POWER can be considered as one of the most common themes in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. Gilead is a dictatorship, which implies power is imposed entirely from the top. The power of a dictatorship must be shown in some way to overwhelm and scare the population living within. The government of Gilead displays their power in many different ways.
One of Gilead’s most imposing tools to show their power is the control of LANGUAGE. “Most of those old guys can’t make it any more,” he says. “Or they are sterile.” I almost gasp: he’s said the forbidden word. Sterile. There is no such thing as a sterile man any more, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law. (Page 70). This passage in the book underlines that some words like Fertile, Infertile and Sterile are forbidden in the society of Gilead. Through this, Gilead creates an official vocabulary and in this way the people are conducted in a way the government would like to. They think, walk and talk like the government dedicates them. Throughout the book Offred explains that everything is a re-interpretation of something else; nothing is an exact description of the truth. When Offred talks about the word ‘Work out’, she interprets and analysez this is two different ways. Working out to keep your body in shape and working out the difficulties you experience during a relationship.
