ECO-GROTESQUE POLITICS: BODIES, NATURE, AND POWER IN THE HANDMAID’S TALE

Abstract

This paper mobilizes grotesque aesthetics, biopolitical theory along with ecocriticism to analyse Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Existing scholarship on the novel sees it as a narrative of patriarchal hegemony; this paper contends that Atwood’s use of grotesque exceeds the usual gender politics to reconfigure deeper ideological and ecological concerns. Building upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque body and Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, this paper explores Gilead’s exaggerated and rather graphic portrayal of bodily functions, reproductive rituals, and environmental deterioration from a new kind of grotesque that can be labelled as “eco-grotesque”. Eco-grotesque offers a critical evaluation of the interconnected hegemonic oppression of human bodies and natural systems. Through close textual reading of the key scenes that feature the ceremony, birthing rituals, public executions, the Jezebel Club, and through critical analysis of the leitmotifs of food scarcity and color symbolism, this paper argues that the grotesque functions concurrently as a system of state control and as a crucial tool for revealing systemic violence. This reading reconfigures The Handmaid’s Tale as a narrative that foregrounds contemporary ecological concerns, articulating that the exploitation of women’s bodies and exploitation of nature function as mutually reinforcing systems of hegemonic control. This dual critical prism intervenes as a novel entry point for feminist, dystopian, and environmental literary studies, demonstrating Atwood’s employment of grotesque aesthetic  exposes the material consequences of treating vulnerable and threatened ecosystems as manageable resources.