The Importance Of Freedom In The Handmaid's Tale

In the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood explores how individuals react to and handle the loss of freedom and choice. The protagonist of the novel, Offred, goes through a set of tribulations and setbacks when her very modern society regresses back to Puritanical beliefs. She is left completely dependent on the men of the society, with no way to make herself an equal. The society of Gilead and its strict rules force Offred to conform as she slowly loses her sense of identity in the sea of red, becoming complacent in her surroundings.
Officials take away basic human aspects from the lower citizens of Gilead to mentally, physically, and emotionally make them as insignificant as possible, breaking down any sense of identity.

The Handmaids no longer truly communicate with other people, nor can they physically comfort each other. Offred “hunger[s] to commit the act of touch,”(Atwood 11). Like her, the Handmaids are touch starved as well as lacking in social input. Hansot states that “To make a self by oneself, a self not affirmed by action nor confirmed by others, may be too difficult an enterprise to sustain itself over time,” (Hansot 59, 60). The people that one surrounds themselves with are an integral part of a person’s identity. Others shape an individual as much as the person’s genetics. This is input necessary for growth. The society does not give the Handmaids this input and so “the modes of personal identity formation are … weakened, degraded, and debased,” (Stillman and Johnson 75). Any outward emotion is dangerous. Emotions continue to build up inside the Handmaids, but with no outlet, the Handmaids are miserable. They have no ground to stand on, and anyone socially higher than them can treat them as they wish. Perkins writes that “Subordinates are encouraged to develop childlike characteristics—submissiveness, docility, dependency [which are then incorporated] into [the] society's guiding concepts,” (Perkins). The Handmaids are left forced to act a certain way because to do otherwise is against the law. They have no form of self expression. Their minds struggle to maintain who they

Offred’s new relationship with Nick is enough for her to dismiss the idea of any future outside of the regime. She gives up, “The fact is that [she] no longer want[s] to leave, escape, cross the border to freedom,”(Atwood 271). With the little freedom of choice that she has, she made her own choice to live within the boundaries she was given. Offred found her own little world in the her ruthless surroundings. She got what she needed out of the situation she was placed in. Like Offred, the Handmaids revel at being given the tiniest sliver of opportunity and choice, no matter how savage it turns them. When during a salvaging, a man is accused of nefarious acts he is left to the Handmaids to do as they please. Offred describes “The air [as] bright with adrenaline”; the Handmaids are “permitted anything” and for them “this is freedom,” (Atwood 279). The women are so overwrought, so helpless, that they accept anything that seems like freedom. They are savage in their killing, no longer caring. They truly become animals. This horrific episode is now a commonplace event, therefore not as big of a deal. The Handmaids are desensitized to violence. Offred adopts the mentality the higher powers wish her to take, making her admit that her life has little effect to others outside of her mind. Offred realizes that her “life has value to no one,”(Atwood 293). Her