Subaltern Oppression and Human Trafficking in The Handmaid’s Tale

Abstract

The present paper offers a postcolonial reading of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, focusing on the exploitation of subaltern women through institutionalized sex trafficking and coerced labor—forms of contemporary slavery. Drawing on Spivak’s seminal essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” the analysis investigates the conditions of marginalized women under the Gileadean regime. Atwood’s dystopian narrative portrays modern subalternity through the systemic silencing of women rendered voiceless by intersecting structures of patriarchal, religious, and state domination. The essay examines how Gilead’s fusion of theocratic governance and patriarchal ideology constructs a totalitarian order that erases female agency and explores the mechanisms of control and exploitation that lead to marginalization. Finally, the essay argues that Atwood subverts the silence imposed on subaltern women by enabling their narratives to emerge through the protagonist’s voice, ultimately reclaiming spaces for resistance and testimony within the text.