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Biblical Narratives in The Handmaid’s Tale
Nir, Bina (2024) , S. 65-87
Through her dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Margaret Atwood fuels the debate surrounding the global plight of women. Atwood weaves many biblical concepts, names, and motifs relating to the status of women into the novel, with a particular focus on the concept of the handmaid, whose sole function is childbearing. Atwood thus warns against fundamentalist readings of the Bible and other canonical texts that are the foundations of our culture. In order to reach a fuller understanding of the contextual biblical sources of the novel, in this article I take an in-depth look at the biblical source of the name “Gilead”, as Atwood chose to set her tale in the “Republic of Gilead”. Furthermore, as the novel presents a radical social hierarchy among women based on their childbearing duties, I will also examine the biblical narratives foundational to the hegemonic male interpretation that gave rise, according to the novel, to this dystopian reality. In this terrifying novel, the transformation of women into childbearing handmaids is based both on the biblical story of the handmaids and on the proprietary relationship of men over women in the Bible. I argue that the novel’s critical approach deconstructs the unspoken assumptions of a particular way of life.
The Handmaid’s Tale as a Palimpsest: Biblical (Re)Imaginings in Margaret Atwood’s Novel
Jeffers, Ann (2024) , S. 47-63
The Handmaid’s Tale inhabits an imaginary space defined by biblical narratives at a time set in the near future when low fertility has reached a critical point. The solution provided by the Bible-based totalitarian regime in place in Gilead is to offer “handmaids” as surrogate mothers to members of the ruling elite. The biblical basis for this is chillingly re-enacted through the set reading of Genesis 30:1-3 preceding and legitimising the ritual rape of the household dedicated handmaiden. While this text clearly provides the rationale for addressing issues of fertility in Gilead, I will focus more specifically on how the book of Judges (specifically Judges 19-21) is marshalled to provide an implicit framework for The Handmaid ’s Tale. The paper will analyse the complex ways in which the Bible is used and abused in both the novel and the fourth series, using literary and feminist lenses. It will be argued that both narratives, the Book of Judges and Atwood’s tale contain elements of subversion and deconstruction.
The The Bible, Religion, and Power in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: A Close Reading from the Perspective of Biblical Scholarship
Hartenstein, Friedhelm (2024) , S. 25-46
This article offers a close reading of Atwood’s famous novel from the perspective of biblical scholarship. Anyone who reads The Handmaid’s Tale will readily notice how strongly biblical texts inform the narrative and the fictional world of Gilead. This relationship begins with Genesis 30:1–3, which appears as an epigraph. Religion in all its complexity is a cornerstone of the novel. The article looks at its threefold use of religion: as a biblically based foundation of the ideology and power structures of Gilead, as an anthropological foil for the leitmotif of seeing and being seen in Offred’s story, and as a point of departure and reference for the main character’s personal reflections. The article limits itself to observations based on the novel as first published in 1985.

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