In the nineteenth century, Lord Acton wrote that: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Explore how Margaret Atwood portrays power and control in Cat’s Eye and The Handmaid’s Tale.

In these two novels, Atwood explores the abuse of power from a social and psychoanalytical perspective, and how this abuse is perpetrated by both men and women. In Cat’s Eye, the novel explores the psychological effects of childhood bullying in later life; in The Handmaid’s Tale, the psychological effects of living in the Gilead regime are explored through Offred’s narrative, but also Atwood is exploring how the abuse of power is structured in a political sense, and why it keeps happening in history and now. Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale during a period of religious conservatism in America – it is set in a dystopian society called ‘Gilead’ where a group of far-right religious extremists have taken control. Cat’s Eye is likewise an examination of social hierarchies and power structures, albeit on a more domestic scale; it is an exploration of the social and psychological dynamics of a group of little girls and their brand of feminine cruelty. In both novels, Atwood portrays power and control on a societal and personal level. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the rights of women have been eroded and replaced with both a patriarchal and matriarchal power structure; a military and hierarchical regime inspired by the Old Testament and emphasised by the use of biblical language, neologisms (words that are given new meanings in Gilead), military and sexual images. In Cat’s Eye, Atwood portrays the abuse of power and control at a personal level. Both novels use a subjective perspective through the voice of Atwood’s female first-person narrators. In these novels, Atwood portrays power and control through the use of language and its place in perpetuating complex social codes. In Cat’s Eye, language reinforces the rules of small-town society and the games girls play. In comparison, in The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood has created a language that reinforces the rules of the totalitarian state of Gilead. It is a portrait of a dystopian society and it makes the connection between the perversion of language and the control of citizens. Men are defined by their military rank (the Commanders), whereas women are defined by their roles (the Aunts, the Wives and the Handmaids). The female characters are stripped of their names as a means of stripping them of their individual identities. The narrator’s real name is not Offred: as Professor Pieixoto says in the ‘Historical Notes’ section, “it was a patronymic, composed of the possessive preposition and the first name of the gentleman in question” (literally “Off”, belonging to, “Fred”). In Cat’s Eye, names are also used symbolically. For instance, Cordelia is named after a Shakespearean heroine who is the epitome of passive virtuous suffering, and the irony here is that Cordelia embodies everything Cordelia in King Lear is not. Atwood portrays power and control in these two novels in both the male and female directed oppression of women. Her powerful female characters use their power against other females, and the Aunts in The Handmaid’s Tale are a clear example of this matriarchal power. Cat’s Eye continues this tradition of women with power: Cordelia and her treatment of Elaine are reminiscent of the Aunts and their subjection of the Handmaid. Atwood intentionally created the Aunts as powerful females in a dystopia. In a radio conversation with fellow writer Victor-Levy Beaulieu, Atwood said that the character of Aunt Lydia “is based on the history of imperialisms. For example, the British in India raised an army of Indians to control the rest of the Indians…So, if you want to control women, you have to grant some women a tiny bit more power so that they’ll control the others” [Atwood and Beaulieu]. This fact is illustrated by Pieixoto’s comment that “When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.” Atwood portrays control through the characters of the Aunts and Wives (in particular Serena Joy) who use the little power they do have to exert control over the Handmaids. In Chapter 14 when Offred visits Serena in her sitting room, “Or maybe it’s a parlour, the kind with a spider and flies”, this literary allusion to the poem ‘The Spider and the Fly’ evokes the image of ensnarement (the spider’s web) and powerlessness (the fly). As Atwood herself wrote about The Handmaid’s Tale: “Yes, women will gang up on other women... Yes, they will gladly take positions of power over other women, even – and, possibly, especially – in systems in which women as a whole have scant power.” In Cat’s Eye and The Handmaid’s Tale, power and control are exerted in a social hierarchy of men and women. Atwood shows how women can be complicit in the oppression of other women, reinforcing patriarchal structures that ultimately only serve the interests of male power and privilege. She is highly critical of how religious ideologies subjugate women’s lives and experiences. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are reduced to their biological function only; they have no autonomy to choose the course of their lives. As Stacey D’Erasmo writes in her essay On Power between Women: The Handmaid’s Tale’ revisited: “In the Ceremony the Wife is the head, the top of the social pyramid, sexless and authorized; the Handmaid is the sex organs, subjugated, controlled, and under constant surveillance and suspicion.” The totalitarian regime of Gilead exerts complete control of reproduction and women’s reproductive lives. The women are complicit in maintaining and participating in this hierarchical power structure and act as willing servants of the totalitarian state. In the ‘Historical Notes’ the reader learns that Judd (a possible candidate for the character of the Commander) “was of the opinion from the outset that the best and most cost-effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves.” The Aunts exert their power and control in their brutal treatment of the Handmaids and force them to “forego the ideology of women’s liberation and to revert to the ‘traditional’ values of a male-dominated system”. The Aunts use language that mimics authoritarian voices (usually male) and cruel phrases that demonstrate the profound hypocrisy of the regime: "We want you to be valued Girls.”  In conclusion, although The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel about the abuse of power and control in an imaginary world, Atwood draws on real historical events to enable the reader to get a strong sense that the dystopian Gilead could become a reality. As she says: “There’s nothing in this book that hasn’t already happened.” The Handmaid’s Tale is written in the dystopian genre as a warning to the reader of how absolute power corrupts, and it is an illustration of how brain-washing is used to control behaviour through tele-visual media and the use of ritualistic language that echoes biblical commandments. In contrast, Cat’s Eye is a novel about the abuse of power and control in an everyday setting, and this will be recognised by anyone who has been bullied at school. This is what Atwood does so spectacularly in these novels, because she makes them relatable and therefore places the reader at the receiving end of the abuse of power and control.