Religous control and oppression in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments both examine how religion can be used to control people in society. Set in the dystopian world of Gilead, these novels show how religious language and symbols help justify the regime's strict rules and suppress individual freedom. This thesis draws on theorists like Foucault, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Douglas, Asad, and Geertz to understand the role of rituals and religious authority in shaping people's behavior. These thinkers contend that religion can create feelings of guilt and obedience, making people internalize control. In The Handmaid's Tale, the use of biblical language plays a major role in justifying violence and enforcing gender roles, while The Testaments focuses more on how the regime uses religion to spy on people and hide its own contradictions. Overall, this thesis discusses that Atwood's novels suggest that in Gilead, religion is less about faith and more about power, a tool for keeping a rigid, patriarchal system in place.