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Dylan Lamb

Professor Toy

ENGL 115E

14 July 2022 (On Extension)

Close Reading: “FREEFORALL”

In Margret Atwood’s “FREEFORALL,” the author subverts patriarchal gender roles and

traditional socio-political hierarchies by imagining an alternative dystopian future from the

individual perspective of the main protagonist. Sharmayne’s character symbolically represents

the conscious liminality between past and future as she juxtaposes recalled memory/knowledge

with the inhibited circumstances of the contemporaneous socio-political system in which she

now holds a certain degree of power.

Throughout the narrative, Sharmayne is “reflecting as always” upon the past and its

present implications, if any, for the future (130). Sharmayne’s knowledge of the world, as it was

before, becomes a vehicle that Atwood utilizes to explore the consequences of her fictional

dystopic world. Sharmayne’s contemplation of her inherited name indicates how much has

changed from then to now. Atwood writes, “...even her names were being eroded by time; except

to old friends—not many of those left—she was mostly just First Mother” (130). Her reflection

on the past and her relationship with her mother alludes to an entirely different time in history.

Sharmayne’s role as First Mother has become her primary identity which further emphasizes the

erasure of a past that no longer exists and signifies the importance of her role as a leading

matriarch in the new political hierarchy. Sharmayne’s identity as First Mother is further
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reinforced by her connection to the symbol of “the orange blossom,” which is the seal of Least

House (130). Atwood writes, “[T]he image…was vestigial, an icon left over from the early days”

(130). Like the Least House seal, Sharmayne herself is a “vestigial icon left over from the early

days.” Here, the “early days” represent an entirely different political structure because few

remember what life was like before “freeforalls” and the need for total matriarchal control. The

current governing political ideology presumably materializes from “all that idealistic fringe

self-help stuff,” i.e., left-leaning liberalism played out to the extreme as a reactionary measure

against sexual disease in the story (133).

In “FREEFORALL, ” but also, in reality, the nature of power relationships dictates that

those who hold power must play many roles and are granted certain knowledge/privileges; while

those who do no not, perform limited roles/tasks, such as in the case of the uncontaminated

grooms because of their reproductive desirability and scarcity. Atwood intentionally subverts

traditional systems and normative gender roles because Sharmayne takes on an almost dominant

male persona as a decision maker/holder of power, and undiseased men become objectified by

their bodies/sexual function relegated to strict domestically subservient roles. Atwood writes,

“she was a figurehead and had to look decently like one, but she was more than that” (131).

Here, there is an implication that the role of the First Mother is more than just symbolic but

serves a vital function in maintaining the socio-political system. Like traditional patriarchal

power roles, First Mother is a unique label and signifies her place as higher up within the

hierarchical structure. Atwood reverses the reader’s conventional expectations of who holds such

power by portraying women as dominant decision makers and men in the roles of passive

subservience. First Mother thinks to herself and asks a question that is pertinent to Atwood’s
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thematic preoccupation with gender roles; “men would be more like men again, or what she still

thought of as men, though they might not remember how; wasn’t it the Houses themselves that

believed all social behaviour was learned?” (137). Again, it is clear that even First Mother is

uncomfortable with the same ideals that she represents to others and has her misgiving about if

the current system is better than the one from the "early days." However, because of the gravity

of her situation, she ultimately fails to change the governing status quo because she herself has

become an apparatus of the state and is employed to maintain order.