ContentsChinese Abstract (1)English Abstract (2)1.Introduction (3)1.1 The Research Reviewed (3)1.2 The Literature Review (4)1.3 The Definition of Feminism (5)2.Oppression (6)2.1 The Oppression of Basic Human Rights (6)2.2 The Oppression of Reproductive Rights (8)2.3 The Oppression of Gender Freedom (9)3. Resistance and Struggle (10)3.1The Struggle Between the Characters (10)3.2 The Manifestation of Conflict (11)3.3 The Feminist Resistance and Struggle (13)Conclusion (14)References (16)从女权主义角度解读《使女的故事》中女性的反抗与斗争摘要玛格丽特·阿特伍德在其作品《使女的故事》中描述了一个环境污染严重，人口出生率降到临界点，宗教势力因此抬头，建立一个以男性为中心的基列国，实施使女制度，强迫能生育的女性生孩子的虚构世界。
笔者以玛格丽特·阿特伍德的这本代表作《使女的故事》作为研究对象,从女权主义角度解读《使女的故事》中女性的反抗与斗争。
通过人权的压迫，生育权的压迫，性自由的压迫三个方面去研究女性的反抗与斗争。
通过对小说主人公情节以及环境的分析，发现小说中体现出来的女权主义精神。
从而对现在的女权主义给予启发，女性在追求自由平等的同时也应该选择正确有效的方式寻求自身的平等。
关键词：女权主义；斗争；反抗Women’s Resistance and Struggle in the Handmaid’s Tale as Seen from thePerspective of FeminismAbstractMargaret Atwood in her work the Handmaid’s Tale describes a serious environmental contamination, the birth rate declines to the critical point, neonatal survival rate is extremely low. The rise of religious power leads to the establishment of a male-centered Gilead, a system of female servitude, and a fictional world in which fertile women are forced to have children.Taking Margaret Atwood’s masterpiece the Handmaid’s Tale as the research object, the author interprets the female resistance and struggle in the Handmaid’s Tale from the perspective of feminism. Through the oppression of human rights, the oppression of reproductive rights, the oppression of sexual freedom to study three aspects of female resistance and struggle. Through the analysis of the plot and environment of the protagonist, the feminist spirit embodied in the novel is found. Thus, it inspires the current feminism that women should choose the right and effective way to seek their own equality while pursuing freedom and equality.Key words: feminism; resistance; struggle1.Introduction1.1 The Research ReviewedWith the popularity of the Internet, domestic feminism began to appear in the public’s vision and developed rapidly. There are mounting number of books about feminism. Nevertheless, once the issue of women’s rights arises in hot social events, one side of the debate is often labeled as the Chinese pastoral feminism by the other side, as if the hat is the symbol of original sin, as long as it is labeled as the Chinese pastoral feminism, it is bound to be guilty and deserve to be defeated (张冠男，2018：4). In addition, for the reason that the remake of the us TV series about the Handmaid Tale, this book has become more famous. Through in-depth research on this book, we can understand what feminism is.The Handmaid’s Tale is a fantasy novel written by Margaret Atwood, a Canadian female writer. The work was written in 1985. The book tells the story of a fundamentalist Christian regime that launched a military coup in the Republic of Gilead, transforming the United States into a theocratic state, through a tape recording of a woman who had the unfortunate experience of being a handmaid in Gilead. The insignificant number of men who built the regime held all the power over the women. In the Gilead regime, women as symbols of men’s social status were divided into different social classes, even the clothes they wore. Women no longer have the right to read, nor the right to contact the society. Fertile women had to endure state-enforced legal rape to breed for the regime. By inventing a dystopian society, the author reflects on the possible situations in the future society. Although it is fictional, it is not impossible that such events will not happen based on a certain future node and the author pays attention to finding relevant deeds in history when creating her works. In other words, although it is fictional, it reflects everything that might happen in reality.Margaret Atwood, born on November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Canada, is an important representative of the international feminist movement in the field of literature. Having studied Puritans for many years at Harvard University, it can be seen from the close relationship between the theme of the novel and western religious and cultural traditions. Through delicate brushwork and unique perspective, it reveals the unequal and unfair treatment of women in the patriarchal society. She is good atunderstanding the psychology of women, reflects their life, growth process and fate. The repeated mention of women’s gender politics in the work reflects her own discussion on the status of women, and also implies the political status of Canada itself. The pun is more able to show her concern about the status of women and hope that women can stand up against social injustice and fight for their rights.This paper will appraise the perspective of feminism and struggle in the Handmaid’s Tale from the feminist perspective of the long novel. In the novel, the body is presented as the object of writing, as well as the function of power, ideology, religion and other factors. The writing of the body is embodied in the symbolic semantic of the uniform, and the visual domestic of the body is strongly implemented by visualizing the classification and limitation of the social hierarchy through the clothing. Step by step, through the analysis of the protagonist of body control as well as to the people around you reacts to society of the whole system further concluded that feminism for basic human rights, political rights, reproductive rights and sexual freedom, is never depend on the time change, the patriarchal mercy, or active support, largely through their struggle under, and they made an important contribution for social equality and civilization.The author herself was influenced by Mary Webster, an ancestor of her mother’s family who lived in the 17th century, and by family education (邴婷婷, 2014: 5).1.2 The Literature ReviewThere are main researches on dystopia and ecologism in foreign countries. Foreign countries began to study the relevant content from 1990 at the earliest, through the study of Canadian literature process began to notice the work of Margaret Atwood. In 1990, Ken Norris at the University of Denay Nunavit: the Historical Notes in Margaret Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale discussed the significance of the fictional work by giving a lecture on the authentication of the Handmaid’s Tale in a hypothetical future world. The exploration of dialectical thinking in virtual literature is the beginning of this research. In 1995, Hilde Staels, in Margaret Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale: Resistance through narrating, explained the definition of feminism for the first time by analyzing the female Resistance in the novel, thus promoting the relevant research of feminism. Through the relevant research on ecologism literature, further promote the further research of feminism.Chen Xiaowei is the first domestic 2003 little comfort in the reality of the futurenovel, Margaret Atwood her story in the future of the novel, through to the fictional nations produces social, religious, cultural and ecological environment as well as the essence of the nations to conduct a comprehensive review and analysis, to explore the diversity in the book.(陈小慰, 2003：1). In 2004, in a comparative analysis of the stories of Atwood and Harold Pinter’s handmaid, Yang Chunyan and Li Xue explored the consequences of absolutism in the distribution of gender power adapted by Harold Pinter into the 1990 film of the same name, and explored the serious consequences of sexism reflected in this work from the perspective of male chauvinism (杨春艳, 李雪, 2004: 7).In 2005, Wang Ping, Zhang Jianying in the story of her power and resistance of the combination of Foucault power microscopic physics theory, explores the maid in the story of the power strategies of the nations, to reveal the relationship between power and body, and the resulting resistance, such as restraint and the pursuit of the subject of women and women’s writing and language subversion themes (王苹, 张建颖, 2005: 1). Later studies began to explore the special relationship between the degradation of women and the degradation of nature in the society from the perspective of ecofeminism, oppose the patriarchal world view and the dual mode of thinking, and try to advocate a new relationship of harmonious coexistence between people and nature. The study of the dual resistance of nature and women begins to focus on the revenge of the overwhelmed nature on human beings. Meanwhile, as the alliance of nature, women’s resistance consciousness is awakening day by day. The novel describes all kinds of boundaries : class boundaries, gender boundaries, geographical boundaries, physical boundaries, psychological boundaries, emotional boundaries, etc. These boundaries appear repeatedly in different parts of the novel. With a keen insight into the politics of boundaries, the author successfully portrays the dystopian nation and its victims, showing her deep concern and anxiety about the reality and future of human society. Finally, it is concluded that women’s discourse resistance is an effective way to control their oppression.1.3 The Definition of FeminismThe initial feminist movement is primarily bore upon enlightenment thoughts, and the majority of its demands are for equal political rights, such as the right to education and the right to vote. In the course of this period, feminist theory pursues basic the human race rights (王蔚，2019: 8).However, feminism still lacks a lot of experience in the early stage, so that the feminist radicals later go astray in the struggle between women’s reproductive rights and work rights, and fight against each other in private ownership and reproductive rights. In the later period, feminism believes that oppression is the unilateral exploitation of women by men, and that all the sufferings suffer from women are endowed by men to women, including mental and physical. In my opinion, this view is too one-sided and metaphysical. Women are oppressed not only by men’s oppression of women’s gender status, but also by the privatization of the whole society. With the development of the third scientific and technological revolution, the difference between men and women in labor force is becoming smaller and smaller, but it is the exploitation of creativity and mental work. The core of feminism lies in equal rights, instead of party an overwhelming party b and one exploiting the other. Because of biological evolution, the male body has changed a lot and become stronger. The transition from a matriarchal to a patrilineal society result in more responsibilities and responsibilities for men and more responsibilities for women.In modern society, the rise of feminism has inspired women to break through the oppression of women in the whole society and fight for their own rights if they want to get equal rights.2.Oppression2.1 The Oppression of Basic Human RightsThe Handmaid's Tale constructs a future in which the conservative countervailing movement gains power, not only by destroying the gains women have made in equal rights, but by making them an entirely subservient presence to men. Based on their use as male status symbols, Gilead defines the social hierarchy of women under his regime and even assigns the colors of their clothes. Women lose the right to read and the freedom to act in public. Fertile women are raped under the government’s arrangements to raise children for the government.In the Handmaid’s Tale, we can see the oppression of human rights. At first, the protagonist has a stable job, a happy family composes of a loving husband and a lovely daughter, and she also has excellent friends, has received advanced education and is free of speech.I earn my living from my job and live a normal middle-classAmerican life. They can also go to the beach with friends tosunbathe, wear a Bikini to wear the most popular dress at themoment, but also can makeup for self-modification. At the same time,they can also enjoy the convenience brought by science andtechnology. More importantly, women can read books to increasetheir knowledge and knowledge. In the old days, men and womencould try each other out for marriage (Atwood Margaret, 1992: 23).But when the regime is established, things started to change when Offred run one morning and find her credit card frozen. Then she learns that not only she, but all the women, have their bank accounts frozen and their personal assets transfer to their husbands or their closest male relatives, everything becomes remote and Offred loses her personal identity and is separated from her family. First she is forced to take her salary and then tell that the job is gone, then she loses touch with her dear mother, and is forced not to contact her friends. Finally, her daughter is taken, her husband also has to be separated from her, he finally comes to save the Gilead’s weakening population and the existence of the two legs of the womb. Speech, behavior and thought should be controlled, even their own clothes should be monitored. Forced to become a handmaid because of her fertility, she has to endure rape by unknown men in the name of having children for the state because of the rapid decline in the fertility rate due to environmental pollution. Due to the disasters caused by environmental changes, many people become infertile, leading to the rapid decline of human fertility. Throughout the course of human history, whenever face with such natural and man-made disasters, religions would take advantage of such disasters, and then through a bloody revolution, they finally gain the dominant position. Patriarchal society dominated everything, women are strictly controlled with no human rights, and women again become men’s accessories and property, and are arbitrarily distributed according to the surplus value. The technology we know is history. Due to the extreme deterioration of the environment, most people become infertile due to radiation from environmental pollution. But in Gilead, infertility is the fault of both sides, but it can only be said that female infertility caused all this, because infertility in that place is taboo to say. As if all is the fault of women, with men have nothing to do, women are the culprit, is the source of the worst. If you say that word, you will not only be punished but you will lose your life.Under that regime, women are subjected to all kinds of restrictions. Regardless of springs, summers, autumns and winters, regardless of wind and rain, must wear that one suit represents the new life red handmaid clothing. Unless they can take it off in the shower they must wear it all the time. Even bathing is strictly monitored. Women no longer have the right to make friends, nor can they contact their friends. Handmaids are apparently mothers giving birth to new lives, but in fact they are just tools. They are monitored everywhere, and handmaids may report each other. Despite the birth of new life, the mother claimed to be the archbishop’s wife, not them. Women also can’t get new knowledge, they lose the right to read (梁颖, 2012: 5).Handmaids are not the lowest level of the nightmare either. Women are divided into several classes, like cattle, and women in red are collectively known as handmaids, responsible for reproducing the rulers. The women in blue were the wives of the rulers. They were the most senior women, with privileges that women generally did not enjoy. And the green clothes are ordinary servants, engaged in ordinary household chores. A woman in gray is a moral compass, providing a beacon and a spur to the handmaids. Below are the wives of men from the lower classes and their infertile servant-girls, the non-women --infertile, socially unacceptable lesbians ---who are sent to the colonies to clean up radioactive waste and let the pollutants peel off their skin and leave them to die.On the ideological side, women are controlled and domesticated, and there are dedicated mammys to educate them, brainwashing them with the bible, telling them what to do and what not to do. All in order to give birth to the country, for the pleasure of the archbishop, to be able to survive, but also to require them to monitor each other and report on each other. In case of insubordination, mammys would use disciplinary measures to punish the person until her obey. As if the handmaid is not a woman, but a dog and a cat keep in captivity just to have a baby. In their eyes, women are merely tools for reproduction.2.2 The Oppression of Reproductive RightsIn the past, individual’s reproductive rights are free, and people could have as few as they want, even if they want to have no children. There are also many people who do not marry and give birth. The right to childbearing is a free and unrestricted right. People don't force themselves to have children because of fertility. In order to pursue the happiness of life is the goal of all, people free life, the past people arehappy.And in Gilead, everyone is oppressed. People return to the simple primitive life and everyone is a Puritan. Because fertility is low, all measures to improve it become the most important thing for the rulers. And the fertile women are forced to become handmaids, centralized distribution, force to serve as the ruling class of reproductive tools and sex slaves, they have no name, can not talk with people, not to allow private feelings and lust. Having children is a matter of state as well as of family. Having children is their only purpose in life, but they have no right to participate in the growth of their children. Once the child is born, the mother and child are separated, and the maidservant is reassigned to the other bishop’s household, where she continued to be the daily tool of production. In Gilead there is no writing, only signs. Books, reading, music, art...Anything to do with creation is banned because it is a demagogic drug. A handmaid is forced to have one child after another, and having children is the only way to survive. During pregnancy, the baby is given to the archbishop’s wife as if it were the baby of the archbishop. Even during the birth, the maidservant lies in bed and begin to give birth, and the archbishop’s wife sit on top of the maidservant, pretending that she is giving birth. All are elated at the arrival of the new life. Only the handmaid alone is abandoned and send to the next archbishop for the reproduction of a new life. If the baby miscarries during pregnancy, the woman is punished and tells to get pregnant again and give birth to a healthy baby as soon as possible.Women’s reproductive rights are oppressed, and reproductive rights are no longer women’s exclusive rights, but restricted by various aspects. The only way a handmaid can survive is to keep having children. If she can ensure that she has two children, and that the child will not miscarry for other reasons during the pregnancy, then the handmaid is a meritorious and commendable person.2.3 The Oppression of Gender FreedomIn the past, sex was free.At that time, the protagonist’s husband, also can’t be called a husband, should be called a boyfriend. He’s still hiding from his wife, the protagonist, and just a vision in his head. That was before they were married, before she became his real wife. She always gets there first and opens the room. Two people are free to have sex without being monitored or restricted. People are free, enthusiastic, cheerful, full of life and vitality. No one can’t live without sex. Lack oflove kills. There are no one she can love, all the people she can love are dead, are in a different place.In this country, however, all civilization has been restored to its most primitive state by biblical allusions, and even rape has been glorified as a monthly sacred rite. The three absurd men and women in the book, a solemn look, chanting sutra, clothes neatly repeat the monthly fertilization ceremony. The bizarre gesture is also inspired by a biblical allusion, in which a maidservant lies between the legs of the archbishop’s wife, while the archbishop performs the act of fertilisation with the maidservant under the gaze of his wife. All three are silent, no groans during sex, no expressions of ecstasy, no reaction from the archbishop at the last. It's like three bodies still breathing, moving a mechanical piston.My red dress was rolled up to the waist.The archbishop below was inmotion.He did my lower half.I don't say sex because that's not whathe's doing.Nor is it appropriate to say that sex, which means twopeople are involved, is now just one person's business.Even rapecannot be excused: everything that goes on here is something I havevoluntarily signed up to do.Not many choices, but not all choices,and this is my choice (Atwood Margaret , 1992: 120).In the eyes of the protagonist, all these ACTS can only be a kind of coitus, just for the sake of making love, not with emotional color of the sex, just a kind of sex to satisfies the physiological behavior. What is called lovemaking is not lovemaking, it is only a sexual act, satisfying the sex of the archbishop. In the eyes of the protagonist, it is only to complete a task, in the boring life of the river through the barren life. Everyone is just trying to survive.To live is to have hope.Love is only real love when you make love to someone you love.3. Resistance and Struggle3.1The Struggle Between the CharactersWith the story of the past, to create fear about the future, history itself is proof of history’s repeatability, since all this happened, it may happen again in the future, who can firmly guarantee the history?One of the book’s most frightening details is how such a highly civilised society came to be known as a Gilead. The book also takes the heroine Offred, flashback way, let us see what each snowflake before the avalanche did. Things started to change when Offred ran one morning and found her credit card frozen. Then she learned that not only she, but all the women, had their bank accounts frozen and their personal assets transferred to their husbands or their closest male relatives. The government then announced that all women would be fired, and Offred was stripped of her right to work. Then they had to become silent snowflakes. Until finally, when the snowflakes see danger coming and want to escape, only to find that there is no place to hide, Offred and her child, Hannah, is also captured by the army. After she was captured, Offred kept thinking back to what her mother, a staunch feminist, had said to her. Yeah, when the bayonet doesn’t go in our chest, we always fool ourselves that things might not be so bad after all. And when the tragedy really happened, it was too late to regret.One of the great ironies of the book was that it was the archbishop’s wife, a woman, who made the Gilead patriarchal society possible. Once a celebrated feminist, she is now a twisted bishop’s wife, trapped in a prison of her own making.And regret is more than these women, the wife was captured to do sex slaves, children were abducted whereabouts unknown, separated husband and wife, separation of the flesh and blood, for the bottom of the male is also a kind of torture.Therefore, the patriarchal society not only represses women, but also represses men. It also represses all human beings. This is not the oppression of one gender by another, but the self-castration of human beings. The appearance of handmaids, in the public is for the selfless dedication of collectivism, is for the continuation of human reproduction, so the emergence of a few people’s evil.Is it not evil, then, to do evil to a few? Any kind of infringement of the rights of others, is evil, acquiescence is an accomplice! What's worse, one day you'll suddenly find yourself in a minority and you won’t be able to stop the executioners.3.2 The Manifestation of ConflictWomen have free will, suddenly enveloped by The Times becomes a totalitarian society reproductive tool, all the original social relations were disrupted, side no one can believe, live without meaning, but there is another reason to can’t die, so in this twisted world, being careful and even staying silent is the way to survive, under thecondition of the monitored by the world observation and reflection on the world at the same time, deadpan but have been kept thinking about reading aloud as if still in the candy store yesterday, could burst into cry at any time-a story about resistance, and who wouldn’t like?The original novel has two characteristics. One is the realistic depiction of the future, because a lot of details in the novel happened in history (such as the middle ages), which makes you feel the same. The second is to spend a lot of time on the description of the psychological activities of the heroine, this form is very easy to reach the hearts of the audience.The Handmaid’s Tale is not a myth. It may happened overnight in Iran. All the women were kicked out of school, they couldn’t work, they couldn’t dress casually, they had to wear black robes and they had to stay at home. Not only Iranian women, but also many women around the world live in a patriarchal society and are oppressed both physically and mentally.It is better to die than to be a slave. The dictator praised God and did what was forbidden. These people do evil things in the name of God, and God is angry with them.The conflict in the book is not the kind of fierce and progressive conflict, is unknown into the scamming conflict. The protagonist drives out of the country with her husband in the first act of rebellion, but unfortunately is discovered by soldiers at the border, and the escape ends in failure. After she become the archbishop’s handmaid. During the meal, she secretly tears off a corner of a tissue, wraps it in butter, takes it to the side of the closet, and stuffs it into the tip of the right toe of the other shoe, as she has done before. She crumples up the rest of the paper towels and uses the butter in the dead of night. At the same time, she tries to leave her own mark in the room where she is staying temporarily, including in the battle of wits with the archbishop’s wife, showing her patience and intelligence. When they get news from their partners, they ask for relevant information carefully. When she goes to the slut club with the archbishop, she meets my dear and when she is shocked that she has become a prostitute, she does not forget to hide it so as not to expose both sides to the disadvantage of both sides. Resistance is the surest way to have a conversation with a good friend and use bathroom breaks to communicate. Although there is not a word about conflict and struggle in the whole text, but all the text shows this kind of strong and silent struggle and resistance.3.3 The Feminist Resistance and StruggleFrench famous feminist activist Beauvoir pointed out that women are the second sex, is absolutely another (姜媛，2017：9). This means that, for women, in terms of status and identity, men are the first, the first; the second represents the subordination of women to the first, which in itself reveals the differences and inequalities between the sexes. What then are the others? To understand the meaning of the other, we must first distinguish the other from the other: the former from the other, the latter from the self.According to the female images described by Beauvoir herself, men and women are always in an unequal position: men are the subject, while women are subordinate and the other (波伏瓦，2010). As the other, women are naturally at a disadvantage: men shape women according to their own will, making women always in a passive position. For women themselves, the opposition between the ego and the other is very sharp, because they live in a narrow social circle and have no way to realize themselves. They can only rely on men, so that women close themselves off and eventually break away from the outside world and become the other.There are many reasons for this. First, because in the face of resistance and oppression, women can do nothing but obey them. Resignation is their only way out.Second, women themselves do not have a completely independent sense of self.They construct their own love, live in the ideal, blindly give themselves to men, let others control their own destiny, even take the initiative to ally with men, actively make themselves other. The inner character of this novel is called the other .Carnality refers to a state of being. For women, their state of existence is confined to a narrow space with stagnant thoughts and nothing to do but passively accept their situation. According to Beauvoir, all existence is transcendent and internal at the same time. Immanence opposes transcendence and is therefore fixed. Like men, as a being, as a person, the transcendence of women has almost completely disappeared, leading to carnality as their main characteristic. As other women, their freedom is lost and their rights are limited : they are unable to plan for themselves, to explore new fields of activity, to generate new meanings and values, and can only mechanically repeat the immanence of nothingness. These are the destinies of patriarchy for women. Laws and customs give great power to the husband; his own situation suggests that a husband is different from his wife. Because he is a producer, he transcends the。
