The Government’s destruction of Emotional Bonds in Both The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984
There are few bonds stronger than those developed from loving relationships among family, friends, and lovers; therefore, the only possible way for a government to gain absolute power is to sever these bonds. When a government removes emotional ties; it instills loyalty to that government. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale echoes the world portrayed within George Orwell’s 1984. Both Atwood and Orwell’s novels show the unrivaled powers of absolute government as it destroys relationships, not only those among family and friends but more personal affair pertaining to sex and intimacy.
In Atwood’s world, families are divided into two distinctive groups: first the Commander and his wife, and second, the handmaid. In Atwood’s dystopia, the handmaids have no biological tie to the family except that they perform the service of surrogate for the wife and mistress to the Commander in order to produce children for the wives to mother. The handmaids bear children and after a while, the child and mother are separated forever. In one particular scene Offred describes the aftermath of the birth of a child to a handmaid, “She’ll be allowed to nurse the baby…after that she’ll be transferred, to see if she can do it again, with someone else who needs a turn” (Atwood 127). The emotional ties a mother has for her child are strong; in fact, the child is a part of the mother from his or her conception. Removing a handmaid once a child is no longer nursing is an act of cruelty to the biological mother. The child now has a new mother, the commander’s wife, and a biological mother who is transferred to a new home to try to recreate the birthing process for another family. The pain of childbirth and having your beloved child taken out of your arms and given to the “rightful” mother is unbearable for the handmaid. In one instance, Atwood illustrates a scene where Offred is looking at a photo of her...