The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library)
by Margaret Atwood
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Book Summary Information
Author: Margaret AtwoodEdition: 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
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