The Handmaid's Tale: A Foucault Retrospect on Power Shrewishness

Protecting women’s against power hierarchies has been a milestone in calling for women’s constitutional rights within authoritative, patriarchal, and repressive governments ruled by subjugation and tyranny. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale can stand as a powerful breakthrough in this regard, which highlights the imposing threats of porn, prostitution, and violence on women through the dystopian vision of a female novelist. The novel’s chilling resonance lies in its distillation of pervasive cultural anxieties, weaving threads of historical puritanism and modern political fundamentalism into its fabric. It serves as a cultural palimpsest, where the present’s erased liberties are written over the parchment of a repressed past. The purpose of the present research is to explore the traces of power orientation through the lens of Michel Foucault’s biopower and his critical discourse analysis, as a means of surveillance and control over the body of society. It is believed that The Handmaid’s Tale illustrates not only the power relations that govern the society, but it also depicts the omnipresence of power in every moment of our lives.