Examine the view that language is the main tool of oppression in The Handmaid's Tale.

It could be argued that language is the main tool of oppression in The Handmaid's Tale because in restricting language, Gilead succeeds in reducing individual identity. Atwood utilises neologisms such as "Salvaging" and portmanteau words such as "Particution" to take events that are in actuality barbaric and make them sound affirming and commercialised. In doing so, Offred and other repressed members of Gileadean society are unable to express how they truly feel about such events. Through a semantic field of games, with an Aunt at the Particicution stating "you know the rules" and readying the Handmaids with a "whistle", it could be inferred that Offred feels infantilised, which could suggest that langauge is not the main oppressive tool of Gilead so much as hierarchy is. However, the presentation of hierarchy as an oppressive tool is reaffirmed by language. In deeming figures 'Aunts' they are given an authorative maternal edge and in referring to the Handmaids using patronyms with the suffix 'of', they are making them appear like male possessions. Perhaps Atwood drew from previous totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany which would often reduce identities of prisoners to numbers; indeed, in dystopian literature, it is common to draw from or comment on current and previous social events that impacted society. Thus, language could be argued to be the most oppressive tool in Gilead and, by extension, in the novel because it strips the characters of self-expression and is used to support the oppressive hierarchy that pervades the society.