The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
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Book Reviews of The Handmaid's Tale
Book Review: The Handmaid's Tale: An exquisite book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Experiencing a world that people can only imagine was a feeling brought forth when experiencing this fine novel. Set in a new world called Gilead (once the US), Margaret Atwood portrays a society run by men, with women as subservient creatures. This novel is a fictional journal of a girl named Offred (pronounced Of-Fred). Offred is a handmaid in Gilead who becomes an unhuman figure of her Commander, Fred. This novel brings insight into what a world would be like if ran by men and left in the hands of men. Most people, including myself, would consider this novel a feminist novel, although, Margaret Atwood contributes numerous other style elements. Incorporated into this novel includes themes of self-knowledge and a presence of gothic imagery of the way the government controls womens lives. In this new society there are classes of women. No longer are women equal. They are divided into the Handmaid's, there purpose is only to create new humans; Martha's, the maid's of the houses; Aunt's, teachers and in charge of Handmaid's; and Wives, they are married to the Commander's and basically sit at home doing nothing. The men also have ranks, yet all of them over-power the women. In this novel, every page thats read wants you wanting more and I can turthfully say that whoever reads this will not want to put the book down. The reader will experience the day to day life of the main character Offred. It's as if you are really there experiencing it. The vivid descriptions of the house she lives in and the way she describes the city paints numerous pictures in the readers mind. In this novel, you will experience different characters, such as Nick, Ofglen, The Wife, and The Commander, which are emanate objects in Offred's life. The descriptions of these characters are wonderfully written. Motifs of flowers and nature make the reader feel comfortable and at home, while the motifs of dark colors and wilting flowers makes the book even more intense, if thats even possible. I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a good reading and likes such books as "Brave New World" or "1984" or even if they enjoy books that show courageous women struggling to live in a twisted world. It is said that Margaret Atwood wrote this book to convey a satirical message of a subservient world where women do not have the right to read, write, vote, hold jobs, or do anything thats commen in our world today. Some might say that this book is patterned after a Puritan world. Although the women have no place but in the home in this novel, they are protected from such evils and the secular world that once was, since anything secular was demolished. A perfect world is what the men in Gilead had hoped to create, did they succeed? Did Offred gain her freedom? Well, i guess you'll just have to read "The Handmaid's Tale" to find out. Happy reading!Book Review: A Prescient Vision of the Near-Future
Summary: 5 Stars
I highly recommend this book to everyone out there in the ether. Read it closely-- this is what happens when the religious right wins. I am amazed that Atwood was able to see our future so clearly when she wrote this book in the early 1980s.
In "The Handmaid's Tale," the Bible Thumpers have overtaken our government, demolished the church-state barrier, and installed their own vile brand of theocratic fascism in the Republic of Gilead. (Take note: they rise to power by citing a constant threat of unnamed terrorists, necessitating police state measures.)
In Gilead, everyone is segregated into a strict caste hierarchy. Men may be the Commanders, who are in charge, the Eyes, who are the agents of the Panopticon who whisk away any deviants, the Angels who wage the faraway wars, etc. Women's options are more strictly delimited: they may be the Wives of the Commanders, Econowives of the lower ranks, the Aunts who dominate and control women of the lower ranks, the Marthas who do menial household chores, the prostitute Jezebels, and the Maids like the narrator Offred.
As a Maid, Offred's sole purpose in life is to breed with her Commander. The manner in which Commander Fred attempts to "fertilize" Offred simply must be read to be believed. Interestingly, the Gileadans cite Biblical precedent to support this bizarre method of surrogate conception. Maids are terminated if they prove unable to conceive.
Since Offred's life options are so severely restricted, most of the novel takes place in her head. She reminisces about the time before, when she was able to marry, own property, and have her own children, the gradual increase in restrictions, and her failed attempt at escape. The novel is crushing in its illustration of a life thwarted, stunted, and defeated, and a woman made into an empty childbearing vessel. Reading the book, I was reminded of prison memoirs-- Offred has no chance of an external life, and is trapped in a life of solitude and regret.
Some people might say that such a future is unthinkable in our democratic society. I would recommend that you speak to any member of the extreme evangelical ministries, which view Jefferson's separation of church and state as a lie and an illusion to be abolished, and believe in the literal, inerrant truth of the Bible. I would also recommend that you read V.S. Naipaul's "Among the Believers," concerning the Islamic revolutions in Iran and Pakistan. Gilead's corporal punishments for heresy, dismantling of all democratic institutions like the press, and mandatory "Prayvaganzas" closely track what happened in Iran after the Ayatollahs overthrew the Shah.
I would place this excellent book on par with "1984" and "Brave New World." "The Handmaid's Tale" is necessary reading in this day and age.
Book Review: Disturbing Dystopia--my favorite Atwood novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Margaret Atwood creates a chilling society, one that is clearly dying and trying to return to fundamentals in order to survive. But as George Land points out in "Grow or Die", it isn't possible to return down the tree trunk to our roots; we grow and change or we die. The yearning to return to fundamentals is always a sign that society must change or perish.
The fictional regime of Gilead has no balm; the laws are based on a psychotic, Hitlerian interpretation of the Bible; women who were once divorced and remarried are "adulterous" and thus fit only to serve as handmaids to the ruling class, who by and large are infertile because of an ecological disaster. The handmaids are to bear children on the knees of the true wives, as Bilhah did for Rachel in Genesis. Since male infertility is not doctrinal, the handmaids must reproduce or die; after three chances they are reassigned to toxic waste cleanup dumps, where they die of poisoning. The Handmaids don't even have names; they take the name from their master and it changes as they are transferred from house to house; thus their very identity is killed. Nuns, intellectuals,unmarried, lesbians, career women are assigned to state bordellos in what were once luxury high rise hotels and now resemble sinister Playboy Clubs.
The cleverness of the book is in Atwood's creation of almost commonplace marketing-like terms for some of the nightmare activities in Gilead; Particicution for an updated version of stoning a political prisoner to death; Prayvaganzas for mass rallys and indoctrinations.
Offred, the Handmaid of the tale, has been somewhat unsuccessfully brainwashed by the regime and is on her last chance to produce some offspring for Fred, who is a highly placed official in Gilead and his wife, a former television singer. Fred, who is a slick villain, wants something more personal than the ritualized monthly shagging-as-religious-rite (with the wife holding the Handmaid.) He tries to strike up some kind of relationship, with Offred, whose real name we never learn. He woos her with hand cream (forbidden), magazines (forbidden) and games of scrabble. He clumsily tries to cajole her along--totally oblivious to the rage and pain of a woman who's husband was presumably killed and who's daughter was taken away and given to a "deserving" family. The wife toys with Offred too; she wants the status of a child and plies her with cigarettes, a picture of her daughter and a illicit plan to have Offred conceive. If it fails, Offred will hang. It could also be her ticket out of the nightmare.
This is a gripping tale, well written with no excess words. It has the spareness of a journal with an almost fable-like quality. It's also fun to read this book and Tepper's Gate to Women's Country for an interesting comparison.
Book Review: Deep, thought provoking, scary
Summary: 5 Stars
The Handmaid's Tale presents an all too morbid future where gender roles are clearly defined with women restricted to menial labor, devoid of freedom, intelligence, and equality. The idea in itself was powerful and made me think for nights on end. This book is essential, absolutely essential for gaining respect for freedom, democracy, and equality.
Advocating feminism, I do not think Margaret Atwood could have done a better job in revealing the endless depression and utter embarrassment that would result in a sexist society. Atwood's approach in presenting the atrocities is absolutely brilliant. I read in complete awe as Atwood described restrictions on objects that I could never have dreamed of. The piece is just so clever in setting up tone. Atwood thinks of every situation that would maximize embarrassment and further degrade her characters. Her words, tone, even syntax helped to convey the truly dismal atmosphere. The stories, events, and character struck cords in my heart and I truly felt the pain and sorrow of the characters.
There were many devices she used that I thought were completely brilliant. In her fictional dystopian community, Gilead, Atwood provides sexists their utopia. Women are chained to their menial labor and surrender their bodies to them at the will of the men. By creating what sexists really want in a society, Atwood cleverly highlights the countless flaws in this supposedly utopian society. What was also brilliant was her use of biblical allusions. Each allusion was well thought of and held significance in furthering the book's theme. From the name of the city, Gilead, itself to the names of certain handmaids, allusions were ubiquitous.
This novel is beautifully written. Atwood's fictional world is so well described that it seemed eerily real. Her characters were all very well developed and very interesting. Her protagonist was believable and readers instantly share a connection. The imagery found in this novel is also frighteningly vivid. As I was reading this novel, I could not help but notice that I felt as if I were in a bad nightmare. The style and tone was lively and just a joy to read.
This novel was deep and was worth every second of my time. Its clear descriptions of the mistreatment of human life mimicked stories of people under the mercy of Hitler or other powerful dictators. This book advocated not only for an end to sexism, but a call for virtues. The Handmaid's Tale serves as a constant reminder for what we must fight for: freedom, liberty, and equality. Her fictional government really scared me and left me very thankful for the present condition of the world.
Bold, horrifying, and very insightful, the Handmaid's Tale is a first rate novel that I would not only recommend, but insist others to read.
Book Review: Beautifully-written, chilling tale of a dystopian future
Summary: 5 Stars
Years ago, when "The Handmaid's Tale" first hit the shelves, I was drawn to the painting on the cover. It depicts two women, dressed in long flowing red robes, wearing white headdresses, carrying baskets in front of an unnaturally tall curved brick wall. There is a patch of blue sky that can be seen over the top of the wall. You perceive the wall as a barrier, that the women are somehow cut off from the world. Before I knew anything about the book, I assumed it was an historical novel, something from the Middle Ages.
I wasn't too far off.
Margaret Atwood conjures a future society, but many elements of her society can be seen in fundamentalist cultures right here, right now.
And unlike most science fiction, her story is not about the fruits of technology, but rather the sociological and personal implications of technology's impact.
Much has been said about the political sensibilities of the book, but I would like to praise its exposition. We are introduced to a new America (now called Gilead) by the first-person account of the narrator, Offred. Her birth name has been taken from her. Offred means "Of Fred" making her identity literally that of a possessed object. She weaves her thoughts about her present-day predicament with observations of her daily routine and a history of her personal life and the transition from the USA to Gilead. Her view of the world is necessarily limited by her lack of access to information, but after a while you realize that her detached description of her environment is also a survival mechanism. For our heroine to even articulate her position to herself puts her life in danger. As is true in all dystopias, it is frightening to wake up.
In another writer's hands, this futureworld could be a strident polemic. Ms. Atwood makes this book so engrossing by letting her narrator reveal herself and her world in her own time, by making the personal political.
Without giving too much away, this is a story about technology and control run amuck. The future is a world where technology, pollution and personal freedom have created new survival choices for society, and society has chosen badly.
Ms. Atwood says that her book points out what would happen if certain ways of thinking were taken to their logical extreme. As Offred's instructor says, "the Old World protected `freedom to'. We protect `freedom from'. Is her story relevant? With Americans guzzling gasoline in behemoth SUVs faster than Detroit can make them, and fundamentalists controlling large parts of our political and communication machinery, do you have to ask?
The Handmaid's Tale is an engrossing, chilling, and well-written story from beginning to end.