The Handmaid’s tale By: Margaret Atwood

Time spent reading: : 12 Hrs.

I read an article about the popularity of the show which is bases on the novel. I was reluctant at first to start reading the book after I saw a promo shot of the show where the lead had a bruised eye. I can never stand physical abuse of the weak and hence first decided to read the book and see how it was going before I jumped into the series.

The Handmaid's Tale won the 1985 Governor General's Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987; it was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award

Short Summary

The story takes place in a dystopian future set in New England USA. We enter a world that is in chaos, as is the beginning of many from the dystopian novels genre. The story begins with the introduction of the primary character ‘Offered’, a name given to her in this screwed up world by the people who now run the city which they have named ‘Gilead’.

The people who run the place now, call themselves “Sons of Jacob”, they are a bastardised version of the followers of the old testament and a military dictator ship. They first cunningly eliminated the President of the United States and then in a bold and cold blooded move kill everyone in the congress. First the constitution is eliminated, then severe restrictions are places on the movement of people across the border of the city and then within the city itself, religious minorities are targeted and systematically marginalized. The worse fate though is reserved for the women, they are stopped from reading, writing, owning property, handling money or have any control over what happens to their bodies.

The world is in a bad state due to nuclear radiation and pollution, the population of the world is slowly thinning down. All fertile women who are not already honorably married to any one the in the military service are assigned the job of barring children and repopulating the earth. These women: called Hand maids are trained, brainwashed and tortured to be vessels of giving birth to new life, each of them is assigned to a general of high ranking in the military and passed around from one household to other after a certain amount of time even if they manage to get pregnant and carry the baby to term. The baby is kept with the family of the general and the Handmaid is then passed on to her new assignment in a new house with a new general.

Offred is on her third assignment and takes us through the routine, slow and difficult life of a Hand maid. All Hand maids are assigned certain duties like shopping for the household which they promptly do almost daily, each Handmaid is assigned a partner, they accompany each other hopefully to act as as spies of each other. After a few weeks on one their routine walks doing their chores Offred’s partner tell her about her being a part an underground network working on overthrowing the current regime. In a heavily policed environment, it is very difficult to do something like that. The story end on a cliff hanger when Offred is carried out of her current General’s house, under arrest without any cause given, just as they are about to take her out they utter to her the secret password of the revolutionary group but Offred is not sure of their identity or her future and the audience is left in suspense.

My Review

The story is written in the first person point of view and moves in a linear timeline with some flash backs. The times are not hard to follow, though I needed to turn the pages back and forth on a few occasion to get the hang of a few things. The book was written in the 80’s when the writer was concerned about the future of the world based on what was happening in the US political circle then, headed by the religious right who were taking about what they would do to women if they took power. The story is a satirical view of the various religious trend in the US at that time.

The writing is easy to follow; you will not need to sit with a dictionary to follow the language. I however found the description of the places, for example, the town square, the kitchen, the hospital not detailed enough, there is a lot left to the imagination of the people and sometimes you are left wondering what the place actually looks like, is the downtown area the same? How has the radiation and the other stuff effected the buildings, there is however a brief mention of what it has done to the fish population and the agriculture industry. Then again may be I missed the point, may be the details were not meant to be wasted on trial things like location. Let me know in the comments section what you feel about it. The characters however are described in detail and each one has a rich back story.

The writing is simple and the writer does a wonderful job of keeping the reader on their toes throughout the story, suspense rather than violence is the central theme of the story. There are underlying themes of friendship, loyalty, bravery of all kind (one which require action and one which requires in action) and romance. As explained earlier the story ends on a cliff hanger and I do not want to be a bad sport and spoil it for you. I have not watched the TV series so will not comment on that, but the book is definitely worth the read.

My Take

To a reader of today it is hard to image the world described in the novel as a dystopian future. When we know for a fact that there is nothing written in this book that has not happened or is happening to a woman somewhere, even in the modern world. While reading the book, it got me thinking about why is it that woman is always subjected to regulations about their bodies.

The clothes that the women have to wear in this novel is also nothing new to the reader of today, anyone who has seen the images of women living under the rule of the Taliban can relate to the story very well. Today when I read about some of the awful regulations being passed in the U.S about the radical anti-abortion law, I wonder what gives them the right to talk about the Taliban like they so often do. Please let me know your though in the comments sections below