“The iron fist, the leather glove, and the woollen mitten” : gender performance(s), complicity, and complacency in written and screen versions of Aunt Lydia from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments

Abstract

This dissertation examines the different gender performances, complicities, and complacencies demonstrated by three versions of the character Aunt Lydia: first, the Aunt Lydia of the novel version of The Handmaid’s Tale; second, the television version of the same character for the Hulu series, The Handmaid’s Tale; and third, the Aunt Lydia that Margaret Atwood focuses on in her latest novel, The Testaments. The research is primarily informed by Judith Butler and her various works on the subject of gender performativity, as well as Simone de Beauvoir’s conception of women’s complicity in and complacency about their own oppression. The Handmaid’s Tale novel’s Aunt Lydia performs the gender role of Gileadean Aunt, and she is thoroughly complicit in and complacent about women’s subjugation in Gilead. In the television adaptation of the novel, Lydia continues her performance of the Aunt gender role, but her complacency about women’s situation in Gilead begins to shift. However, she remains complicit in enforcing the women’s oppression. Finally, in The Testaments, Lydia performs multiple gender roles: that of the Aunt, as the other versions of her character do, and, in private, that of a woman who aims to restore Gileadean women’s freedom. Though she is ever complicit in suppressing the women around her, this version of Aunt Lydia cannot be said to be complacent about that suppression.