How Naming and Capitalisation Shape Atwood’s Gilead in Chapters 35–39

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Summary:

Explore how naming and capitalisation in chapters 35–39 of Atwood’s Gilead reveal social order and deepen the dystopian world in The Handmaid’s Tale.

How Margaret Atwood’s Use of Naming and Capitalisation in Chapters 35–39 Deepens the Dystopian World of Gilead

Margaret Atwood’s *The Handmaid’s Tale* stands as one of the most iconic dystopian works in modern literature, not only for its haunting vision of a totalitarian regime but for the exacting detail with which it renders that world. Gilead, Atwood’s imagined theocracy, is a society meticulously constructed through ritual, subjugation, and above all, language. Nowhere is this clearer than in the layers of meaning she builds through naming and capitalisation, especially in the pivotal chapters 35–39. In these scenes, the reader witnesses moments of heightened tension—attempted escapes, illicit encounters, and moral reckonings—all underscored by a lexicon that both shrouds and reveals the terrifying logic of Gilead. This essay explores how Atwood’s calculated naming conventions and distinctive capitalisation are not arbitrary stylistic tics, but the linguistic embodiment of Gilead’s social order, religious fervour, and psychological control. Through these choices, Atwood immerses the reader in a world where language itself becomes a weapon of oppression, inviting reflection on the insidiousness of words used to shape, constrain, and sometimes challenge both fictional and real societies.

The Power of Naming in Constructing Social Identity

From the outset of *The Handmaid’s Tale*, names are intensely loaded with significance. In chapters 35 to 39, we see clearest how Gilead’s categorisation of individuals is made explicit through their names—or, more accurately, the names imposed upon them.

Naming as a Tool for Enforcing Social Order

The Handmaids, for instance, bear names that literally denote ownership. ‘Offred’ is not her birth name, but a patronymic signifying that she is ‘of Fred’, belonging to her Commander. In these later chapters, Offred’s sense of self wavers between nostalgia for her lost identity and submission to her institutional role—a tension always mirrored in how she refers to herself and others. Similarly, the Marthas—household servants—are stripped of individuality, their collective title derived from the Biblical figure associated with domestic labour. We encounter the term ‘Econowives’, who occupy an uneasy position as multi-functional spouses but are defined primarily by economic status, not personality. This system of naming removes emotional complexity, subsuming women’s identities beneath a functional surface.

Capitalisation Amplifies Significance and Authority

If naming enforces hierarchy, capitalisation bestows an air of solemnity and inevitability on Gilead’s institutions. Words like ‘Handmaid’, ‘Commander’, ‘Wife’, always presented with capitals, acquire the weight of religious offices or sacred titles. Rituals such as ‘The Ceremony’ or the grotesque ‘Salvaging’ are treated with the same reverence. This extends even to minor events or places—each is rendered grand and untouchable through typography. The effect is similar to that of religious scripture, where the capitalisation of words like ‘God’, ‘Saviour’, or ‘Sacrament’ imparts divine authority. In Gilead, this method elevates societal roles and rituals beyond question, binding the population to compliance under the guise of sanctity.

Religious Connotations and Ideological Control Through Language

Gilead’s governing philosophy is interwoven with Biblical allusion and theological rhetoric, harnessed not for spiritual enlightenment but to justify repression.

Biblical Allusions Embedded in Naming

Atwood’s use of names reaches deep into religious tradition—a detail likely to resonate with UK students familiar with the King James Bible, a text foundational in English cultural history. The term ‘The Ceremony’, the euphemism for state-sanctioned sexual assault, borrows the language of holy rites, echoing ritualistic formulations found in the Book of Common Prayer. By calling executions ‘Salvagings’, Gilead co-opts the Christian ideal of redemption while masking violent reality. The Marthas, named for the diligent Biblical hostess who ‘served’, are supposed to represent pious domesticity. The regime’s soldiers, known as ‘Angels’, cloak authoritarian violence in the language of spiritual warfare.

Naming as Psychological Control

This linguistic manipulation is not merely external; it burrows into the minds of Gilead’s inhabitants. The ostracised outcasts are identified as ‘Unwomen’, evoking Margaret Cavendish’s 17th-century term for women who do not ‘fit’. To be labelled thus is to be erased—not just from society, but from history and self. In these late chapters, the language Gilead imposes on its citizens constricts Offred’s capacity to imagine alternatives. Each capitalised word is a mental barrier; every name is both role and shackle.

Naming and Capitalisation of Events: Ritualising Oppression

The ritualised events of Gilead are as much performances of state power as they are acts of violence or control.

The Role of Public Ceremonies and Their Names

In chapters 35–39, Atwood’s naming of events exposes the machinery of state ideology. ‘The Ceremony’ stands as the most infamous example: What should be a private, human act is transformed by capitalisation and ritual into a public command, distanced from personal agency. ‘Prayvaganza’, a portmanteau blending prayer with spectacle, is a disorienting invention—a term that satirises the fusion of piety and propaganda. ‘Birth Day’ signifies more than a date on the calendar: Through capitalisation, even reproduction is subsumed into ceremony. Most chilling is ‘Salvaging’, which frames execution as an act of salvation, inviting public complicity.

Impact on the Reader’s Experience

Atwood’s choices create discomfort for the reader; the capitalised event-names strike an alien note. Repetition entrenches them in Offred’s mind, and thus in ours. The emotional distance these terms produce is deliberate, paralleling the British literary tradition of irony and understatement that can render horror all the more powerful. As readers, we become complicit in the system’s euphemisms, forced to confront the gap between word and reality.

Naming of Places and Objects as Symbols of Control and Resistance

Physical spaces and mundane items are not immune from Gilead’s linguistic regime—they, too, bear names laden with ideological implication.

Locations as Sites of Power and Surveillance

‘The Wall’—always capitalised—operates as both physical boundary and symbol of authority. Its daily presence in Gilead’s life, adorned with the mutilated bodies of traitors, is a gruesome reminder not just of punishment, but omnipresent surveillance. The rare, secretive existence of ‘The Library’, discussed among the few who remember books, is similarly marked off from the secular world and suggests spaces where knowledge and subversiveness, though endangered, persist.

Material Objects and Their Ideological Meanings

Object names, too, reflect the perversion of ordinary meaning. ‘Milk and Honey’ might invoke abundance, but in Gilead, it becomes shorthand for reproductive exploitation. ‘Soul Scrolls’, mechanical devices that endlessly recite prayers, reduce genuine faith to bureaucratic repetition—a bitter nod to the Church of England’s own historical wrestle with real versus rote spirituality. The defunct ‘Pornomarts’—seedily remembered places for buying illicit magazines—have been erased, along with the very notion of unsanctioned female desire.

The effect of such naming is profound. Atwood ensures that every facet of Gilead, down to the smallest object, becomes legible through a prism of control, commodity, or denial.

The Relationship Between Naming, Characterisation, and Power Dynamics

Names reveal not only institutional priorities, but the contours of personal struggle.

Examples from Key Characters

The relationship between Offred and the Commander is shaped by titles that assert dominance. The Commander, never referred to by his given name, hovers as an authority both intimate and inscrutable. Offred, by contrast, is denied her former name, her language policed and hollowed out. Moira, a symbol of rebellion within the story, resists this reduction—her name, not rebranded, survives as a flicker of individuality. Meanwhile, the ‘Jezebels’—a group of marginalised, sexualised women—bear a name loaded with Biblical contempt and irony, branding them as both outsiders and scapegoats.

Naming as Reflection of Gender and Hierarchy

Gilead’s naming systems encode subordination: women are identified by male ownership or by function, while men retain autonomy. This naming process strips away agency; a recurring motif in British literature from Thomas Hardy’s *Tess of the d’Urbervilles* to George Orwell’s *1984*, whose own ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Thought Police’ set precedents for institutionalised nomenclature as oppression.

Conclusion

Through the meticulous and relentless use of naming and capitalisation, Atwood reveals the mechanics of Gilead’s tyranny. In chapters 35–39, these linguistic strategies do not merely describe a world; they constitute it. Every Handmaid, Ceremony, and Wall is both a sign and a sentence, at once clarifying and obfuscating, familiar and chillingly estranged. In showing us how language shapes Gilead, Atwood compels us to examine how our own societies deploy words to define, contain, or resist. The power—and peril—of naming is as real for readers of *The Handmaid’s Tale* as it is for its characters. Through her careful manipulation of linguistic form and meaning, Atwood leaves us not only unsettled by Gilead, but wary of the ease with which language can become the handmaiden of oppression.

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Additional Writing Tips

When approaching essays on Atwood’s *The Handmaid’s Tale*, always return to the detail of her language. Seek out moments where names or capitalised terms warp or heighten the narrative reality. Draw on literary backgrounds familiar in the UK, from the King James Bible to Orwell, and question how Atwood’s choices affect both characters and reader. Above all, remember that in Gilead, as in life, words are never neutral—they are battlegrounds in the ongoing struggle for identity and power.

Frequently Asked Questions about AI Learning

Answers curated by our team of academic experts

How does naming in chapters 35–39 shape Gilead in Atwood’s novel?

Naming in chapters 35–39 reinforces Gilead’s strict social hierarchy by stripping characters of personal identity and highlighting roles imposed by the regime.

What is the significance of capitalisation in Gilead in chapters 35–39?

Capitalisation gives authority and reverence to Gilead's roles and rituals, making them seem sacred, unquestionable, and part of an unchangeable order.

How does Atwood use naming and capitalisation for ideological control in Gilead?

Naming and capitalisation support religious and political authority in Gilead, turning language into a tool of oppression and ideological control.

What religious connotations appear through naming in Atwood’s Gilead, chapters 35–39?

Names like ‘Handmaid’, ‘Martha’, and ‘Angels’ borrow from Biblical tradition to give Gilead’s institutions a sense of religious legitimacy.

How do naming and capitalisation in Atwood’s Gilead compare to real societies?

Like Gilead, real societies use naming and capitalisation to assign roles and enforce order, reflecting how language can shape and constrain social identity.

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