Bricolage of a Concubine Society: Resisting a Colonial Order in The Handmaid’s Tale

Abstract

This paper explores the tension between two competing discourses in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: the dominant ideology upheld by the state and the counter-discourse articulated by the handmaids. The official discourse constructs a covertly colonized community in which individuals are confined to strictly defined roles and spaces. Focusing on the role of religious authority as part of the Ideological State Apparatuses, the paper examines how the theocratic system of Gilead perpetuates control and submission. At the same time, it investigates how the handmaids resist this oppressive order by forming an imagined community grounded in shared suffering, memory, and covert communication. The analysis draws on Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse, Louis Althusser’s concept of ideology, and Benedict Anderson’s notion of imagined communities to interpret how power and resistance operate within Gilead’s social hierarchy.  Employing close textual analysis within a qualitative framework, this study demonstrates how language, ritual, and collective identity serve as both tools of domination and subversion in Atwood’s dystopian narrative.