Offred's Tattoo, Salvaging & Illegal Abortions
English Lit: Edexcel A Level The Handmaid's Tale, topic 4.5.3
Offred's Tattoo, Salvaging and Illegal Abortions in Gilead
Offred's Tattoo references the Holocaust. The Particicutions and Salvaging reference executions in North Korea and Iran. Abortion being illegal in Gilead references Decree 770 in Romania.
Offred's tattoo - tattooing Jews
- Offred has a tattoo of an eye and four digits on her ankle. This is a visible sign that she is part of the regime and makes her easily identifiable if she were ever to escape.
- This act of tattooing numbers on to prisoners references World War 2. The inhabitants of the Nazi concentration camps would have their identity reduced down to a number tattoed on their arm.
- It is a brutal way of controlling, objectifying and dehumanising an individual.
Particicutions/Salvaging
- As horrific as the ideas of the Particicutions and Salvaging are, the reality is that there are still countries in the world, like Iran and North Korea, which hold public death sentencing, executions and even allow people to participate in the murder of ‘so-called’ offenders.
- In Iranian history, female rape victims have been accused of adultery and buried up to their neck and stoned to death by several men as others watch. This is horribly like the Particicution in Atwood’s novel.
Illegal abortions - Decree 770
- The Decree 770 was a law in Romania, passed in 1967, which made abortions and all forms of contraception illegal.
- The Government was worried about the decreasing birth rate and wanted to make their country larger and stronger.
Decree 770 (cont.)
- This lead to strictly enforced conditions on women, including monitored trips to the gynaecologist (like Offred’s trip to the Doctor) and even the Secret Police surveilling hospitals to make sure women were trying to get pregnant and not trying to control their own bodies.
Test yourself on Offred's Tattoo, Salvaging & Illegal Abortions
What do the following features of The Handmaid's Tale reference?
How have women accused of adultery been punished historically in Iran?