Female Negotiations of Affect in Domestic and Public Space in the Television Series The Handmaid’s Tale

Abstract

The screen adaptation of the 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, converges with the current global turn to the right. Across different geographies and variables, there have been attempts at reinforcing the control of women’s reproductive capacity, crucial to the reproduction of capitalism, and resistance by networks of feminist movements. Such tensions bear resemblance with the concerns represented in the television show. Within the affective turn, in the present study, I examine the gaze as a gendered bodily practice of control over women as well as a practice of resistance under the guise of affect, friendship and desire, in private and public space.

Body Discourses in Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale

“…Ohannesian mentions "together with the strong bond between affect and corporeality, is exploited by the protagonist, Offred, as a strategy to occupy and force open the fissures in the overpowering hegemony of the state of Gilead. [3] Aware of her body's value as a scarce asset, particularly during gestation, the handmaid harnesses this realization as a catalyst for rebellion. Realizing the regime's dependence on her reproductive capacity, she strategically uses her pregnancy as leverage, secretly forming alliances and plotting her escape.…”