Women as a Lonely Bird in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

This paper will explore the Handmaids' role in The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood from a feminist perspective. This paper shows how the handmaids functioned in The Gilead Republic under the patriarchal and totalitarian state system. Furthermore, this study analyzes the Handmaids' lifestyle change after taking them and giving them different roles. The roles are given to them are the state's advantages, how this new lifestyle limits their freedom, and how the handmaids have ended up sexist. The state uses the handmaid's if they are impregnated; the child will belong to the commander and his wife. However, if the handmaids do not get pregnant, they would be sent to the colonies. To analyze the text, this paper will use radical feminist theory, and especially it will interpret the text through the theory on sexual politics by Kate Millet.