This essay explores the interplay between language and authority in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, underlining its double function as an instrument of subjugation and a form of defiance. Set in the dystopian society of Gilead, the narrative focuses on Offred, a Handmaid whose identity is reduced to her capacity to bear children. This paper applies feminist and post-structuralist lenses to argue that Gilead's manipulative use of language serves to maintain patriarchal power structures, denying women their humanity and erasing personhood and selfdetermination. Creating a systematic regulation of discourse, the regime establishes a rigid linguistic structure that inhibits articulation, further reinforcing gender roles. In direct contrast, Offred's narrations and acts of linguistic subversion contest this oppressive system and recover agency and a sense of identity for herself. Through an examination of linguistic dynamics in Gilead, this essay highlights narrative's capacity to operate as a means of resistance against totalitarian oppression by demonstrating that language functions not only as a tool but also as a necessary agent in the process of reality and identity construction. In the final analysis, Atwood's work offers a deep critique of patriarchal structures while at the same time celebrating the subversive abilities of language in the reclamation of voice and autonomy.