The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian narrrative that follows a Handmaid – a young woman who is essentially used as a womb by a couple who cannot have a child on their own – as she is forced to live by the rules in an oppressive society. For much of the book, the woman’s story is told in series of vignettes or journal entries that loosely flow together. The “Historical Notes” at the end clarify that the story is transcribed from tapes found many years later that were produced by this woman after she escaped from oppression. This helps to explain some of the slightly disjointed and disconnected feeling of the narrative. I also like that Atwood doesn’t feel the need to wrap everything up in a bow and leaves the reader to consider how some aspects of the story could evolve beyond the pages. I should also note that I have not watched the recent TV series, so this focuses only on the book, which I read many years ago. In recent years, with oppressive policies emerging around the world, The Handmaid’s Tale has taken on a frighteningly “real” quality.
What I liked about this story was the perspective of the woman we follow – the only name we are given in Offred, which I don’t really want to call her because it denotes her “ownership” by a Commander named Fred. She feels real to me in that she is nuanced and her emotions and actions are believable. It’s been about 3 years since she was torn from Luke, her lover, and her child. She is trying to figure out how to survive. She isn’t part of the “resistance” nor is she a “believer” in the new society – she is in limbo. She has learned that those with the power can be cruel, so she is afraid for herself, Luke and her child. She does not know what happened to Luke and, in the course of the story, she learns that her child has been placed with other parents. What struck me was that I could see myself behaving as she does – trying to understand what was going on and who to trust, while trying not to rock the boat when things are so uncertain. Much as I would like to see myself fighting the good fight (and hopefully I would do that), I am also a cautious person by nature. There is a quiet strength in this woman, as she figures out her next steps.
That said, I find some of her decisions questionable, particularly having a somewhat dangerous affair with the Commander’s chauffeur – it ends up being a good decision on her part (for more than just decent sex!) but it could have been disasterous. My immediate response was “please don’t let this fall into the trap of man/love will make everything OK”, which is where it seemed to be headed. Fortunately, it took a turn before going too far in that direction.
The story draws on some of the usual dystopian tropes of environmental contamination, fanatical beliefs (in this case fundamentalist beliefs that women should have no rights) and use of symbols and traditions (in this case Christianity) to promote the message. The subjugation of women is a major theme in this book. The removal of opportunities for women to live by independent means and the imposition of forced sex for the purposes of procreation is frightening. The scenario described was terrible and I certainly would not want to live through this. Of course, as an unmarried woman who is no longer of child-bearing age, I would be relegated to life as a servant.
Unlike George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, I didn’t feel like I had a clear or nuanced sense of the broader societal structure. However, because I felt connected to the character, the story was fascinating. In some ways, this book reminded me of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here in the sense that this seemed to happen almost overnight and with little resistance or opposition. Although at the time this sudden shift in values seemed implausible to me, it now seems all too possible. This book was written during the Reagan era, there are some obvious references to some very ’80s things, but the TV show and current context of American life have made it very relevant. I’m almost afraid to read it again.
