NADZOR I DISCIPLINA U ROMANU SLUŠKINJINA PRIČA MARGARET ATVUD
Surveillance and Discipline in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Summary/Abstract: This essay analyses the social practices in the fictive republic of Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. I introduce the sociopolitical context in which this novel is written, as well as real-life events that inspired the established theocracy in Gilead. The focal points of this essay are the mechanisms and strategies by which the Gileadeans, mainly women, are controlled. I analyse the social factors that further sustain the limited political power of women, mainly the gynocentric misogyny, as well as methods of establishing and maintaining discipline. I used Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison to analyse superior vs inferior social dynamics. Through further study of the methods of establishing dominance, it is clear that the control of appearance, language, space, and time is crucial to instrumentalising female bodies to serve the patriarchy and support Christian fundamentalism. The sisterhoods play different roles in perpetuating this establishment, but every sisterhood is limited in its social functions. One of the main topics of this essay is how women who belong to a certain sisterhood are forced to oblige by their expected social functions, thereby serving the government and sacrificing not only their political rights but the fundamental right to a dignified life for every woman individually.

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