The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
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Book Reviews of The Handmaid's Tale
Book Review: Open a Swiss Bank Account, Now!
Summary: 5 Stars
Margaret Atwood's stunning novel The Handmaid's Tale is one of the best modern dystopian novels written in the last few decades.
Since the year 1984 passed us by with very few Orwellian repressions to note, misanthropes like myself have needed to find new repressions to fear. Atwood's seminal novel The Handmaid's Tale fits this bill nicely. Though there is a frame story of an academic paper set several hundred years in the future, the preponderance of the books takes place in the near future, in a time when an epidemic, which may have been a natural plague or a biological weapon gotten out of control, has caused mass infertility in the U.S. A repressive conservative religious regime has taken control of the government and, with one stroke of a keyboard, abrogated women's property rights. The few fertile women who are left (or, perhaps, the wives of the few fertile men who were left) are declared a natural resource and appropriated to bear children for the wealthy. These fertile women are called Handmaids, after the Biblical story (Genesis) of the infertile Sarah, when she allowed her husband Abraham to take her handmaid Hagar to bear him a son.
Offred, a Handmaid whose name means "Of Fred," meaning that she is an indentured surrogate to bear Fred a child, is the central character and first-person narrator. Offred's narration and observations are clear and, in places, funny, though her situation is as desperate as the women of Afghanistan's used to be.
The Handmaid's Tale is a beautifully written narrative of a horrendous, possible future reality. The part that scared me the most was not even the Christian conservative government but the ease with which women's property rights were stripped away with a few keystrokes. We depend on the electronic manipulation of data for our whole lives, from our ATM and credit cards to get money out of a bank to our deeds that are registered in the computers of our local governments to ordering a book off of Amazon. While this book was frightening in the nineties, when I first read it, it's bloody terrifying now. It makes me want to get a Swiss bank account, stuff money in my mattress, and live "off the grid" to avoid Offred's fate.
As a note added in proof of how much people enjoy this book: I have bought 5 copies in my life. Every time I loan it out, the person keeps it and won't give the darn thing back.
TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel
Book Review: Living within the Embryo of a Dystopia
Summary: 5 Stars
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale knows no boundaries taking the suppression of woman as sex slaves to the extremity of reproductive Handmaids. Dictated by the totalitarian Republic of Gilead, Atwood's Ofglen restricts the readers to sympathize with her struggles and concerns with reoccurring flashbacks to her lost identity amidst the constant turmoil of her role as Handmaid. Her internal conflicts dealing with her resignation within the dystopia is further enhanced by her willpower and determination to escape.
Masterfully plotted, symbolically insinuated, The Handmaid's Tale evokes a sense of hope and liberation through the drastic turn of events by juxtaposing the confines to which Ofglen is valued based on the functionality of her uterus. Through constrained and controlled diction, Atwood forces the readers to experience Ofglen's perspective limiting them to seeing the Republic in a disjointed narrative. Provoking senses of regret, lust, and longing, Atwood stresses the depressing and heartbreaking position in which Ofglen is condemned to. Love is forbidden to her, simple pleasures are refused to her, and all she can do is wait, wait for her impregnation by a man she doesn't even love nor care for. Ofglen is truly a tragic character, yet her resigned attitude in the beginning makes the conclusion even more riveting and climatic. Leaving her fate as ambiguous stresses Ofglen's escape of a past she has no place in and Ofglen's embrace of a future she is unconsciously willing to pursue. Eliciting finality, Atwood's emphasizes Ofglen's willingness to accept her fate of a new beginning or end. She knows no fear but rather clenches onto hope as she is carried off in the black van.
Inciting rage, frustration, sympathy, and relief, Atwood's Handmaid's Tale monumentally constructs a thought-provoking account that is both intriguing and all-too realistic. Her syntax blossoms the barren and fruitful emotions that consumes Ofglen; in addition to the constant strife of self-identity. Throughout the novel, Atwood builds upon the multi-faceted persona of Ofglen, unfolding her identity bit by bit. This novel both mentally and psychologically stimulates the readers to feel for Ofglen and her subservient role.
The Handmaid's tale brilliantly encapsulates an array of emotional turmoil, leaving an aftertaste of satisfaction and completion in the conclusion. This book displays the true ingenuity of Atwood and her stylistically engaging syntax, allowing the plot to bloom into a novel of hope and acceptance; truly an embryonic gem within a dystopia collection.
Book Review: Chilling morality tale
Summary: 5 Stars
I could probably make a case for the implausibility of the concept that the book puts forward, but only if I got specific, the situation where people (men or women) are used as merely property and not allowed to have any rights of their own still happens all over the world, whether you like it or not. Ms. Atwood is too smart to try and predict what the future might bring, instead she merely illustrates what happens when you stop regarding people as people, when rights of a few take precedence over the rights of everyone else (for the sake of expediency, alas). In this wacky world, women aren't allowed to read or write due to an ultra-Christian (?) (they quote from the Bible) takeover of the country. Women are divided into Aunts, Marthas, Wives and of course the Handmaiden's, who exist to have children and are given to various Commanders to try and make kids. The novel concerns itself with the story of Offred (Of Fred) and it flips back and forth between her life before the takeover, during her education in those dark days before the present time and her current life as a Handmaiden. Atwood protrays all of this in very poetic language, the words she chooses are sometimes breaktaking, but mostly it's in the images she puts forward and in the general aura that the novel is given. There's a sense of inevitable helplessness, Offred isn't going to change the world by herself and the world isn't going to change in the next day, she realizes that and still wants to fight but isn't sure how. The flashbacks are all rendered quite nicely, and given the right sense of eerie timelessness. The story is never given a date so it could happen anytime but the point illustrated is more important than the details. Some might find her a bit too immersed in the concept, the story tends to float blissfully along but she never gets preachy and even though has the country taken over by an orthodox Christian group, she's not bashing Christainity, just about any religion has buried in it somewhere the same primitive attitudes about women. But for me, it's about more than women, it's about people and what happens when all of a sudden people are property, how it dehumanizes everyone, even as you try to remain as human as you can. A fine story, with the people brought vividly to life, warts and all, and one gives one pause to think. Also, don't skip the historical section in the back, it's a bit wordy and academic and doesn't really explain the cliffhanger ending any better, but gives a better glimpse in everything. All it takes is a little perspective, I guess.Book Review: Excellent!!! Just Finished It!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The after events of a new world order.
A military police state... from the eyes of a women who has forseen it - the author... and the women who will see it all - the main character. who does not get named...
The hand maids tale written at least 20 years ago talks about martial law; the blending of the US into a united continent; Road blocks; a police state; and the plans for the illuminati to take over america.
Not being an american myself; yet aware of illumianism and its goals. It was shocking to see from page 182 the lines
"Pieces of paper, thickish, greasy to the touch, green colored, with pictures on each side, some old man in a wig and on the other side a pyramid with an eye above it"
Further it talks about machine gunning the president and the destruction or terrorist bombing of congress.
Blaming it all on islamic terrorists... sounds familar hmm like 9 11????
It talks about a cashless society; martial law and a women who has hopes and dreams of her own... to find her friends like moira; to find her lover and husband luke; her daughter; her family.
Characters such as the eyes... hmm sounds like the illuminati; and what of the angels etc...
What blew my mind was that the other army that the author talks about appears to me to be the UN army. The global army that icke talks about???
In the end; without spoling it; nick gets a car with the logo of them (we all know who we are talking about); they eyes to come and get her.
Does this mean that he loved her and wanted to save her.
Was he a member of the eyes???
Apart of mayday perhaps???
That he was secretly in on the whole thing - A Tripple illuminatus agent like out of one of wilsons books???
All of these are discussed in the end.
Maybe its a metaphor for the illuminati having insiders that go against the status quo. So many levels of thinking...
And what of the commander???
Like Huxleys Brave New World; and Orwells 1984 this book stands the test of time... i just hope it does not come true.
From the begining to end i could not put this book down; although it took a couple of sits and weeks to read.
In amoungst my life.
The ending of a relationship.
This book goes as a memory to my recent ex-girlfriend of this time. Tanya... i will look at this post in a few years and smile fond memmories. Until then...
Daniel
GET THIS BOOK!!!!!
Book Review: A Woman's Dystopia
Summary: 5 Stars
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a riveting book that takes place in the future. But for women, this future is anything but happy. The U.S. Congress has been murdered and a new government, the Republic of Gilead is in power. Women are property of their husbands or male kin; they no longer work or have money. In society they are either a Handmaid, Martha, or Wife. The story focuses on a woman named Offred who is a Handmaid. She is in the household of a Commander simply to produce a child. Offred dreams of how things used to be and of escaping the totalitarian and patriarchal society.
Atwood brings her characters to life through her resonant voice. She creates simple and natural conflict between the women of the society-especially between Offred and her Commander's Wife, Serena. Atwood illustrates the animosity between the two beautifully. "She didn't step aside to let me in, she just stood there in the doorway, blocking the entrance. She wanted me to feel that I could not come into the house unless she said so." (chapter 3; pg. 13) Serena symbolizes every Wife in this story. The Wives must let the Handmaids come into their home and have sex with their husbands for the sake of society. That conflict between women makes the story seem like Gilead could actually exist.
Atwood also does an amazing job setting up Gilead and Offred's surroundings. She plants the smallest details within the story to make Gilead come alive. "There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that's the law." (Chapter 11; pg. 61) Atwood has little details like this that further promotes the idea of Gilead's strict patriarchal society. Women are to be blamed for everything and men shall be blameless. Another one is "You wanted a woman's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn't what you meant, but it exists." (Chapter 21; pg. 127) Atwood has also placed a small part of women's culture within the men's but it has been perverted from women of free will to women under the control of men.
The way that Atwood has taken parts of the modern world-feminism, mistresses, etc-and used it to form a dystopia is part of what makes the story of Offred repulsive yet I couldn't seem to put the book down. I simply loved the book. Through Atwood's narrative as Offred, I could see everything as if I were watching a movie. The ending was symbolic and fitting for Offred-it won't disappoint. I highly recommend The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.