Is Anyone Happy in Gilead?

As I neared the end of the Handmaid’s Tale, I began to wonder about who it was that was benefiting from Gilead's society. What if everyone was unhappy with Gilead’s social order?

Most obviously, women are severely oppressed and largely discontent with their positions in society. Handmaids and Marthas are forced into slave-ish roles in society in terms of sex and manual labor. Wives deal with humiliating ceremonies and a constant reminder of their infertility. Aunts aren’t too oppressed relatively speaking, but I think it would be hard to argue that they are large beneficiaries of the society. Although women, by large, are unhappy, it doesn’t seem like the Commander - who was one of the individuals who set up the Republic - is completely happy with Gilead’s society either. This is evidenced by the way that the Commander has forbidden but oddly friendly encounters in his study with the handmaids. The handmaid before Offred likely visited the Commander often but hung herself when their affair was found out. Additionally, Offred was invited to play scrabble and read books with the Commander. It seems almost as though the Commander craves new meaningful/romantic relationships and is dissatisfied with his current relational situation. This does raise the question, however, is the actions of the Commander a reaction to his own unhappiness or just his demonstration of his sexual greed. I like to think personally that the Commander comes moreso from a place of unhappiness rather than greed because he is in a position of power where he doesn’t need to do things like play scrabble or read with Offred to have sex. Obviously, that’s a
debatable topic. But running with the idea that even the Commander is unhappy, who is satisfied with this society? There’s not much textual evidence to say anything about the eyes or angels, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this trend held true with them as well. What are your thoughts?

Gilead's Instability

I feel that the Republic of Gilead, featured in Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale", is not a successful dystopia. It doesn’t lack in qualities that we can easily recognize as dystopian, of course – in Gilead citizens are mistreated for the benefit of the ruling class, dissenters and dangerous ideas are sniffed out with a very effective surveillance network (e.g. the Eyes) and then quickly dealt with, etc. Despite all this, we know from the ending of the book that Gilead eventually falls. So what could be the problem?

Gilead is not a stable dystopia. In the long term, I think that its model for how society operates is not sustainable, since its citizens are actually not brainwashed enough. To some extent, they are conditioned to hold the beliefs of their leaders. This can be seen when the Japanese tourists visit, and the Handmaids feel that they are dressed inappropriately. But this conditioning falls short of convincing everyone that they are truly happy in their stations in life. From the small slice of Offred’s life we get a glimpse of, we can see plenty of folks who are miserable and skeptical of the idea that they are benefiting from their current situation, or that it was better than before.

The Handmaids, especially Offred, are an obvious example. From looking into her inner thoughts we can see how she yearns for her old life and her path to eventual rebellion. Ofglen’s situation is similar. For these people, who are most affected by the new system, it is easy to tell why their situations led them to rebel. But I’d also argue that the Commanders (or perhaps the ones who aren’t close to the top) are unhappy in their own way, despite supposedly helping to build Gilead. This can be seen with the Commander Fred, whose loneliness prompts him to make private visits with Offred. In addition, the Commanders are not immune in society – they may be put under review for violations of the rules and subsequently punished.

If people are not happy in a society, it follows that they will rebel in some fashion or another. I think that in the situation taking place in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, the broad unhappiness amongst various classes of people led to the dissolution of Gilead – the event talked about in the history lecture at the end of the book. Do you think my assessment is correct? What are your thoughts?

Why a utopia will never exist

In order to have a true utopian society, every aspect of that society must be perfect. There are no problems, no ailments, or anything that could upset anyone on an individual level in a utopia. Although I believe a complete utopia is impossible to achieve, there are aspects of utopian societies that could be present in the world. For example, some diseases could be eradicated completely. We can say that there are some objectively 'good' traits of society that everyone can agree on, such as eradicating health problems, providing clean running water to everyone, etc.

On the flip side, there are some aspects of society that people disagree on. For example, some people believe that a strict egalitarian society would be the ideal society, while others would argue that elitism is ideal. Some people believe that communism is the best governmental structure, while others strive for a more capitalistic society. The point is, everyone has different ideas on what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'. Since the concepts of what’s 'right' and what’s 'wrong' are not concretely defined, any system that is put in place will have people advocating for it or against it.

Let's say that you could somehow manufacture a homogeneous population of humans that share the same subjective ideas of morality. Much like in the book Brave New World, each person would have a purpose and they'd believe that the current society is flawless. Are these people even human at that point? How can you be human without any diversity or individualism. In my opinion, the people in Brave New World are not even human, they are just mindless drones fulfilling the tasks they're assigned to.

The reason why a real utopia will never exist is because perfection is just a concept. Everything in the world has imperfections. We may strive for perfection, but there is never an end; you can always do better in some regard. Not everyone is going to agree with everyone else and that's just part of being human. Having a diverse world of ideas is the only way innovation can exist. Having innovation creates new ideas that could potentially bring us closer that that 'perfect' society. That's precisely why the United States has been so successful. By allowing people of all races and cultures into our country, we also allow their ideas, beliefs, and perspectives in. If we want to come closer to that ideal society, we should be letting more people into our country for varying countries, not restricting immigration.
- Arjun T

Introducing Soma

            The dystopian story that is Brave New World, provides an interesting narrative on a future society that resembles nothing like our own. One key aspect of BNW’s society is the excessive use of soma among its many inhabitants. Soma seems to provide an effect like that of many modern recreational drugs such as marijuana and opium, but it doesn’t come with any of the harmful effects. Furthermore, the World State encourages the use of soma as it helps the control people’s possible discontent by nulling their senses. What would happen if a drug like soma had become available to us? What would our society do in response and how widespread would it become?

            The closest thing that we probably have to soma is either opium or marijuana. While each of these drugs have very widespread use, they carry detrimental health effects which is why their use is frowned upon by society. Imagine a world where either of these drugs provided its effects without damaging an individual’s health. The most obvious difference would be that the use of the drug would not be frowned upon by the public to the extent that these drugs are today. However, I can’t see that any encouragement to their use either as it makes individuals less self-aware and they’ll lack the ability to think for themselves as individuals today do. However, for drugs as addicting as the ones mentioned above. I don’t think that the public would put up that much resistance to it, especially if it has no health drawbacks. For most, it would probably be too much to give up resulting in very widespread use.

In addition to soma’s effect on the public, we must consider how a modern government might use it. In BNW, soma is used to control the population by nulling their ability to think for themselves. In addition, the World State is the supplier of soma and because of its addictive nature, the population in BNW has developed a positive relationship with the government through soma. Today, I can easily see a situation where the use of a drug like soma would be encouraged by the government as a method to help consolidate control over the population, especially in more authoritarian regimes. In history, many of the revolutions have occurred primarily because of the general public’s discontent with the governing body. If the governing bodies across the world could use something like soma to get rid of this discontent and keep the public in a dream like fantasy land, then it would much easier for them to gain power and evolve into the World State that we see in BNW.

            What do you think our world would be like if we had a drug like soma?

-Krishna