things are attributed to nature (e.g. his hair flowed like the wind; the grass moved like an ocean).
However, on the topic of the female body and the Handmaids, Atwood is quick to give an anthropomorphic attribution. Early on in the novel, Offred gives us a view as to just how the Handmaids are instructed to think of their bodies as being part of nature, “some of you will fall on dry ground or thorns. Some of you are shallow-rooted…She said, think of yourselves as seeds…let’s pretend we’re trees” (Atwood 18). It is an interesting utilization of anthropomorphism, and adds depth to the already intriguing Republic of Gilead. The women are thought of as property, much as natural things can be regarded as property, such as land or ponds. To further cement them on their branch of the social tree in Gilead, they are told such things so that they do not make the mistake of believing themselves every bit as human as a Commander. Another example of this anthropomorphism of the Handmaids is seen when Offred takes the first walk described to us with Ofglen. They greet each other by saying “blessed be the fruit” (Atwood 19). The fruit in this context is the womb. They are not to think that their reproductive organs are their own, but that they belong to Mother Nature. This is easily skipped over by the average reader whose aim might not be to look at Atwood’s novel from the ecocritical lens, but serves to further entrench the “Other”-ness that Gilead uses to keep the Handmaids oppressed.
Despite this obvious imposition of women unto nature, Atwood leaves out many concerns of Deep Ecology. But, rather than speculate on this omission, it is better to look at where concerns of Deep Ecology are discussed in The Handmaid’s Tale: the Colonies. The Colonies are where exiles and Unwomen (allegedly infertile women) are sent as punishment to clean up toxic waste. “…She’ll never be sent to the colonies, she’ll never be declared Unwoman” (Atwood 127) is what the reader is told about a woman who successfully birthed a child in Gilead. Atwood, in effect, shows us that the woman who successfully gives birth is, in turn, a success of nature. Were she declared an Unwoman -a failure of nature- she would be sent to the very place where Gilead had failed nature: the toxic waste dumps in the Colonies. However, no single character in the novel is ever very much concerned with the state of things in the Colonies. It is almost as if they view the toxic waste dumps as a natural landmark of Gilead, despite it obviously being man-made. This normalization of climate change, or how the environment was physically altered in a negative way, is perhaps Atwood’s prediction on the way that some perceive climate change today: natural, not man-made. This is the opposite of what we empirically know climate change to be caused by, but let’s not fall into intentional fallacy here.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale offers itself to interpretation of many different varieties, but among the more interesting, admittedly overlooked, readings are from the ecocritical school of thought. Upon scrutiny of the examples of anthropomorphism as well as the omission of anthropomorphic description where one would most usually find it, the examination of where Atwood’s Deep Ecological concerns lie, and the relation of a woman’s body with nature shows us that, although not strikingly obvious, Atwood is surely aware of ecocriticism in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. First Anchor Books Edition, New York, NY, Random House, Inc., 1986.
Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2015.
