16 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture ISSN 1923-1555[Print] ISSN 1923-1563[Online] www.cscanada.net www.cscanada.org Studies in Literature and Language Vol. 17, No. 1, 2018, pp. 16-20 DOI:10.3968/10328 The Handmaid’s Tale Through the Lens of Marxism Roohollah Roozbeh [a],* [a] Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan, Iran. * Corresponding author. Received 18 May 2018, accepted 23 July 2018 Published online 26 August 2018 Abstract In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, the handmaid of the title is most frequently viewed by critics as a symbol of female marginality whose innocence and sincerity expose the hypocrisy and artificiality of patriarchal society. We will argue that Atwood goes beyond establishing Handmaids as simply one side of a dialectical opposition between matriarchal society and patriarchal society. The handmaids additionally stand as a symbol of proletariat, subjugated by the bourgeoisie to the point of slavery, harshly indoctrinated in a psychologically-damaging fashion, and are denied the basic freedoms. From a sociological perspective, Atwood’s story is an appreciated instrument to scrutinize through the theory of Marxism. With the application of this theoretical analysis, it is discovered that the world portrayed in The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian nightmare which subdues the proletariats. Most criticism overseas the class to which the handmaid belongs. Key words: Marxism; Proletariat; Bourgeoisie; Handmaid Roozbeh, R. (2018). The Handmaid’s Tale Through the Lens of Marxism. Studies in Literature and Language , 17 (1), 16-20. Available from: http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/10328 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/10328 INTRODUCTION Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale is most frequently viewed by critics as a feminist novel and the heroin is deemed as a symbol of female marginality whose innocence and sincerity expose the hypocrisy and artificiality of patriarchal society. Mitrovic writes “The Handmaid’s Tale could be easily catalogued as a feminist novel. A feminist reading seems to be the most obvious perspective to analyse the text. Feminism is indeed developed throughout the narration showing how women are used in order to increase a political ideal”. (Violeta, 2007, p. 4) Jones writes “understandably, most criticism focuses on the “hyper-patriarchy” of Gilead.” (Jones 1996, p. 3). Alanna A. Callaway argues “Placing the novel in the contexts of Atwood’s career, feminism, and dystopian literature, provides a fuller understanding of how the novel functions as an expression of the disunity of women. (Callaway, 2008, p. 6) However, we will demonstrate that Atwood goes beyond establishing Handmaids as simply one side of a dialectical opposition between matriarchal society and patriarchal society. The handmaids additionally stand as a symbol of proletariat, subjugated by the bourgeoisie to the point of slavery, harshly indoctrinated in a psychologically-damaging fashion, and are denied the basic freedoms. From a sociological perspective, Atwood’s story is an appreciated tool to scrutinize through the theory of Marxism. With the application of this theoretical examination, it is found that the world depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian nightmare which subjugates the proletariats. In Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale we literally and metaphorically follow the protagonist and ostensible narrator, Offred, experiencing her daily existence under the regime of a bourgeois theocracy governed by religious fundamentalists. The commanders are leaders of the system who rule the roost. This experience of the handmaid discloses the gap or rather the true character of the religious readers of her society or rather the true picture of the people for whom she is going to be a handmaid. She is going to spend her life in service and devotion to the spiritual leaders of the republic of Gilead who are the representatives of God. On her studying