Unveiling the Power of Symbols in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Unveiling the Power of Symbols in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Gevorgyan Amalya
Summary
Keywords: symbols, feminism, women’s rights, fertility, the color red, eye, freedom, name
Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a significant literary work in which themes of oppression, power, sexuality, and the struggle for personal freedom are revealed through an intricate system of symbols and vivid imagery. By creating a dystopian model of society, Atwood depicts a world in which women are deprived of their rights and reduced to a reproductive function. Against the backdrop of this repressive order, the author emphasizes manifestations of inner resistance, the preservation of dignity, and the heroines’ aspiration for freedom. In Atwood’s creative approach, as in the works of Ch. Perrault, N. Hawthorne, G. Orwell, and V. Nabokov, similar strategies of using symbolism, themes of social control, and mechanisms of manipulating consciousness can be observed. The works of these authors consistently raise issues of dehumanization, the distortion of reality, and the impact of power on the individual. Such themes also resonate within the Armenian cultural tradition, where questions of authority, identity, and moral order are expressed through mythological motifs, folkloric imagery, and literary narratives. This comparative perspective allows for a deeper understanding of the universal nature of humanity’s struggle against oppression, the pursuit of truth, and the complexity of perceiving social experience.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.58726/27382915-2025.2hs-71