The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library) Summary and Reviews

The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library)
by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library)
List Price: $25.00
Our Price: $15.33
You Save: $9.67 (39%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $13.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Margaret Atwood
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-17
ISBN: 0307264602
Number of pages: 392
Publisher: Everyman's Library

Book Reviews of The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library)

Book Review: "There's a lot that doesn't bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last."
Summary: 4 Stars

As in other novels of dystopian hell-on-earth, Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood creates a society which bears enough resemblances to modern life that the reader is startled into paying attention to the dangerous direction in which Atwood believes we are moving. Set in Gilead in the mid-21st century, the novel is represented to be a collection of cassette tapes found in a footlocker in Bangor, Maine, and made by a handmaid known as Offred. The tapes' authenticity is being discussed in 2195 at a conference studying the former society of Gilead, which occupied land once known as the United States.

Offred had been an "ordinary" devoted wife and mother when she was arrested with her husband and daughter trying to escape a repressive new theocracy. Separated from her family, she now lives a subhuman life in a female community. All aspects of her life are controlled--her name, uniform, role in society, associates, chores, food, reading material, and even the places she may walk. Executions frequently take place, and walking past the wall on which bodies are displayed offers one of life's few diversions. Since the birthrate has plummeted as a result of pollution, radioactivity, and disease, she and the other handmaids are assigned to become mothers, their lives dependent on their wombs, not their brains. Already over thirty, Offred fears that she has little time left to fulfill her role and bear a healthy child--a quarter of the new babies are defective "shredder babies."

Atwood creates an exciting story as Offred's sense of rebellion gradually takes over. Though she has been able to keep herself going for some time through a forbidden affair with a workman, she finds herself living for the moment, unable to see any future. She can trust no one, but she knows that she cannot continue to live under the conditions in which she currently finds herself, especially if she fails to produce a healthy child. When she learns that there is secret group known as Mayday which runs a female underground railroad to sanctuary over the border to the north, Offred decides to take some chances, hoping to escape the sameness of her life.

As Atwood explores Offred's day-to-day existence, the ultra-conservative theocracy assumes ominous significance. Mind and body are totally controlled, and individuality has ceased to exist. Women are incubators, and even prayers are not original--they are churned out by computerized machines. Atwood's details of Offred's life are carefully chosen to illustrate her themes, and though the book is didactic (and it is no surprise that this is a popular novel for high school English classes), her sense of drama and her ability to create a sympathetic figure in Offred make this a fascinating read and obvious caution for the future. n Mary Whipple

The Blind Assassin
Oryx and Crake
Alias Grace: A Novel
Moral Disorder and Other Stories

Literary Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics) ImageIsland (Perennial Classics)
by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops: $14.99
Angels ImageAngels
by Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.21
Price in other shops: $24.95
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ImageA Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.82
Price in other shops: $23.99
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation ImageThe Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation
by Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops: $24.95
Boonville: A Novel ImageBoonville: A Novel
by Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $12.99
Caramelo ImageCaramelo
by Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: $39.95
Headhunter ImageHeadhunter
by Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The White ImageThe Crimson Petal And The White
by Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectations ImageGreat Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops: $12.10
This Side of Paradise ImageThis Side of Paradise
by Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops: $6.95
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Tempest ImageThe Tempest
by William Shakespeare
CreateSpace; Published: 2010-03-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.95
Price in other shops: $5.95
Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Studies in Jewish History) ImageBetween Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Studies in Jewish History)
by Marion A. Kaplan
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-06-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.35
Price in other shops: $19.99
A Week Like Any Other: Novellas and Stories ImageA Week Like Any Other: Novellas and Stories
by Natalya Baranskaya
Seal Press; Published: 1993-02-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.04
Price in other shops: $14.95
Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild ImageSisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild
by Deborah Siegel
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2007-06-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.58
Price in other shops: $14.95
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) ImageThis Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
by Tadeusz Borowski
Penguin Classics; Published: 1992-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops: $15.00
A Doll's House - Literary Touchstone Edition ImageA Doll's House - Literary Touchstone Edition
by Henrik Ibsen
Prestwick House, Inc.; Published: 2005-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.40
Price in other shops: $3.99
Nazi Seizure of Power (Social Studies: History of the World) ImageNazi Seizure of Power (Social Studies: History of the World)
by William Sheridan Allen
Franklin Watts; Published: 1984-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.00
Price in other shops: $19.95
The Left Hand of Darkness ImageThe Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ace Trade; Published: 2000-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops: $16.00
The Utopia Reader ImageThe Utopia Reader
NYU Press; Published: 1999-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.46
Price in other shops: $26.00
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters ImageElla Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
by Mark Dunn
Anchor; Published: 2002-09-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops: $14.95