The Handmaid's Tale

The ways complacency and complicity help maintain an oppressive social order is a key concern of the novel, appearing in numerous guises. One particularly significant example is the role women play in directly enforcing and ideologically supporting the Gileadean regime. The Aunts, despite being women themselves, are among the fiercest supporters of Gilead’s policy of forcing fertile women to serve as Handmaids. They provide ideological justification for this, blaming women for past sexual violence and presenting the Handmaids’ new position as something that benefits them, insisting that “[y]ours is a position of honour [sic]” (23). Armed with cattle prods, they also threaten and even torture the Handmaids if they refuse to accept this “honour [sic].”

Serena Joy also conspires with a regime that is actively curtailing her rights, albeit not as harshly as it limits the rights of other women. Even prior to Gilead’s rise to power, she was offering ideological support for its ideas, giving speeches “about the sanctity of the home” (55) and the need to return to traditional values. In her relatively powerful position as a Wife, she enforces and benefits from the regime, threatening Offred and potentially being responsible for the previous Handmaid’s suicide. These women who are directly complicit in the regime show that there are always those who will support a state that oppresses them because it brings them small benefits and advantages or allows them to hold a higher, less exploited position in the hierarchy of the oppressed.

Luke does not appear to be entirely shocked and appalled when women are banned from working or owning property and money. In fact, he is extremely complacent about it, secretly enjoying the boost this gives to his status as a man and the way that, as Offred describes it, he and Offred “are not each other’s, any more. Instead, I am his” (191-92). Alongside this, however, is Offred’s own complacency. Though she recognizes this behavior in Luke, she dismisses it as simply her starting “to get paranoid” (188) and does nothing to protest the changing laws and regulations, accepting Luke’s suggestion that “it would be futile” and doing “more housework, more baking” (189) as is expected of her in the reactionary politics of Gilead. This complacency continues after Gilead’s rise. Unlike Moira, who attempts to escape from the Centre (eventually succeeding after having been tortured for a failed attempt), Offred accepts her position, however resentfully, and even finds the idea that Moira has escaped “frightening” (143). This continues at the Commander’s house where Offred seems, on some level, to genuinely wish to conceive a child for the Commander and Serena Joy, noting that “the expectation of others […] have become my own” (83).

However, her relationships with men produce the most significant complacency and, arguably, complicity in Offred. The “little present[s]” (164) and opportunities she receives from the Commander improve her life just enough that she begins to accept her reduced circumstances and become more comfortable with the Commander himself. Despite the abuse and exploitation, her “body’s lax, cosy [sic] even” in his presence, and she is “entertained” (193) by her visits to his study. Once Offred begins a passionate affair with Nick, this complacency becomes even more pronounced. She ceases to wish to challenge, or escape from, the regime, refusing Ofglen’s attempts to get her to spy on the Commander and even acknowledging that “I no longer want to leave, escape, cross the border to freedom. I want to be here, with Nick, where I can get at him” (283). Offred is aware of her complacency and appears to feel guilty about it, denouncing herself as “a wimp” (306) and wishing that “this story […] showed me in a better light […] more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia” (279). However, this does not stop her complacent attitudes and actions. By being a complex, problematic protagonist who is arguably complicit in her own oppression, Offred raises questions about how indoctrination and social control operate and how far one might go to survive in a repressive regime.