The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Handmaid's Tale
Book Review: A Feminist Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
This is definitely among the best books I have ever read. Similar to Orwell's 1984, this book's dystopian future is frighteningly realistic, and certainly plausible. Many (if not most) of the characters are sympathetic (though, perhaps, not at first), and among other things, a message of the novel is "Don't judge a book by its cover." And [best of all], unlike 1984, the book does not devote itself to the dogma of any particular system (like 1984 does with Communism), but instead allows Atwood's intent to be seen through the actual plot and the revelation thereof. If you liked 1984 at all, you will certainly enjoy The Handmaid's Tale.Book Review: A Feminist's Deepest Fears
Summary: 4 Stars
From time to time, an author may wish to hold her society up to a crooked mirror to present an image of what may go wrong should that current trend of wrongs and ills continue unabated. In THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Margaret Atwood wrote of the fears that were then wracking her pro-feminist worldview. In 1986, when Atwood was writing this book, she feared greatly what she saw as an onslaught on human rights in general and feminine rights in particular from a Ronald Reagan led attack by the Christian Right. Atwood saw Reagan as the vanguard of an attack, which included bible thumping televangelists, all of whom wanted to keep women gainfully unemployed, barefoot, pregnant, illiterate, and dependent on men for the bare necessities of life. Atwood chose to write of her alarm in the time honored tradition of the dystopia, a form of literature that presents humanity as de-evolving into unthinking brutes. George Orwell, in 1984, wrote of the crushing of the human spirit under Stalinism. Ray Bradbury, in FAHRENHEIT 451, wrote of a similar crushing of the intellect by a mind numbing pursuit of effete pleasures. And in THE HANDMAID'S TALE, Atwood was alarmed primarily by the loss of the right of a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion.
The narrator is a mid-thirties woman named Offred, not her real name. She "belongs" to her male captor, Fred. Thus she is "of" Fred. We never learn her former name. What the reader does learn is that sometime around the end of the twentieth century, the forces of the radical right merged with those of the Christian Coalition to usurp political power in the United States. The President is assassinated. Most United States Senators and Congressmen are eliminated and a theocracy is brutally instituted. The Bill of Rights is "temporarily" suspended, and a perverted Christian thuggery takes over. It is with no small amount of prescience that the new regime seems to have been a model that the Iranian Mullahs might have read as they were crunching on women's rights at about the same time. Women in the new America are forbidden to work or to have money. Clearly Atwood has read carefully her Orwell, since both writers share many of the same plot devices. Orwell has the Thought Police; Atwood the Eyes. Orwell provides flashbacks how Big Brother came to be: Atwood similarly unfolds the origin of the theocracy of Gilead. And both present humanity at the lowest common denominator-as worthy only of being a face stamped on forever by a boot. However, Atwood's nihilistic vision of a dark humanity is leavened slightly by her subtly suggesting that such a religious rot is only a local phenomenon, limited to the new Republic of Gilead. Other countries, like Canada, seem to have been spared the ubiquitous lashing of the rod by a host of Jimmy Swaggart types. What becomes clear by the novel's end is that the fear of an anti-feminist rogue regime is more feminist paranoia than even a remotely possible dystopia. The feeling that one has after finishing Atwood's polemic is one of amazement that there must have been so many women-hating, bible thumping thugs in positions of power who were awaiting the first chance to turn the United States of America into a copycat regime that now controls the lives of women in nearly every country of the Mid East. As such, THE HANDMAID'S TALE can now be read for its tremendous drama rather than for its original mission to spread the alarm of the end of feminism.
Book Review: A Feminist's Warning
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book. I thought that it was insightful and relevant. One might read this book and say, "Wow, this was an interesting fiction." I would disagree with this thought. I see this book more as a biting satire. It might sound absurd at first to think that the United States could become the Republic of Gilead where women have fewer rights than the children and their roles have been diminished to one such as a modern day concubine but this book puts light on a certain reality: governments and roles of people change. Not only did I love the message of this book but I loved the way in which Atwood conveyed it. She wrote her novel in first person and followed up with "historical notes" that made the whole situation more real. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about the future roles of women and men a like. However, I see a woman president before she is degraded to a "martha" or a "handmaid".Book Review: A Frightening Yet Unlikely Future....
Summary: 3 Stars
I had to read this book this summer for my advanced english class next year, and wasn't sure what to expect. I'm not a fan of Maragaret Atwood's writing style in this book, it doesn't fill in enough holes and the endings to some things leave you wanting a taste for more...which I guess is good writing but annoying anyways.The story is about a future life in which religion has taken over. All of lifes luxeries are taken away for the most part, especially for women. The narrarator of this story tells you about 3 different aspects of her life: Her past, including her childhood and her married life before the change... The time spent in a training type camp as she was groomed to be a Handmaiden... AND The current moving storyline...her present life. Basically she is enlisted as a Handmaiden, a woman that sleeps with an old powerful guy, in hopes she'll have his child as his wife is too old. She has a few chances to produce a child before she'll be killed. Her life is very restricted...no reading, writing, speaking freely, nothing that we have today would be hers really. ANyway she starts experiencing some luxeries...the old man she has to sleep for falls for her and starts giving her things, and taking her out. The wife of the old guy devises a plan with her to help her with the baby situation. Her shopping partner is an underground source. She even has a free affair with another man. Basically the story tells you about how the world changed from before, what the training for this life was like, and how horrible it is to live like this.
If you are interested in taking a whole new look at that magnificent future you have planned out for you, read this book...however the ending left me most unsatisfied, and I wish more loose ends were tied up! I guess Atwood wants you to choose the final fate of Offred...oh yes I've figured out her actual name, it's June...there are 5 characters listed in the beginning and the only one not mentioned again as another person is "June". Enjoy!
Book Review: A Future All To Close...
Summary: 5 Stars
i may not be a graceful reviewer, but if you somehow stumble on this book the way i did...you will love it and want more. I love how strange this world was and how corrupt. Society and life has been altered...You feel like its the past only to discover that was our country in the future...
LIKE CHILDREN OF MEN!