Rather than a stereotype, and archetype is something that
represents the majority of a group. Allusions are described as a reference to a
historical event or item. Margaret Atwood’s classic novel The Handmaid’s Tale is a quick choice for finding archetypes and
allusions, as it is a book that takes place in a futuristic setting (for the
time, as this book takes place present day but was written in 1985).
The first archetype that came to my mind when I read the
assignment was feminist. It is pretty
clear that this book in itself is an outcry about women’s rights, yet the
obvious feminist in this story was Offred’s mother. One can clearly see this by
the things she says throughout Offred’s recollections, however she seems to be
the unruly type of feminist that plagues our fight to this day. You know, the
one people like to call feminazis and
stereotype the entire group with.
The first example of this that I discovered was the sight
of Offred’s mother in the movie they watched at the Red Center. Offred tells us that:
“She's
in a group of other women, dressed in the same fashion; she's holding a stick,
no, it's part of a banner, the handle. The camera pans up and we see the
writing, in paint, on what must have been a bedsheet: TAKE BACK THE NIGHT … Behind
this sign there are other signs, and the camera notices them briefly: FREEDOM
TO CHOOSE, EVERY BABY A WANTED BABY, RECAPTURE OUR BODIES, DO YOU BELIEVE A
WOMAN'S PLACE IS ON THE KITCHEN TABLE? Under the last sign there's a line
drawing of a woman's body, lying on a table, blood dripping out of it. Now my
mother is moving forward, she's smiling, laughing, they all move forward, and
now they're raising their fists in the air. The camera moves to the sky, where
hundreds of balloons rise, trailing their strings: red balloons, with a circle
painted on them, a circle with a stem like the stem of an apple, the stem of a
cross. Back on the earth, my mother is part of the crowd now, and I can't see
her anymore.” (Atwood 119-120)
I found this to be a solid example of feminism; a group
of women attending a protest including Offred’s mother. It appears to me to be
a sort of pro-choice rally, especially since at this time there would have been
lowering birth rates so pro-lifers would most likely be becoming more intense.
However, I am not completely sure what they are rallying for or against.
Nevertheless, this sort of action is still taking place to this day. Many
pro-lifers are known to crowd around abortion clinics and harass women who are
making a decision that is already difficult enough. There are also many
restrictions placed on women and their bodies, including the pink tax, price of
birth control, laws against abortion, and even the way people treat women. In
this case I found the mother of Offred to be a good example of a feminist
archetype. In addition, there is also the negative radical feminist archetype, the small majority of men-hating women
that want total control, and have put a damper on the reputation of women’s
rights activists and the word feminism itself. Offred’s mother seems to possess
this trait mainly when she’s intoxicated, yet I can see the radicalism slip
through. For example, her statement that “man is just a woman's strategy for
making other women.” (Atwood 121) This sentence shows an example of women’s
power over men, saying that they are only needed for reproductive purposes. The
mother also furthers this thought in her action with how she never seemed to be
bothered by her lover leaving her with their child. She claims her own salary
and her own care, and makes a clear example of her strength. Yet, I would
consider this idea to be more of a stereotype than an archetype.
I find this archetype is an obvious addition to the story
as the novel is centered around the idea of women’s control over their own
bodies in the first place. It paints a clear picture of what women were
fighting for before the abandonment of the U.S. Constitution, and I feel like
what they were wearing is a symbol in itself. Offred says about the film that “She's
wearing the kind of outfit Aunt Lydia told us was typical of Unwomen in those
days, overall jeans with a green and mauve plaid shirt underneath and sneakers
on her feet; the sort of thing Moira once wore, the sort of thing I can
remember wearing, long ago, myself. Her hair is tucked into a mauve kerchief
tied behind her head.” (Atwood 119) Considering so many women were wearing
overalls and green shirts, including Moira (who I would also consider to be a
feminist), says to me that there is something symbolic to it. I may be looking
into it too much, but the overalls make sense considering that they are
basically the complete opposite of skirts, a required garment for the women of
the Gilead period. Green represents Earth and the environment, which connects
me to the idea of Mother Earth.
Lastly, the kerchief made me think of the “We Can Do It!” poster from World War
II, when many women were working in the factories. It is for this reason that I
consider Offred’s mother to be a solid symbol of feminism and an archetype that
adds greatly to the story.
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