Gender as Prison

At first reading, Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale seem to have little to do with each other except for the very general fact that both novels have elements of social and political commentary in them. But, while the world's portrayed in these books are fundamentally different from each other, a closer reading suggests important intersections and congruences in the novels around the subject of gender. For in both cases, the major characters are both defined by and in important ways imprisoned by their gender. In the case of Atwood's protagonist, the prison is one that she actively resists because she is always clear that it is a prison, while Babbitt is initially convinced that he is a free man. By the end of the novels, each has come to a different understanding of the ways in which gender (which is to say,...
[ View Full Essay]