Elaine McNally on (Edited )
Margaret Atwood begins her novel The Handmaid's Tale with three epigraphs: a passage from Genesis, an extract from Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal," and a Sufi proverb. These paratexts establish a frame through which we read the novel. I have written about the lines from Swift’s essay in another post. In this one I will deal with the first epigraph.
“And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.” – Genesis 30:1-3
This epigraph establishes key themes in The Handmaid’s Tale, including fertility, power, and the subjugation of women. Gilead is a theocracy that selectively uses scripture to legitimise its exploitation of women. The story of Rachel, Leah, and Bilhah serves as a direct precedent for the Ceremony, highlighting how scripture is manipulated to enforce patriarchal control. The Rachel and Leah Centre, where Handmaids are indoctrinated, also directly references this biblical story. The Ceremony is a direct perversion of the arrangement described in Genesis, and exploits this story to sanction systemic rape and control over women’s bodies. The biblical reference gives legitimacy to the regime’s actions, cloaking oppression as a sacred duty.
Fertility
Rachel’s plea, “Give me children, or else I die,” underscores the pressure placed on women to bear children. In both biblical tradition and Gilead, a woman's value is measured by her reproductive ability. Moreover, Gilead erases male infertility entirely, as Handmaids are told, “There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore… There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law.” This places all blame, and punishment, on women alone. The fear of infertility leads to desperate measures: in the Bible story, Rachel’s solution to infertility is surrogacy when she offers Bilhah as a substitute, which is mirrored in Gilead’s use of Handmaids to bear children for the Wives. In Gilead, surrogacy is now enshrined in law and fertility a state-controlled commodity. Interestingly, Leah is silent on this arrangement suggesting her subordinate role as ‘walking womb’; the role the handmaids fulfil in Gilead.
Hierarchy and male authority
Jacob, a key patriarch in the Old Testament, represents male potency, power, and authority. He is one of the founders of the nation of Israel, and through his twelve sons, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. In both Genesis and Gilead, men control the reproductive process while women are positioned as either fertile or barren. Furthermore, the novel is bookended by two patriarchal figures—Jacob, whose authority in Genesis prescribes women’s roles, and Pieixoto, who reframes Offred’s narrative as an academic case study, minimising her lived experience and trivialising her narrative. Their presence underscores the dominance of male authority over female voices.
Competition between women
The epigraph also introduces the theme of female rivalry. Rachel envies her fertile sister Leah, illustrating how infertility breeds competition rather than solidarity. Gilead institutionalises this dynamic, ensuring that women - Handmaids, Wives, and Marthas - are set against each other. Aunt Lydia’s rhetoric about women living “in harmony together… Women united for a common end” is deeply ironic, as the system relies on division and jealousy to maintain control. The Rachel and Leah Centre serves as a literal embodiment of this tension, where women are trained to accept their subjugation while being pitted against each other.