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Title: The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Publication Info: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); 25 Anv edition February 20, 2007
ISBN: 0374400113
Genre: Top 100 Banned Books
Submitted by <a data-cke-saved-href=”http://chris-book-a-rama.blogspot.com/ target=” href=”http://chris-book-a-rama.blogspot.com/ target=” _blank”=””>Christine
It is a dystopian novel set in Gilead, the former USA. Congress has been murdered, the constitution thrown out, by religious zealots. Women no longer have any rights, even reading is forbidden. The current government has divided women into groups. The Wives are the wives of the elite, Marthas, the maids, and Handmaids are for breeding. Pollution of the planet has caused high rates of infertility and birth defects. Young women, especially mothers, are prized for their fertility, and are held captive by elite males hoping to have children. But it’s worse to be an Unwoman, either old or infertile, who end up working in “The Colonies” disposing of bodies or toxic waste. Living in this horrifying world is Offred.
Offred is a Handmaid, it is her tale. She tells of her life before the coup, with a husband, a daughter, a mother and a career. She relives the night she was captured and her retraining at the Red Center. This is her second try at being a Handmaiden, if she isn’t pregnant soon she fears what will happen to her.
It’s written like a diary, so we only know what Offred knows, which isn’t much, and we can only speculate if what she sees and hears is truth or rumour. There are many unknowns, even though Atwood does answer some later. We’re supposed to question how this happened and could it happen to us. Of course, all over the world things like this have happened and will happen again. It scares me to think you could wake up and suddenly you are without rights, hardly even human. Atwood seems to say that this has happened slowly over time, with hardly anyone noticing at first, then it’s too late to do anything about it.
This novel was often hard to read, for me especially when she talked about her child, who was the same age as my child when she was taken from her. It often felt hopeless and full of despair. The women’s own attitude towards each other was also aggravating. They were hostile to one another, blaming each other for their situation instead of banding together. Still, the writing was engaging and poetic.
For me, I can say that this book will stay with me for a while. I know I will see echoes of it on the news and in the newspapers. I will think about it when I go to the store, put on lipstick, hug my kid, read a book…
This is one of my favorite books. I first read it in high school and I have read it a couple of times since. The topics and subjects can be intense but Offred is a survivor who is able to maintain her sense of self, including her past, in a world that has reduced her to nothing more than a uterus. Despite her desperate situation, she maintains hope, the hope of seeing her daughter and escaping. Also, by framing the story within the context of an academic conference, it highlights the disparity between those who study events/history and those who actually live it. For Offred the story is real but for the scholars it is something to pick apart and to even make jokes about.
I had to read this book for my year 12 finals (for people outside of Australia, this is kind of like the SATs only with more essays) and unfortunately the whole experience of exams colored my reading of The Handmaid’s Tale. However, now I’m finishing university, I found the book on my shelf and decided to read it again to decide if I would keep it or pass it on to some other poor high school student.
I was actually pleasantly surprised this time around. There are layers of meaning and fictive history throughout the book. It’s interesting to put it in its historical context of the 1980s and read it in light of some of the events of that era, particularly the passages pertaining to the use of nuclear materials.
I’ll give it a 7/10
Am currently reading this book with an A-Level class as part of teacher training – on a side note, it’s so interesting to see teenage boys engaging with the themes expressed here. And it’s heartening to see the book on the syllabus, being compared to novels like 1984 and Brave New World.
One of the things done best in this novel is the sheer monotony, broken by moments of horror. The way Offred describes every little detail in her life, and lets details from the past bleed into them … because the “little things” matter a lot. Like the moments where she mentally unpicks a word or phrase for all its layers of meaning, using the forbidden tools of reading and thinking.
The fact that this book itself was banned just reinforces Atwood’s sobering message – this kind of repression has happened before, is happening and could happen again if we let it. The phrase “freedom to and freedom from” is possibly the clearest short definition of human freedom, of power struggles, that I’ve ever seen.
(Security word was “consider25” – relevant, no?)
I’m not surprised this was reviewed by three different people (incidentally, I read all three reviews with interest, I’m just responding to this one ‘cos I’ve got time now and it’s the most recent).
This is a favourite book of mine, extremely visual and visceral. There are certain scenes that are etched indelibly on my memory: the scene where one of the handmaidens gives birth and immediately her baby is torn from her and given to her master’s wife; the scene where the handmaidens are allowed to tear a ‘criminal’ to pieces to get rid of their frustrations and a secret rebel tries to kill him quickly to save him pain.
I also love the intricate details: the descriptions of the uniforms that have to be worn by the handmaidens; the prayer machines that spout endless prayers – for a price – buying the purchasers’ way into heaven.
It’s not just an important book that brilliantly demonstrates the dangers of fundamentalism, it’s also a beautifully written book of soaring imagination.
Ah, I love this book. I really enjoy dystopian fiction in general, and I love that this is distinctly from a woman’s point of view.
I distinctly remember getting chills the first time I read it, when Offred meets Ofglen and I realized what their names meant.