Reyes 1

Ahlea Reyes

Ms. Yap

A Level English Literature

13 November 2017

Hope Lies Within Our Memories in Margaret Atwood’s ​The Handmaid’s Tale

Memory and storytelling is a way for people in society to have compassion and empathy

for one another. We look to find understanding and acceptance through other people and their

experiences when we are at our worst. Margaret Atwood explores the idea of memory and

storytelling in ​The Handmaid’s Tale​ as a source for hope for people in desperate times through

the use of language, structure, and Offred’s thoughts.

Through the use of language, Atwood explores the idea that memory and storytelling is a

way for the character, Offred, to remember the past. Offred lives in a dystopian society called

Gilead where language is controlled using references to the Bible or what society believes is

biblical language. In order to remain sane and not conform to the expectations of society, she

tries to remember the past through language and storytelling. Through simple words such as the

word “chair”, Atwood writes “I sit in the chair and think about the word chair” (Atwood, 110).

She thinks of multiple meanings of the word chair such as it is the “leader of a meeting” (110) or

that it is “the first syllable in the word ​charity​” (110) in order for Offred to remember words that

they used to say before the time Gilead. This contradiction in language from the common biblical

phrases used in Gilead is what distracts Offred from conforming to the expectations of that

society. She doesn't like how society is functioning so she uses language from the past as a form
 Reyes 2
of rebellion against the current system. This rebellion leads to the hope that one day society will

go back to the way it was before Gilead.

Atwood designed Gilead to use Biblical language in order for people to conform to the

expectations in society through communication. For example, Atwood uses phrases such as

“Blessed be the fruit” (19) and “Praise be” (20) to portray the idea that Gilead is under the

Biblical ruling. This control over language forces citizens to speak and therefore think with

references and beliefs from the Bible. The Bible symbolizes hope and faith in belief so through

using and repeating these phrases, Atwood was able to create this society were their faith in

humanity was purely based on excerpts from the Bible. However that was proven ineffective

through the thoughts of Offred on the matter of belief in God. Atwood describes how Offred

believes that God is imaginary by writing “Then there’s Kingdom, power, and glory. It takes a

lot to believe in those right now. But I’ll try anyway.” (195). In this excerpt, Atwood uses the

language from a prayer from the Bible and incorporated Offred’s thoughts to conclude the fact

that Offred does not believe in God. However, she is in a desperate time where all hope is lost

and, even if she did not previously believe in him before, believing in God is the source for her

faith in humanity. In order Offred to still believe in a better future for society, she tries to use

storytelling and memory of the past, in hopes that it will go back to how things used to be.

Atwood wants to make vivid the idea that memory and storytelling is a way for the people to

remember the past and cling on to hope during desperate times.

In the Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood makes many references to the Bible and does a play on

words to create this new society of order and control. In order for the character of Offred to not

conform to society’s standards, she thinks of words and phrases that were said in the past to
 Reyes 3
remind herself of how things were and hope that it will be like that in the future. For example,

Atwood writes “The door of the room--not my room, I refuse to say my--is not locked” (8).

Atwood uses this phrase to explain to the reader that Offred is not possessive of anything. She

believes that the world of Gilead is not her own and that house and the situation is temporary in

order to convince herself that the world will get better. She detached herself from using words

such as “my” or showing possession in the house because Offred is in denial and does not want

to believe that her situation is real. In doing so, Offred rebels against society because she

disagrees with how it is structured. This way, Offred clings on to the idea of hope for the future

because of her unwillingness to conform to society and belief that the world will be as it was in

the past.

Atwood does not follow the traditional structure and punctuation for a novel for the

purposes of presenting the idea of memory and storytelling in the Handmaid’s Tale. Author

David Ketterer noticed this abnormality by commenting in the article titled ​Margaret Atwood’s

The Handmaid’s Tale: A Contextual Dystopia​. Ketterer wrote, “Atwood uses the device of

quoting direct speech without quotation marks. It is generally used to signal a conversation that

is being recalled or reconstructed” (Ketterer, 215). The use of quotation marks is to directly

quote the speech of a character, so the fact that Atwood chooses not to use quotation marks when

quoting speech implies that the character Offred is not remembering everything said at that

instant. Instead, as mentioned by Ketterer, dialogue is being reconstructed and remembered as

best as Offred can interpret. Atwood continues to not use quotation marks in the beginning,

however she adds them later in the novel when quoting direct speech from a character. For

example, Atwood writes “ ‘Trust me,’ he says” (Atwood, 294) when Nick was trying to help
 Reyes 4
Offred escape. It is possible Nick could not have said those exact words but Atwood inserts

quotation marks in this phrase because the character of Offred wants to believe that this is what

Nick said. All of the dialogue is still a construction of her memory but Offred alters the story to

convince herself and other people that there is still hope in the world during this desperate time.

Offred is confident that what the other characters said in the novel is true in order to believe that

her experience in Gilead is legitimate. This confidence in Offred’s reconstruction is what gives

her hope to someday have someone listen to her tapes and change how society is being managed.

This idea of memory and storytelling is continued through the thoughts of Offred. Offred

is recollecting and reconstructing the memory of having sexual intercourse with Nick, which

proves that memory is something that humans create themselves. Atwood writes “I made that up.

It didn’t happen that way. Here is what happened” (261) and proceeds to explain the feeling and

experience of Offred’s time with Nick. Then Atwood writes “ It didn’t happen that way either.

I’m not sure how it happened; not exactly. All I can hope for is a reconstruction; the way love

feels is always only an approximate” (263). This contradiction in Offred’s account of what

happened encompasses the idea that memory is merely what we want it to be. Humans construct

memory to make it better and alter to what we want it to happen in order to give us something to

live for. For Offred, providing two explanations or two perspectives on this, gives her the chance

to remember the feeling of what it was like to be loved, even if it did not happen that way. It was

a chance for Offred to hope to be loved someday or to create this experience what it might be

like to be loved, because she knows she will not have that feeling again in Gilead. Atwood

wanted to make apparent this idea of memory through the idea that love is how people and

society have hope and put their faith in.

 Reyes 5
Atwood uses structure, language, and the thoughts of Offred in order to portray the idea

of memory and storytelling as an outlet for hope in times of distress. Through memory we can

experience connections and sympathize with other people which is what gives humanity hope. In

desperate times as long as there is a recollection of memory there is hope for a better future in

the world.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. ​The Handmaid’s Tale​. 1986. New York: Random-Anchor, 1998. Print.

Ketterer, David. “Margaret Atwood's ​The Handmaid's Tale​: A Contextual Dystopia.” ​Science

Fiction Studies ​16.2 (1989): 209-217. ​JSTOR. ​Web. 29 Jan. 2016.