Book Review: The Handmaid's Tale
Sometimes it is difficult to review a novel that has so overwhelmed me that I cannot easily articulate my reactions. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is one of them.
In a dystopian future, a religiously totalitarian regime has overthrown the U.S. government and established the Republic of Gilead. Society is immediately restructured into a biblical patriarchy, in which women lose all individual rights and many are forced into sexual servitude.
As a result of an environmental catastrophe, the birth rate has dropped to practically nil. The few women who still have healthy reproductive systems are forcibly assigned to the ruling class of men, with the intention that they will bear children. The narrator, Offred, does not see herself as a concubine but as a vagina on two legs.
The Handmaid’s Tale is similar to 1984 and Brave New World, in that it critiques and even satirizes existing societal structures by playing out their logical conclusions. As a work of speculative fiction, it actually analyzes where we are rather than predicting where we will end up, as science fiction might do.
It took me some time to get into The Handmaid’s Tale, solely because the storyline is so disturbing. Atwood hits all the right buttons to stir up the reader’s uneasiness. The world she describes is recognizable, albeit skewed by religious fundamentalism. For example, the red uniforms of the Handmaids are reminiscent of a nun’s habit as well as a hijab. There is a classist hierarchy, and there is food rationing. There are public hangings, and there are mandatory gatherings for religious services. Atwood carefully constructs each element of this rigid world so that unfolds to a foregone conclusion. In other words, given the fundamentalist principles at work, society can only look like this.
About halfway through the novel, I could no longer set it down. I had to know how it would turn out. Atwood excels at layering imagery throughout the narrative. Offred, the narrator, frequently mentions cigarettes, which are now forbidden to Handmaids. Offred’s recollection of smoking has a wistful quality, which suggests the insubstantiality of smoke. Memory also works like this: it swirls around the mind yet remains intangible, until it drifts away into oblivion.
Offred is not the narrator’s name but rather a designator that she is the possession of a particular Commander: Of Fred. The reader never learns the narrator’s true name, which underscores her loss of personal identity. One possible significance of the name Offred is that she is “offered” to the Commander. But I wondered if it also represented the narrator’s desire to be separate from her position as a Handmaid – that she was a form of rebel who was Off Red, or not connected to the red uniforms that all Handmaids wear.
Atwood’s use of symbolism can be disturbingly satirical. Each month, during the Ceremony, the Commander attempts to impregnate the Handmaid, who lies with her head in between the Wife’s legs; in essence, she is merely a conduit between husband and wife. Offred notes the sterile, puritanical nature of sex as an act, given that all the participants remain discreetly clothed throughout. In other words, sex is solely about procreation and has nothing to do with love.
The novel ends with a suitably ambiguous resolution, which can either suggest hope or utter failure for the future. The fact that Atwoood can osentibly leave the reader hanging and yet feel “satisfied” with where the story ends shows another aspect of her talent as a storyteller.
I have not seen either the 1990 movie version or the current TV series. To be honest, though I am curious about them, right now I want to hold onto what Atwood has created. I will continue to puzzle out my reactions to this brilliantly written novel, and I suspect I will return to it, just as I have to 1984 or Brave New World for a vision of who we are and what we might become.
In a dystopian future, a religiously totalitarian regime has overthrown the U.S. government and established the Republic of Gilead. Society is immediately restructured into a biblical patriarchy, in which women lose all individual rights and many are forced into sexual servitude.
As a result of an environmental catastrophe, the birth rate has dropped to practically nil. The few women who still have healthy reproductive systems are forcibly assigned to the ruling class of men, with the intention that they will bear children. The narrator, Offred, does not see herself as a concubine but as a vagina on two legs. The Handmaid’s Tale is similar to 1984 and Brave New World, in that it critiques and even satirizes existing societal structures by playing out their logical conclusions. As a work of speculative fiction, it actually analyzes where we are rather than predicting where we will end up, as science fiction might do.
It took me some time to get into The Handmaid’s Tale, solely because the storyline is so disturbing. Atwood hits all the right buttons to stir up the reader’s uneasiness. The world she describes is recognizable, albeit skewed by religious fundamentalism. For example, the red uniforms of the Handmaids are reminiscent of a nun’s habit as well as a hijab. There is a classist hierarchy, and there is food rationing. There are public hangings, and there are mandatory gatherings for religious services. Atwood carefully constructs each element of this rigid world so that unfolds to a foregone conclusion. In other words, given the fundamentalist principles at work, society can only look like this.
About halfway through the novel, I could no longer set it down. I had to know how it would turn out. Atwood excels at layering imagery throughout the narrative. Offred, the narrator, frequently mentions cigarettes, which are now forbidden to Handmaids. Offred’s recollection of smoking has a wistful quality, which suggests the insubstantiality of smoke. Memory also works like this: it swirls around the mind yet remains intangible, until it drifts away into oblivion.
Offred is not the narrator’s name but rather a designator that she is the possession of a particular Commander: Of Fred. The reader never learns the narrator’s true name, which underscores her loss of personal identity. One possible significance of the name Offred is that she is “offered” to the Commander. But I wondered if it also represented the narrator’s desire to be separate from her position as a Handmaid – that she was a form of rebel who was Off Red, or not connected to the red uniforms that all Handmaids wear.Atwood’s use of symbolism can be disturbingly satirical. Each month, during the Ceremony, the Commander attempts to impregnate the Handmaid, who lies with her head in between the Wife’s legs; in essence, she is merely a conduit between husband and wife. Offred notes the sterile, puritanical nature of sex as an act, given that all the participants remain discreetly clothed throughout. In other words, sex is solely about procreation and has nothing to do with love.
The novel ends with a suitably ambiguous resolution, which can either suggest hope or utter failure for the future. The fact that Atwoood can osentibly leave the reader hanging and yet feel “satisfied” with where the story ends shows another aspect of her talent as a storyteller.
I have not seen either the 1990 movie version or the current TV series. To be honest, though I am curious about them, right now I want to hold onto what Atwood has created. I will continue to puzzle out my reactions to this brilliantly written novel, and I suspect I will return to it, just as I have to 1984 or Brave New World for a vision of who we are and what we might become.
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