The Handmaid's Tale Psychology

September 9, 2024
In this uneven collection, contributors examine patriarchal restrictions through the lens of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel. Digging into the key systems that uphold Gilead, the Christian patriarchal society of The Handmaid’s Tale, Andrea Frantz and Wind Goodfriend’s “A Cacophony of Silence” interrogates how a repressive “culture of silence” polices free expression and perpetuates oppression, violence, and dehumanization. Elsewhere, Amber L. Garcia addresses the sexism in Gilead, where women are punished for rejecting feminine norms and rewarded for adhering to them, incentivizing them to buy into patriarchal structures for personal gain. And in “Your Dystopian Cosplay Is Our Reality,” Apryl A. Alexander critiques Atwood’s novel and the TV adaptation for interrogating issues of reproductive justice without acknowledging how they disproportionately affect Black women, reflecting a white feminism that tends to fight for racial justice mostly when it aligns with its own interests. Unfortunately, in many of the essays, provocative psychological concepts lead to rote takeaways or wind up obscured by awkward, jargon-heavy writing, while some of the contributors’ extrapolations can feel forced or reductive. for example, Asher I. Johnson’s “Heroes and Villains” spends several pages contemplating whether characters might be diagnosed as psychopaths. Despite a promising premise, this falls short.