Tale | The Handmaids

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . Translated by Alan Sheridan, Vintage Books, 1995.

Surveillance, Subjugation, and the Silent Scream: Power Dynamics in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale The Handmaids Tale

Gilead’s power relies on an omnipresent yet ambiguous surveillance network. The “Eyes” are everywhere and nowhere; they could be the grocery store attendant or the Commander’s wife. Atwood draws from Foucault’s concept of the panopticon—a prison design where inmates cannot know when they are watched, thus disciplining themselves. Offred notes, “We learned to see in fragments… The ordinary things, like the street, the store, were full of Eyes” (Atwood 23). This uncertainty eliminates the need for constant policing. Public salvagings (executions) and the Particicution (where Handmaids tear apart a supposed rapist) transform violence into spectacle, ensuring that terror becomes communal self-regulation. Foucault, Michel