AP Essay 2002B Prompt_Margaret Atwood

2002, Form B. Often in literature, a character's success in achieving goals depends on keeping a secret and divulging it only at the right moment, if at all. Choose a novel or play of literary merit that requires a character to keep a secret. In a well-organized essay, briefly explain the necessity for secrecy and how the character's choice to reveal or keep the secret affects the plot and contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

An In-depth Look at Secrecy and Silence in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

            Throughout Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, the main character, Offred is forced to keep silent because of the oppression of women in her society. Due to her obligation to remain quiet and the danger that surrounds speaking up, when Offred is given a secret to keep, the betrayal of her silence would truly be the difference between life and death. Therefore, until absolutely necessary, conformity was the answer. Margaret Atwood uses her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, to demonstrate that silence can hold many secrets and that even those who are oppressed will at some point attempt to gain freedom—even if it means betraying a secret.          In the Republic of Gilead, a woman has one of two places. She can be a Wife; where she would be given a Commander for a husband and run a household in the background. This position, however, is reserved only for those who had been established before the ambiguous takeover. Or, the more likely option for the younger women, who are not sent to the colonies because of rebellion or sin, is a birthing girl. In this case, similar to that of Offred, these girls are given to a Commander and his wife and are forced to participate in a ceremony of impregnation each month for the purpose of increasing the population of children in the Republic (Atwood 25). These women have no voice in their situation and must be respectful towards their Commander as well as silent under authority. Offred states “I used to think of my body as…an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently”, now she is oppressed by the men of society, and has control over nothing—not even her body (Atwood 13). Internally though, they never give up the fight to win back who they were before this oppression. Silence is merely a way to bide their time until the opportune moment when breaking the silence will gain them their freedom.

            Offred, in The Handmaid’s Tale, goes through two homes and maintains her silence the entire time. She offers no resistance to orders and dutifully performs the ceremony with the Commander and his wife, but on the inside, she longs for real life. Internally she remembers “lying next to him, soaking in the sun, humming a soulful tune to herself” (Atwood 105). She longs for her past—or at least the fulfillment it gave her. One day, the Commander offers her something new. He offers her a change to her days filled with monotony. He offers her something which is illegal. And here in lies the secret. Should Offred tell of this double life, she and her entire household should surely be put to death. But her silence began to slowly eat away at her, and if played right, maybe this secret could be her salvation.

            This internal debate allows for Atwood to insert her views on the role of women in society and demonstrate that oppression can never last forever. This is confirmed by the end of the book—although an ambiguous ending—it is apparent that Offred’s secret has come out, and the timing could not have been better. The resistance has come for her. “They escorted her from the Commander’s home to the black van”, which belonged to the resistence (Atwood 378). And it appears that her life of oppression may just turn into one of resistance. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred demonstrates that silence can hold many secrets and that even the oppressed will attempt to gain freedom—even if it means betraying a secret. Offred broke her silence. Offred told her secret. Offred risked death in doing so. But now she has broken through conformity into a world of possibility.