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Ideology - Coggle Diagram
Ideology
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Authority figures
Captain Beatty
He can be seen as an extreme Hobbesian. Thomas Hobbes argued in his 1651 book 'Leviathan' that the status quo should be maintained to avoid violence that threatens the state.
This view has been criticised for being too pessimistic in its analysis of human nature. It reduces humans as inherently apathetic and hedonistic: "That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation?"
It leads to ordinary people seeing themselves as divorced from the running of society. For example, Mrs. Bowles says: "I voted last election, same as everyone." This could suggest that everyone in this society exercises their right to vote, but a more sinister interpretation argues that everyone chooses to vote for the same candidate.
Beatty also operates on Foucault's idea of 'Power-Knowledge.' He is aware that his power comes from the books he reads ("I'm full of bits and pieces.") and burns them so that others do not have the opportunity to rise to his level: “He’s read enough so he has all the answers, or seems to have. His voice is like butter. I’m afraid he’ll talk me back the way I was.”
Ultimately, he prioritises 'happiness' as a cover for complete state control: "If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him 2 sides to a quesiton to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none."
The Commander
He justifies the creation of Gilead by presenting a distorted, hyperbolic view of the immediate past: "there was nothing there for [men]." However, it is more likely that as the feminist movement removed male priviliges and redistributed them to women to achieve equality, the Commander viewed this as oppression.
Many modern readers may be able to relate to this. With financial independence and emotional empowerment, women no longer needed to rely on men, which men viewed as threatening their social position:
The term for straight women becoming disaffected with romantic relationships is called “heterofatalism” (sometimes ‘heteropessimism’).
45% of women aged between 25 and 44 will be single by 2030, the largest share in history.
More radical feminists choose to separate themselves from men as much as they can, like how radical separatist feminists did in the 1980s. A modern example is the Korean 4B Movement, which involves not dating, marrying, having sex with or having children with men to boycott the patriarchy.
It is likely that Gilead was borne out of wounded male egos. Offred recognises that "intimacy is what he wanted", which is ironically the one thing that Gilead denies him. For example, it is illegal for Commanders to kiss Handmaids.
He sees women as expendable so that he can achieve his goals: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs."
"Better never means better for everyone."
He uses pseudo-science to justify Gilead’s existence: “biological destinies,” “all we’ve done is returned things to nature’s norm.”
- He claims that men are naturally polygamous despite there being no scientific consensus for this.
- This links to other pseudo-scientific ideologies that have been historically used to rationalise oppression, such as Aryan supremacy, Nazism, Social Darwinism, etc.
His physical description and ideology also mirror that of Ronald Reagan, who was President of the US when the novel was published in 1985:
- Both are white, able-bodied Christian men who embrace ‘family values.’ Power is only allocated to a specific, privileged group.
- Both are unassuming and well-groomed, showing that villains are often deemed ‘respectable’ members of society.
- Reagan’s administration cemented the religious far-right into politics. Reagan even said: “Within the covers of the Bible are all the answers for all the problems men face.”
Aunt Lydia
It is likely that she and the other Aunts don't actually believe in what they are saying. As the Historical Notes reveal: "when power is scarce, a little of it is tempting."
Gilead risked giving some power to a small group of women because it recognised the effectiveness of "[controlling] the indigenous by members of their own groups."
How ideology is practised/physically enforced: In both novels, public punishment is carried out to create despair and squash rebellion.
THT
The Wall
"We're supposed to look, that is what they are there for, hanging on the Wall."
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The Salvaging
"I place my hand on my heart to show unity with the Salvagers" and "complicity in the death of this woman."
This will also make the Handmaids preoccupied with their own guilt, which could make them believe that. they deserve their own abuse.
The involvement of all the Handmaids could be to ensure that the Handmaids can't escape to other countries as they will be recognised as murderers.
The phallic imagery used to describe the rope ("sticky with tar", "hairy") is an example of the patriarchy forcing women to punish other women. It sows divisions between them to prevent collective rebellion. This also signifies that in Gilead, the threat of sexual violence is omnipresent.
“Women’s Salvagings are less frequent. There is less need for them. These days we are so well behaved.”
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Testifyings
Physical example of sowing divisions between women: "Her fault, her fault, her fault."
"We meant it, which is the bad part."
F451
Book burnings
Described using the semantic field of entertainment: "spectacle", "carnival", "circus", "symphony", etc. This normalises violence as entertainment to keep citizens compalcent and prevent them from protesting.
They happen when a citizen reports books to the firemen. This is reminiscent to the use of citizen informants under McCarthyism, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
The resulting atmosphere of fear and paranoia forces people to follow the state-mandated ideology whether they want to or not.
The fact that they are "always at night" emphasises fear. This is reminiscent of the Nazi book burnings in 1933.
Televised chase
The government uses the parlour walls ro order citizens to look for Montag > widespread surveillance.
Akman says that in dystopias, "individuals are trapped in 'visibility by state'", but dystopias also trap people in visibility by their own communities.
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