The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Handmaid's Tale
Book Review: "Give me children or else I die."
Summary: 4 Stars
Dystopian novels abound and one might think that The Handmaid's Tale is just another. Written in the tradition of 1984 and Brave New World, Margaret Atwood takes this genre to a new level.While many dystopian novels focus on a far distant future when the past is forgotten, Atwood's Tale focuses on the transition period, the primal generation. Offred, a "handmaid" in the Republic of Gilead (the former U. S.), remembers what it was like to hold a job, to earn money, to own property, even to read -- all of which have been denied in this "modern" society.
While the former society was imperfect, women were free, valued for the contributions they could make to society. Here they are not "free" -- they can't travel, gain eduction, etc -- but they are technically "free" from many of the former problems -- rape, sexual objectification, etc -- and valued now only for their ovaries.
Offred is a sympathetic heroine. The story is told in a style reminiscent of stream of consciousness, she is merely thinking her story to herself. The narrative is compelling and the themes are significant. Atwood's style is poetic without being sentimental. All in all, it is a worthy work.
Book Review: "I Sit, Hands Folded..."
Summary: 5 Stars
THE HANDMAID'S TALE is Margaret Atwood's cautionary future myth of the United States (aka the Republic of Gilead) having fallen under the total domination of the Religious Right. Atwood's novel is one of the most readable and effective entries in the antiutopian genre that includes classics like 1984, ANTHEM, WE, BRAVE NEW WORLD, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and THE IRON HEEL.
Atwood's Gilead is a society where most persons are sterile due to environmental toxins, and where women like "Offred" the narrator are used as Biblical handmaids, to bear children for the ruling elite.
There is a sterile white heat which envelops THE HANDMAID'S TALE throughout, an almost sibilant silence to the book. Society is patriarchical and rigidly hierarchical: Commanders wear black, Wives wear blue, "Marthas" (servant women) wear dowdy green, "Econowives" (non-elite spouses) wear cheap striped dresses, and Handmaids wear billowing red with white blinders, symbolic of the menses.
Handmaids are allowed out only to shop (the stores have pictures of foods, never worded labels), and little or no communication goes on between members of the household. This gives Offred extended periods to ruminate on her past life as a wife and mother in 20th century America, and to compare and contrast this new society with the old. Atwood has caught flack from certain quarters for idealizing our capitalist culture, but it certainly is freer than the world of Offred.
Even in this stultified society, undercurrents exist. The Commander begins to surreptitiously invite Offred into his study to play Scrabble, and sneaks her out to one of the few remaining "gentlemen's clubs"; he complains of his loveless marriage. The Wife promises to help find Offred's vanished daughter in exchange for favors. The Chauffeur, Nick, begins a love affair with Offred; and as the book progresses, Offred becomes aware of a shadowy Underground, "Mayday," designed to help women escape from Gilead. In the end, she leaves the Commander's house, but whether to live or die we never discover.
Strongly pro-feminist, democratic and egalitarian, THE HANDMAID'S TALE is a terrifying glimpse into a future of darkness, the penumbra of which is already touching most Americans' lives.
Book Review: "Mother...wherever you may be. You wanted a women's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn't what you meant, but it exists..."
Summary: 5 Stars
It's sometime in the not-so-distant future, and the United States of America no longer exists. What once was the U.S.A. is now the Republic of Gilead, a nation "under God" where the Constitution has been suspended and society is strictly controlled. Women have neither freedom, nor their own money, nor jobs. They are not allowed to read or write. They are objectified, labeled, separated into groups, color-coded for quick reference. There are the virtuous Wives of the Commanders, who wear blue; the Marthas, housemaids, dressed in green; and the Handmaids, in bright red, whose purpose is the most startling of all. In an age of declining birth rates and sterility, the Handmaids are valued solely for their ovaries, for their ability to bear children. Although they are consistently called "commodities" and the importance of their position is stressed to them again and again, the Handmaids are objectified to the extent that their real names are taken away from them; they are known only as possessions.
Thus, we meet Offred, the heroine of THE HANDMAID'S TALE. Offred remembers a time, not so long ago, when she had a husband, a daughter, a militant feminist for a mother. Now she doesn't even know where her family is; they could have made it across the border to Canada, or they could be dead; they could be in the Colonies--villages that glow with radioactive waste, where people are sent when they're too old to be useful or as punishment for past transgressions. Offred reflects on her past, lives in her memories, and dreads a future of utter despair. Each day begins with nothing to look forward to; each day ends in hopelessness, with a spirit that's a little bit more broken. Offred's story is a stream of consciousness, an account of the days as they pass and of long-ago days in a different world. And the tale this Handmaid has to tell is one of the most thought-provoking, horrifying accounts you'll ever read.
Here are just a few of the words I'd use to describe THE HANDMAID'S TALE, written by Margaret Atwood in the mid-eighties: startling; perceptive; mysterious; terrifying; eloquent; sorrowful; passionate; important; captivating; paranoid; and what is perhaps the most appropriate word of all...POSSIBLE. Just read the book, and then look at our world; I defy you not to see the similarities between the way we're living today and the time Atwood calls "Before," the years directly preceding the formation of the Republic of Gilead. These similarities--the obsession with female sexuality, the importance put upon worldly goods, religious and nuclear war, political unrest--are precisely what make this book so frightening. And Atwood wrote this book twenty years ago; we're closer and closer to this future every day. What if...?
THE HANDMAID'S TALE is utterly riveting and completely unputdownable. Atwood's details keep us relentlessly aware that she's talking about the United States in the future, with references to etchings in the wood of schoolroom desks and televangelists and the Appalachian Mountains. This sense of familiarity increases the gravity of Offred's situation; it's startling, an ominous reminder of what the world has become in the future of Atwood's novel. And at the same time, the novel is intentionally vague; we never really know exactly how the Republic of Gilead came into being; we're just given snippets of the past. This vagueness, the not knowing, makes the book even scarier.
The prose is descriptive and flowing, but Atwood doesn't waste her words; each sentence is heavy with Offred's desperation, with the weight of no hope. But Offred is not to be pitied; she's to be admired for her strength. She's an incredibly human character, one who didn't always do the right thing in her previous life (and doesn't always in her current one). The supporting characters are just as well-drawn and humanized. That's one of the greatest things about THE HANDMAID'S TALE, in my opinion: The government can change the name of the country, they can enforce strict rules and guidelines--but they can't change what it means to be intrinsically human.
The bottom line is this: Atwood is just an ingenious, literary writer. Take our heroine's name, for example, which so poignantly symbolizes duality, a major theme in the novel. Offred can be read as "Of Fred," signifying possession--but it can also be read as "Off Red" (read: off with the red dress), symbolizing freedom.
THE HANDMAID'S TALE would be a perfect read for a book club or a college classroom; there are lots of political, religious, social, and psychological issues to discuss. If nothing else, reading it will make you more appreciative of what you have. Usually stories about women's inferiority in society are antiquated; but in THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Margaret Atwood has given us a shocking portrait of what life could be like for "the fairer sex" in the future. And this future could, unfortunately, happen; I think after you read the book you'll agree. I'm giving THE HANDMAID'S TALE my highest recommendation; it's a definite must read and a book I'll never forget.
Book Review: "Nightmare world" painted by Margaret Atwood
Summary: 4 Stars
Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale is a dark and gloomy portrayal of the United States in the not-so-distant future, when a totalitarian government takes over all aspects of life. Atwood covers controversial issues including feminism, abortion, violence against women, pornography, environmental issues, bisexuality, ethics of cloning, racism, anti-feminism, militant nationalism, and religious differences.The governmental structure of Gilead, including its state religion, is horrifyingly built around one goal: the control of reproduction. Controlling women's bodies can succeed only by controlling the women themselves, so Gilead's political order requires the subjugation of women. They strip women of the right to vote, the right to hold property or jobs, and the right to read. Women are a "national resource," Gilead likes to say, but they really mean that women's ovaries and wombs are national resources. Women cease to be treated as individuals, with independent selves, rather, they are seen potential mothers, leasing them to high-class families.
Biblical terminology is revealed when Gilead theocracy develops its own words to give the state control over the sentiments and ideas people can express. The vocabulary makes you think and relate religious features to characters and places in the novel. The people of Gilead must carry on conversations within the suffocating confines of officially sanctioned language. Saying the wrong thing can lead to a swift death, so people watch what they say, thereby subordinating their power of speech to the power of the state.
The main character, Offred, is exposed to the consequences of the reversal of women's rights. She craves happiness and freedom from the lock down society she now has to bow down to. The consistency of her sadness is painful and the reader is reminded of her dreadful lifestyle when compared to her past memories of normalcy. To escape her struggles with the corrupt government, she attempts to run away but gets caught. Previous handmaids have committed suicide to end their misery or to avoid getting caught having an affair with another man.
Its scary to even think of this could actually happen in America but we can relate some events that could lead to this state ruling. The extremes in the novel are a little hard to believe but it makes women now relieved and thankful that this is not how life is. The female is too strong willed and not a pushover; I do not see in the near future anything like this happening.
Book Review: "It couldn't happen in the 20thcen!" Ha. This is Iran, kids
Summary: 5 Stars
The end had to be the way it was. Its ambiguity kept it from being cheesy (a 'happy' ending) or completely fatalistic/pessimistic (like Orwell did), and so avoided, albeit in a small way, a typical trap of utopic/dystopic literature: being all one way or the other. Its loose ends gave it the further distance of 'History', which always has loose ends. Of course, setting it in History gave the novel another dimension perhaps not completely warranted by the book, but did extend its overall quality of haziness, a limitation of view that echoes and furthers the theme of the narrator's own limited view. Which reminds me: this book should not be dismissed as boring. The pace was meant to be slow, sluggish, sleepy, in step with the narrator's own sluggish, always waiting life. The style reinforces her actual lifestyle (in beautiful language). Those bored with trying to understand Gilead from behind the high wings of a bonnet should take steps that this life never happens to them. (Orwell hated the control of humans by opressive governmental use of technology, Atwood the control of humans by oppressive governmental use of theocratic views of gender (generalization). Both showed the dangers of their respective anathemi (?) in their works. One cannot dismiss either of their concerns, for each is a legitimate (and extreme) danger. Neither book can really replace the other.)
I was especially struck by the cultural/historial relativism's dismissal of the suffering in Gilead (in the His. Notes); it makes one a bit more wary towards the postmodern view.