The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
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Book Reviews of The Handmaid's Tale
Book Review: the novel that requires a reread
Summary: 4 Stars
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the future, where a tyrannical government has replaced democracy with limits on literacy, free speech, and any form of opinion. Atwood's feminist views are evident throughout the novel, voicing her concern for a society that has receded into the past of male dominion. Expressing her concerns through a riveting plot which documents Offred's life during a period of government corruption, Atwood succeeds in shocking her audience with controversies of a woman's role. Offred is the 'handmaid' of a general, and serves purely for procreation purposes. The emphasis on a womn's productivity (the devotion of an entire occupation) thus portrays the paradox of a Handmaid's role; although society relies on their reproduction, the means which they procreate nonetheless degrades their status. Offred's very name also depicts the male domination that now governs the country. Handmaids have no identity; instead, their name is derived from their general's name, placed after "Of-". For instance, if her general had the name of Charles, Offred would thus become Ofcharles. This complete annihilation of a women's identity reveals Atwood's concern for women's rights in the twentieth century.
At first glance, The Handmaid's Tale seems like the generic story of the oppressed, a heroine fighting hopelessly against a cruel government. However, the story is distinct in that is only uses this mold as a basis to create something else. Offred is the unfortunate woman that must be forced to abide by strict, unfair regulations. But she is not the typical heroine that resolutely defies all; instead, she is much more human, protesting through her ability to write, and to reveal truth through her unique perspective. The uncertainty in the conclusion, where the reader is unsure whether Offred lives or dies, rejects the archetypal happy ending and instead reveals a realistic end: where the unfortunate and goodwilled does not always conquer evil.
However, the most unique aspect of the Handmaid's tale is the epilogue, where a Professor James Pixizoto's complete misinterpretation of Offred's story warns reader to read the novel correctly, that is, without discarding the tale as a place for Offred's rants and cries. Instead, this is a story revealing the political, social, and human desolation of a dystopian empire, therefore a caution against a tyrannical government. Her contempt for the ignorant Professor Piexoto is expressed through his pompous tone, and the assuredness which he presents his incorrect findings. Piexioto's carelessness can be perceived as haughtiness, thus revealing the characteristics Atwood would despise in her readers. The ability for a book to mock a reader, literally stopping him/her mid-read, demonstrates Atwood's powerful control of her writing. Thus, Atwood's work stands out by allowing readers the second chance to fully understand her work of fiction. The humiliation of the professor provokes the reader to reread the story out of embarrassment, if not out of her determination to unearth previous details that he/she had missed in the first read. If in the first time a reader only skims without comprehending her purpose, the epilogue is a sharp scold. However, if a reader is not even competent enough to realize his/her mistake, then the Handmaid's Tale is beyond them.
As a last caution: read this book with care and consideration. It is a fulfilling and rewarding novel to the very end. Adept readers can mock Professor Piexioto along with Atwood, but they need the perception and patience to truly appreciate the morals of the Handmaid's Tale themselves.
Book Review: Intellectually profound and emotionally stirring
Summary: 4 Stars
In response to the growing movement of radical feminism of the mid 20th century, Margaret Atwood wrote the dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale. She created a completely alternate world, through which Atwood imagines the extreme consequences of uncheck feminism. Its oppressive setting is disturbing to a generation that indulges in rights and freedoms, enhancing the impact of her message.
The narrator, Offred, lives in Gilead, a totalitarian regime that took over the United States. In that society, women are viewed as possessions, not allowed to read or write. In an age of declining birth rates, Offred and other fertile women like her find their sole reason for continued existence in their womb, their only use being reproduction. The plot is incredibly intense. The almost offensive extremes of the new government attract interest and its suspense holds the interest. However, the narration is not in chronological sequence but instead jumps around, providing fragments of the narrators past and her present situation. This format is hard to get used to. In the beginning, one often gets lost and confused as Atwood switches between Offred's experiences in the Red Center and her life in the Commander's house. For readers looking for a simple, quick read, the opening of the novel may prove to be to complex. However, as the reader gets used to this style and apprehends its presence, the plot becomes easier to follow.
The eerie plausibility of the success of such a regime, especially in the democracy of the United States, provokes a set a questions. What direction is our society moving in? Is such a takeover possible in the United States? If so, what are we doing to protect our rights from such usurpation? Its message is profound and the author's caution is clear. The novel urges its readers to question the society that they live in, in hopes that such questioning will result in positive changes and reinforcements to the rights we now take for granted. The fact that a regime such as Gilead is not wholly impossible makes the story more engaging, as people try to envision the dramatic difference between their world and the one Atwood depicts.
Atwood presents the inner struggles of the main character, Offred's choice between resignation and resistance, subtly, implied through her thoughts and actions. In a society where thoughts of the past are forbidden and pleasure is considered unnecessary, Offred's battle to hold on to her past and her search for a viable way of dealing with her life reveals her rebellion against the regime. Although Offred does not act out like the many other resistors in the novel, most notably Ofglen, she can still be viewed as a heroine through her suffering and her refusal to submit to the regime's oppressive demands.
The syntactical structure of Atwood's narration and the abundance of imagery found throughout the book truly signifies The Handmaid's Tale's place as a classic of its time. The calm narration suggests Offred's defeat and submission to Gilead, but the choppy style of her flashback and her forbidden day dreams emphasizes that those are things that can never be suppressed. The images painted by Atwood attract the reader to delve deeper into the story. It helps the reader to envision and relate to Offred's circumstances, eliciting emotions of sympathy, shock, and disapproval.
Truly engaging, The Handmaid's Tale is intellectually profound and emotionally stirring. However, it takes some motivation to get deeper into the tale. Nonetheless, its message is clear and daunting, and its impact equally as great.
Book Review: If the Christian right became the U.S.' Taliban...
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently picked up this book again, which I hadn't read since the '80's. I expected it not to hold up well, but was surprised instead to find it more timely and moving than ever. When something like the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the Nazi takeover of Germany happens, we sit there and wonder how it could happen and how the victims couldn't see it coming. Margaret Atwood's miracle here is that she shows you how it might come and you understand how people got caught up in it. She also persuades you that it could happen here. This is a sad and scary book, but one that is incredibly compelling and believable.The book deals quite a bit with the pressing concerns of religion in America in the '80's, but they are problems that haven't left us today and, in some respects, are more prominent than when Atwood wrote her book -- a declining birth rate, increasing birth defects, a fundamental split in how the left and the right view abortion, clinic bombings, a movement to keep women at home, etc., and by the time the book starts, a far-right splinter group has taken power and stripped almost everyone in society, especially women, of their power and freedom. Atwood looks at how such a society would function and how it would affect its various members, from the wealthy and powerful men who run it, to their barren and houseridden wives, to the servants (men in the military, women in the house) to the handmaids, the fertile women possibily capable in a society not reproducing quickly enough of becoming surrogate mothers for the wealthy and powerful whose wives cannot provide healthy children.
This is the ultimate tale of what happens when a society takes away women's rights, especially the right of a woman to control what happens to her body. As the "Aunts" who train the new handmaids to their job would say, there is "freedom to" and "freedom from," and while women are free from rape, they are not free to do anything, include use their real names, their only designation being by to whom they belong at any given moment -- Offred, Ofwarren, etc. The Aunts are meant to conjure up the Jewish capos in the Nazi death camps -- affected people who accept positions of power from their oppressors and use it to help further the oppression. Although Atwood's book is awfully quiet on the subject of race, she does draw from the experiences of American slaves and their status in society, including those who risked their lives to get them to safety.
The book is written as the after-the-fact diary of Offred, whose fate is refreshingly ambiguous. I've always disliked the ending, the tacked on "presentation" of a paper on the society in which Offred lived and which examines her diary to determine whether it is real. While it fills in some nice gaps (and lets us know the society it describes ultimately fails), it feels uneccessary and doesn't have the impact of the rest of the book, which is a back and forth between Offred's memories of her husband, child, best friend, and mother and the life she led before, and her current life, which involves a lot of waiting and doing nothing, of watching one's behavior very carefully, and of being afraid to develop friendships and afraid to offend. And of offering your body as a surrogate for a wife who despises you and only wants the child that you hopefully have to offer if you want a guaranteed life away from the relocation camps cleaning up toxic waste and not hanging on the death wall for some transgression against society.
A moving account of a repressive Christian society, this book made me grateful for what I have, fears and all.
Book Review: Can Female Apartheid Exist in America? [53]
Summary: 5 Stars
If Orwell's "1984" were blended with Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and assorted other modernistic themes, including P.D. James' "Children of Men", you would probably have something akin to this insightful and completely enlightening novel.
In this novel - which occurs around the time of the writing (1986) - women lose identity and become chattel. They were being abused before the government came to deliver this new protective life -- so they are told. "There is more than one kind of freedom. . . Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from." Sounds like a debate between the ACLU and the Bush administration.
The chosen few are afforded the opportunity of providing children for the most highly regarded males - Commanders. They are not concubines - emotions are not allowed. They are not prostitutes -- no money passes hands. Instead, they engage in a monthly ritual devoid of emotions. A fornication which includes the Commander's wife. A grotesque act which hopefully ends with a child - something which the Commander's wife cannot produce.
This religiously tyrannical world blames the infertility issues among the women - not the men. And, as such, only those women who previously conceived and bore children can become a Handmaid. Dressed like a 17th century Pilgrim, treated like a black slave of the 19th century, and the envy of the other "Female Slaves" who clean house - called Marthas - we watch Offred become indoctrinated, and rebellious.
Patronymic changes are first - all of the Handmaid's names change from their own to one beginning with "Of" and ending with their Commander's first name. Our protagonist becomes Offred. Her watch - Ofglen, and so forth.
Then they live in the house out of reach from all. They are saved for the monthly ritual and between such anything-but-erotic sexual acts, they are fed, cleaned and clad as though they were premier mares - serving the exclusive purpose of making issue.
Like "Fahrenheit 451", education of the masses is believed to be the tyranny's foe -- and probably rightly so. Women are prohibited from reading, using pens or writing instruments, and basically live oppressed lives which mirror the slaves of America in the 18th and 19th centuries. They are stuffed religious propaganda -- in verse to be remembered, not read. One of the book's highlights is the growingly cynical Offred's twist on the Lord's Prayer at the end of Chapter 30. Connecting that commonly known prayer to the world in which she lives is priceless.
Like "1984" or any of the books which play on similar themes, there is rebellion - perhaps for adventure, perhaps to relieve boredom, perhaps just for rebellion itself. But, in such worlds of totalitarian rule, the consequences for discovery of such acts can be simple - a hanging with a white hood over your head and public display of your corpse limply and listlessly drooped from the heights of the city's "Wall."
I will not tell you the story, but will add that it is not as you might think. The last chapter fills in many of the openings, and leaves others open. But, all is done in fair play by the author to the reader. And, the different writing style of the last chapter explains the simple, short, and Hemingway-esque style used throughout the rest of the novel.
I have never read Atwood before and look forward to reading other novels she has authored. She is a great novelist -- in style of writing and in imagination of story.
Book Review: The Handmaid's Review
Summary: 4 Stars
Jason Thibault Book Review 12-17
The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood. In the book the Handmaids Tale the main
character is Offred. A Handmaid that lives in Gilead. Offred who was a
Handmaid had the Commander as her man. His wife who was a gospel singer is named
Serena Joy. While Offred was having her monthly cycle she was to have sex with
the Commander while his wife Serena sits behind her holding her hands. There
are rules that the Handmaids need to follow. They are restricted to do things
that every other woman who wasn't a Handmaid could do. She cant leave the house
for normal foods shopping trips. The Gilead police kept a close eye on where
she was at all times. While the story is going on she really puts a little more
interest into the story she flashes back when things remind her of certain
things.
During these flashbacks there is the new world and the old world. In the old
world she had a affair with Luke who was divorced and married Offred and had one
child. Architects in Gilead took over completely, the military assassinated
the president and his followers of Congress and said they were taking over.
This age was where the woman were abused and used for prostitution. The Congress
decided that its time to tighten the rules for woman and having them not being
able to work or and have property. While this was occurring Offred lost her
husband and daughter through the mess.
Life while being the servant of the Commander was a lot different but always
the same. It was the kind of life that kept things the same and in the routine.
She sometimes takes trips with Ofglen to get some food. When she finally gets
away from the routine to go the doctor but it wasn't a good checkup he wants to
have sex with Offred to get her pregnant, but Offred refuses to have it because
if she is caught she could be send away. Then the Commander demands his gardener
Nick to go and see her. When he sees her he keeps going to see her on a regular
basis.
Ofglen who is Offred's friend tells her that she is a member of the "Mayday" a
group of people or organization trying to overthrow Gilead. She tries to find
the Ceremony that is different now that she knows the Commander. Then she
really is unhappy and she expresses her feelings to the Commander and he gets
mad and makes remarks that aren't very nice. Offred and the Commander had been
trying to have a baby for quite a long time and she really doesn't know what
else to do so Serena the Commanders wife tells her to go and have sex with Nick
his gardener. So when she has a baby with him she can say it was the Commander
when it really wasn't.
The novel ends by Professor Piexoto explaining that Gilead. Then he explains
how important Offred story but no on really knows what went on in the escape if
Nick helped or not and where did she go.
The Handmaids tale was a book that was a very good but book. But however it was
a little confusing for the average reader. When she jumped back and forth with
her flashbacks it was hard to follow if that just happened or if it was really a
flash back. I suggest this to any reader that tries or does read it because it
was a book that put the reader in the character's shoes more then other books.
It showed how terrible it was to be a woman