How and to what effect has the concept of justice been explored in The Handmaid’s Tale and The Visit?

Justice is a common topic of literary works and can be depicted in various perspectives. In the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale by margaret Atwood and play The Visit by Friedrich Durrenmatt, readers are introduced to protagonist Offred and Alfred Ill, who are both victims of “justice” that defends the unrighteousness done to them. The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a patriarchal totalitarian regime of Gilead. Women with fertility, including our protagonist Offred, are given the role of Handmaid in which their only job is reproducing for the lowered birth rate. The Visit is set in a dilapidated village Guellen that is suffering from great poverty. Protagonist Ill’s life is threantened as Claire Zachanassian, a millionaire who had came back to Guellen after years to revenge on Ill’s betrayal after their relationship ended up into pregnancy, offers a million dollars for Ill’s death. While the both Atwood and Durrenmatt establishes the topic of justice and its limits, the stories are distinguished by the different use of characters and society show this. 

In her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Margaret Atwood suggests that justice is subjective by revealing contrasting interpretations of justice between the government of Gilead and Offred. This is most clearly illustrated when Offred observes the bodies of doctors who performed abortions hanging on the Wall “so as many people as possible will have the chance to see them.” From the perspective of Gilead, these men are essentially sinners who have “committed atrocities, and must be made into examples, for the rest.” Their perspective of justice is influenced by their religious beliefs, as Gilead is a Christian fundamentalist theocracy, and considers abortion to be murder. However, this view of justice is questioned by Offred, who notes that “what they did was legal at the time.” Moreover, she notes that “what we are supposed to feel towards these bodies is hatred and scorn,” but that personally, “this isn’t what I feel.” Offred’s frequent flashbacks to the pre-Gilead state suggest that her view of justice is shaped by her upbringing in a more liberal and secular environment. Thus, Atwood effectively illustrates how justice is subjective and may be shaped by people's beliefs or life experiences. 

Similarly, The Visit also shows the subjective nature of justice by the two contrasting characters, Ill and Zachanassian.  Zachanassian’s ultimate goal in coming back to Guellen is to get revenge on Ill by having him killed. When the crowd hears her request, they view it as “savage.” However, from Zachanassian’s perspective, she is actually the victim of previous “miscarriage of justice” when Ill abandoned her. She describes in detail the suffering she endured when she was forced to leave the town in shame, “pregnant with only a short while to go, and the townsfolk sniggering at me.” Therefore, in her mind, getting revenge on Ill is actually an act of justice that will  “right the wrong she was done in Guellen.” By revealing and explaining Claire’s understanding of justice thoroughly in Act 1, Durrenmatt establishes a feeling of sympathy for readers, despite the extreme nature of her request.  However, as the play proceeds to Act 2, the focus of the play shifts from Claire’s intentions to Ill’s reactions. After learning that people are agreeing to Claire’s deal, Ill hurriedly meets the policeman and demands the arrest of Claire, saying “It’s your duty” to cease violent threats against a villager. However, he receives a firm refusal from the police who claims Ill’s demand is simply “peculiar”. The portrayal of Ill desperately asking for help depicts his fear of Claire's deal and makes readers view Claire as an antagonist and her justice as an obstacle for the protagonist’s safety. Ill saying that his fear is “only natural. Perfectly natural” highlights that justice in his definition is society protecting him from a woman who has attempted to purchase his assassination. The two texts share the form of contrasting two different views on justice and effectively show the subjective nature of justice. However, Atwoods portrays this in The Handmaid’s Tale as individual doubting the definition of justice established by the society. On the other hand, Durrenmatt creates the theme of subjectivity by transferring the focus of the readers from one individual to other, making readers themselves doubt the justice. 

The Handmaid’s Tale challenges the concept of justice by showing how easily those who are ostensibly in charge of administering justice can be corrupted. Gilead is ruled by an elite group of men that includes the Commander. These men are theoretically in charge of Gilead’s strict laws, which strictly regulate people’s sexual lives and reproductive health. However, Atwood portrays the Commander as an extremely corrupt figure who doesn’t follow the laws that he enforces. This is most clearly illustrated in the scene when the Commander takes Offred to Jezebel, a brothel where many of Gildead’s elite men engage in illegal behavior like enjoying time with prostitutes and drinking. Offred comments that the Commander perhaps has “reached that state of intoxication which power is said to inspire, the state in which you believe you are indispensable and can therefore do anything, absolutely anything you feel like, anything at all.” By this quote, Atwood clearly portrays the Commander as a hypocritical figure and suggests that his power has corrupted him, making him abandon his belief in justice. 

The Visit portrays justice to be vulnerable to corruption by directly showing how the power of Claire’s wealth influences people to lose their moral conscience and prioritize their greed. Every step of Claire’s revenge is bought with her money. From the start, she ‘buys’ the judge who sentenced her and makes him her butler, and he admits that he accepted this “peculiar career for a man of learning” because “the salary was so fantastic”. Moreover, Claire’s words show her confidence that her wealth can buy her everything. She continuously treats everything -even justice that she wants on Ill- to be buyable simply by money: When asked if she desires justice on Ill, she replies that she “can afford it”. When the mayor claims that “justice can’t be bought” and refuses her offer, Claire replies by saying “Everything can be bought” and leaves shortly after saying “I’ll wait” as if she knows that the villagers will soon accept her deal for money. Moreover, as the play continues, Claire’s assumption that people's sense of justice can be corrupted by greed is proved to be correct. This can be seen when people in the town start buying more and more expensive items on debt, assuming that Ill will be killed and the town will soon be rich. As Ill complains, “The greater the debt, the higher the standard of living. The higher the standard of living, the greater the need to kill me.” This quotation clearly shows how people’s desire for wealth can lead them to abandon their sense of justice and commit murder. Although vulnerable to desire to wealth and can abandon their justice, both texts depicts the theme of pliable justice by showing individuals breaking justice for their own benefits and greed. 

The act of injustice is rationalized in The Handmaid’s Tale as shown by the oppressive hierarchy system of Gilead. Women with fertility are dehumanized as tools for reproduction rather than as human beings. The act of rape is justified as “Ceremony” for the greater good of the society. This is shown when Aunt Lydia claims that the “sacrifice Handmaids are being expected to make” are “for the generations that come after” and that the situation “will be so much better” for the next generation.  Moreover, during the Ceremony, Offred thinks of the quote “Close your eyes and think of England”. Alluding to Queen Victoria’s advice for her daughter to think of the greater good of continuing the generation of England as a monarch rather than focusing on the undesirable sexual approach, Atwoods highlights and shows how Gilead justifies the injustice done on Handmaids by rationalizing it as acts for greater good. 

The rationlization of injustice is depicted in in similar fashion in The Visit as the act of killing Ill is rationalized as an act for the greater good: the town’s justice. As the villagers are lured by the substantial wealth that can relieve their poverty and unconsciously agree to Claire’s deal, the villagers uses greater good as a convenient excuse. This hypocrisy is most evident towards the play's ending when villagers speaks in unicent that Claire’s offer was accepted unanimously “not for the sake of the money but for the sake of justice and for conscience’s sake for they cannot connive at a crime”. This shows their hypocracy of covering the consequence of their greed as an action for a better, innocent town. The subsequent prayer “deliver our souls from evil and all our most sacred possessions”,  employs an allusion to Lord’s prayer implies religious and sacred tone to the villagers’ prayers, further highlighting the ironic rationalization of the murder. Moreover, the chant is repeated because it was not being recorded. The villagers repeating the speech that was meant to be sacred and serious makes them look foolish. Naturally, the readers receive a feeling that whole chant is a scripted, insincere performance for the public. 

Like this, both texts shows how the excuse of greater good is exploited to justify selfish action of injustice. One crucial difference, however, is that the greater good in The Handmaid’s Tale is the next generation and therefore is forcing sacrifice to victims to indirectly imply the wrongfulness of the society to the readers while The Visit directly shows the insincere environment of claim of justice with source of humor.  

Using the dystopian novel and play, both Margaret Atwood and Friedrich Durrenmatt communicates the concept of justice by introducing the readers to the subjective nature of justice and how this can make it susceptible to corruption. Furthermore, both texts shows this vulneraility can be mishandled to rationalize acts of injustice. Through observation and analysis, reader can realize the hypocritical and ironical environment of justice in which it is a superficial theme with vulnerability, rather than a superior ideal that people believe that they have achieved.