The Feminine Panopticon: An Exploration of Surveillance in Literature

♦ Josephine Nichols ♦

Throughout history, societies have frequently relied on the control of female anatomy and sexuality as a method of manipulating social order. Religious justification, moral tradition, and cultural norms have often worked hand-in-hand to define the role of a woman as simultaneous symbols of purity and corruption. The moment a woman steps beyond these enforced roles, the subsequent punishment often extends beyond the individual—instead, she becomes a spectacle: a cautionary tale aimed at reinforcing traditional values. Within such oppressive systems, the female form becomes a site of political, religious, and social whims. Both The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood explore this phenomenon through the lens of deeply patriarchal societies in which women are stripped of agency and reduced to state-sanctioned symbols. 

Despite being separated by more than a century of literature, the two novels exhibit hauntingly similar societal and ideological structures. Hawthorne’s depiction of 1640s Puritan Boston reflects a strict theocratic community in which religious commandment trumps all else, dictating social order and closely policing femininity. Adultery, a concept embodied in the heroine Hester Prynne, is treated not as a personal wrongdoing, but an institutional failure—as a threat to the moral integrity of the collective. 

Likewise, Atwood’s dystopian Republic of Gilead creates an authoritarian society built upon extremist interpretations of biblical script, reducing fertile women to vessels of reproduction, with their sole purpose relying on their function as living incubators. Mirrored in both narratives is the religious language weaponized to manipulate patriarchal control, manufacturing communities that view the regulation of female autonomy not as an injustice but as a moral and logistical necessity.

The pervasive nature of authoritarian control is exemplified in both texts through multiple interconnected layers. First, the societies depicted in Hawthorne’s and Atwood’s works mass normalize the punishment of women by framing oppression as a moral and natural necessity in preserving the common good. Second, ideological control is manifested physically through the adoption of the female form as a weapon of surveillance, transforming them into visible reminders of social order and constant supervision. Finally, despite the apparent permanence of these authorities, both narratives reveal the pitfalls of patriarchal dominance: through acts of symbolic reclamation.  Both female protagonists challenge the meanings of the structures imposed upon them, exposing their fragility in the face of fearless acceptance. 

In following how female bodies are disciplined, displayed, and ultimately reinterpreted, both novels reveal that patriarchal authority depends less on physical force than on collective complicity, internalized shame, and self-perpetuating social surveillance.

To truly perpetuate control over said collective, physical force alone serves as an inadequate weapon of authority. Much as is exhibited in the hive-mind psychology of the puritanical public displayed in both of the two texts, French philosopher Michel Foucault’s Theory of Discipline posits that true power derives from measures that are not strong-handed but instead quietly pervasive within the fabric of civil society. Foucault claims that in the evolution of authoritarian rule, there comes a time in which the ruling party dials back on force and instead encourages submission through manufactured social expectations, creating what he refers to as “docile bodies” out of the oppressed. In the Republic of Gilead and Puritanical Boston, it is clear they have long since passed this goalpost. Here, the townspeople do not wield religion maliciously; it is misguided to characterize them as “evil”; instead, they are overtly manipulated. These groups have so deeply internalized select biblical teachings that they truly believe their very survival depends on the eradication of all that is considered sinful.

In The Scarlet Letter, the perceived necessity of dissuading sin is established from as early as page one, in which the narrator describes the setting of Hester Prynne’s imprisonment:

“The founder of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among the earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.” (Hawthorne, 1)

There’s an undeniable undertone of sarcasm in this description; the speaker holds a clear distaste for the counterintuitivity of the concept that even what is considered a “blissful Utopia” still requires a penitentiary. This tension, however, reveals something far deeper than comic relief; it speaks to the generally held values of the group. Even in a Utopia, it is inconceivable to the Puritans that a world can exist with a prison. The necessity of this prison—in their view—is indicative of a key hegemonic truth: they believe that for human virtue to exist, there must exist a location to isolate the vice. To extrapolate this hegemonic discovery to the aforementioned Theory of Discipline, the Puritans view this prison not as a failure, but as a practical necessity. These townspeople are the paradigm of Foucault’s “docile bodies” archetype: they fall effortlessly into the misguided belief that to be good is to coexist with the machinery of punishment. To them, the two are contingent on one another.

In the case of The Handmaid’s Tale, this same docility can be seen in the warnings the Aunts leave with Offred and her fellow handmaids when she is training in the Red Center: “There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it” (Atwood, 24). This idea that the oppressive restrictions that Gilead imposes on women are somehow in place to benefit them is a further example of Foucault’s theory. While the aunts do exist to train the new handmaids, that does not discount the fact that they truly believe what they are preaching. Much like the Puritans of Boston, the Aunts and handmaids alike have so deeply internalized the notion that true virtue exists hand-in-hand with restriction. This utter devotion serves as a forum for the Republic to further push their normative ideals without utilizing force; in this way, the rationalization of such acts is self-perpetuating. 

The juxtaposition between the true “freedom to” and the state-imposed “freedom from” is an indicator of the ultimate trap of hegemonic normalization—a process that renders systemic inhibition not merely tolerable, but seemingly instinctual. As expressed by Offred in her reflection on her attitude in the time before, “nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it” (Atwood, 56). This metaphor encapsulates the terminal stage of Foucault’s concept of the docile body: the point at which the populace no longer perceives the rising heat of their metaphorical bathtub but instead embraces the warmth as a salvation of sorts—something comforting, familiar, and necessary. It reveals that authoritarian control succeeds not through sudden violence but through gradual normalization, in which citizens begin to interpret their own restrictions as natural rather than imposed. Whether it manifests itself in The Scarlet Letter’s Puritans effortless acceptance of the prison as a practical necessity, or in the Aunts of Gilead framing the regime’s shackles as protective, the result is a society that has independently normalized its own surveillance. By painting the measure of full female agency as a necessary prerequisite for social stability, both theocratic Boston and the Republic of Gilead transform the general public into the unknowing fuel of their own oppression. The state, therefore, no longer is tasked with the responsibility of force; instead, it relies on a populace that has come to view its own repression as the cooling agent keeping the bathtub from boiling over.

Once hegemonic norms permeate the mind, systems of control must shift from ideological influence to physical symbolism. In both The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid’s Tale, women’s bodies are used as a weapon of state control. The shift from ideological normalization to physical manifestation is marked not by extensive surveillance cameras or heavy policing, but by state-mandated semiotics: the individual woman is stripped of her personhood and is therefore reconstructed as a political symbol—an analog, self-sustaining form of panoptic surveillance. In both texts, this physical message is rendered in the color of blood and transgression: red. 

In Boston, as Hester Prynne first approaches the scaffolding to reveal her scarlet patch to the townspeople, a description of the stitched letter provides valuable insight into the significance of its placement: 

“On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration… [it] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.” (Hawthorne, 37)

The “fertility and luxuriance” emphasized in the description of Prynne’s brand serves to exploit her shame. The origin of the punishment is her adultery and the existence of her daughter. The “A” on her chest is an immovable symbol of her own passion, fertility, and luxuriance: the narrator describing the stitching as such is an expression of the oppressive state’s intent. Here, the state is mocking Prynne’s biology, intensifying the humiliation of the punishment and utilizing her body as a weapon of surveillance by creating a pervasive decorative warning out of her misdeed. 

Crucially, the narrator describes the effect of the letter’s placement in claiming it “encloses her in a sphere by herself”. This is the crux of the punishment; not only does the letter serve as a warning to others but as a way to insulate those who do wrong. Hester Prynne exists no longer as a member of the collective—or even as an individual in her own right—she has been stripped of all but her physical exterior; she has effectively become a weapon of puritanical control. 

A similar glimmering red symbol can be found in the handmaids’ daily garments. In Gilead, handmaids are required to exclusively dress in the color red, from head to toe, with the exception of a white bonnet that largely obstructs their vision. Naturally, Offred maintains in contempt towards the uniform: “Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us… The skirt is ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts… they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen” (Atwood, 8). The bright red of the handmaids’ uniform is unmistakable and that is precisely the intention. Much like the Puritan colony of Boston, the regime of Gilead aims to create a living symbol out of the women it controls—the key distinction, however, lies in its motivations. While the puritans aim only to shame Hester Prynne for her misdeeds, Gilead creates utility out of the red uniform and restrictive white bonnet. In a sea of blue-dressed Wives and muted-tone Marthas, the red handmaids stick out in an instant; there’s no missing their presence in any room. In this way, they serve as a constant reminder to those around them of the ever-presence of the state. Even in places where there may be no guards, cameras, or microphones, the handmaids are still dressed in red; they exist as a pervasive reminder of the extent of the Republic’s reach; they are living panoptic surveillance. 

If the red of their uniforms serve as a reminder to others, the white bonnets serve to internally surveil the handmaids. Offred herself describes the limitations of the white cloth: much like blinders on a horse, she physically cannot see the majority of the world around her. In conjunction with the constant state of paranoia handmaids are forced into, this inability to track their surroundings leads these women to feel they are constantly being watched. Even in their own households, where it is unlikely any physical state-sanctioned surveillance exists to monitor them, handmaids continue to sport these bonnets; how, then, can they ever be sure they are truly alone? Since Offred and her fellow handmaids can never confirm they are not being watched, they must then act as if they are constantly being watched in order to avoid extreme punishment; in this way, they are internalizing the surveillance of the state, even in places where it most likely does not exist; they become agents of their own repression. 

Ultimately, both the scarlet “A” and the blood-red handmaid’s uniform function as parallel technologies of dehumanization and surveillance (both internal and external), essentially overwriting the identity of the individual with a state-mandated brand. While Hester Prynne is plagued by the isolation of her marking and Offred suffers the restrictiveness of her own, both are subject to a form of semiotic violence that renders their personhood irrelevant. By transforming the female form into a public-facing map of sin or utility, these societies succeed in shifting the focus of the collective from the individual woman to the state-sanctioned icon. Women, therefore, are no longer actors in their own lives, but a permanent spectacle—a living panoptic surveillance—to those around them to ensure the state’s presence is felt even in the most private of moments.

The ultimate failure of any repressive system lies in its inability to control the internal narrative of the oppressed. Once internal shame is exhausted, the fabric of the state’s control begins to wither. Throughout both The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid’s Tale, the protagonists first desire removal of their restrictive coil—they yearn to escape the repressive conditions in which they exist. As the narratives progress, however, both Hawthorne and Atwood demonstrate that mere removal of their symbols is an insufficient remedy to the pervasive hegemony of the states in which they exist. To flee the red uniform or letter without dismantling the shame attached to them is to remain a fugitive to the state’s ideology. In fact, it is ultimately found that the most effective mode of agency is found in the reclamation of the very symbols that oppress them. 

In The Scarlet Letter, a tendency towards removal of the state’s semiotic branding is displayed in the forest—a setting which the Puritans traditionally view as lawless and chaotic, but viewed by Hester Prynne as a sanctuary of truth. In the forest, Hester unpins her scarlet letter and throws it to withered leaves. Here, she feels a “flood of sunshine”, a brief moment of liberation in which the state’s aforementioned physiological and physical suppression seems to dissolve (Hawthorne, 138-139). Yet, this removal proves to be a fragile illusion. The immediate intervention of Pearl—who, in the narrative, functions as a physical embodiment of the letter—forces Hester to reapply the patch. Pearl’s refusal to recognize her mother without the scarlet letter exemplifies that the “A” has become an ontological factor of Hester’s existence in the eyes of all those that surround her. Physical removal does nothing to remedy the institutionally rooted aspect of her shame. To remove the scarlet letter is merely to conceal it; it does not alter the fact that, upon returning to the colony, the hegemonic makeup of the crowds remains undisputed. This comforting forest of truth is nothing but that: a comfort. It is a temporary vacuum of freedom, not an effective revolution.

Similarly, Offred’s attempts at removal of oppression—albeit significantly more metaphorical—result in a similar outcome of ineffectiveness. Her clandestine meetings with the Commander, her affair with Nick, and her conspiracies with the other handmaids represent a removal of her role in the Gileadean structure. In each of these endeavors, Offred is able to provide herself with an illusion of progress—much like Hester’s “flood of sunshine”—but even in these moments, the red of her uniform and the truth of her label continue to physically and legally define her. Like Hester’s forest, these missions of Offred’s serve as liminal spaces where rules are suspended but not broken. The Commander’s office, in particular, is an example of an insular location of respite; here, Offred has more freedom, but is not truly free—in fact, her freedom is entirely calculated by the Commander himself. 

The true dismantling of the oppressor occurs not when either woman’s symbol is hidden or forcibly removed, but when it is reclaimed and redefined. The resolution of Hester Prynne’s arc beautifully encapsulates this truth. After years of exile, Hester voluntarily returns to Boston; crucially, she sports the scarlet letter on her chest by her own volition. This is the moment where the panopticon of her symbol implodes. By wearing this letter out of choice rather than necessity, Prynne strips the Puritan leaders of their power to punish her through shame. The state’s utility of her feminine shame has expired as Hester no longer accepts the shame as belonging to her. Consequently, the townspeople are required to reconsider the symbol in their own perspectives; the “A” that originally signified “Adultery” begins to then signify “Angel” (Hawthorne, 114). Hester has colonized the Puritan’s own language, transforming the patch that once signified ignominy into a symbol of strength and purity. 

In an alternate vein, Offred’s reclamation comes in the form of the existence of her very narrative. In the “Historical Notes” portion of The Handmaid’s Tale it is revealed that the entire novel is a transcription of her recovered voice recordings years after the fall of the Gileadean regime (Atwood, 302). This in and of itself serves as a testament to Offred’s reclamation of her story; while the Republic sought to silence women, demeaning their existence to a “walking womb”, Offred has the voice to speak to the public. In fact, Offred’s account outlives that of Gilead’s reign; here, she controls the narrative. She has turned her period of state-sanctioned “shame” into a historical indictment, truthfully rewriting her life’s story from a utility back into a story of humanity.

All in all, both novels conclude that the only true method of extermination of the oppressor is to strip their symbols of their power. Whether it be Hester shifting her scarlet letter into an honor of wisdom or Offred ultimately having her story recorded into history, the result is the same: the state’s aforementioned “common sense” discrimination is exposed as a fragile ruse. The public ceases to act as an unknowing fuel of the state’s repressive mechanism. In the end, the women of these stories cease to act as victims but instead as authors of their own meaning. 

Ultimately, both The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid’s Tale expose the truth behind the mechanisms employed by patriarchal society in manipulating women as a moral symbol to reinforce social order. In Puritan Boston and the Republic of Gilead alike, repression is first normalized via religious ideology and then physically imposed upon women’s bodies through visible markers of shame and exclusion. Yet, the permanence of these structures proves to be an illusion: although Hester Prynne and Offred are faced with seemingly impossible situations, they both manage to exceed the limitations placed upon them by reclaiming them as their own. Hester’s voluntary acceptance of the scarlet letter transfigures it from a brand of sin and shame into a signal of strength. Likewise, Offred’s preserved testimony ensures that her true voice transcends through time the political propaganda of the regime that attempted to silence her. In this way, both cases suggest that systems built upon symbolic control are inherently unstable: once the oppressed reclaim the definitions imposed upon them, the very language of authority collapses.