Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Story I remember reading this book at the very start of my A-level in English Literature. When we first approached the book, we were told to buy it, bring it into school but not read it. To be honest, none of us really knew what a 'handmaid' was. So we came in, 20 odd students, & sat there wondering how the lesson would go, when we knew nothing of the story yet. The book starts out with a biblical reference, a quote & a proverb. I suppose this is meant to give you a vague idea of what the story is about, but for me I still felt pretty clueless. We read the very first chapter, of the first section, entitled 'Night'. It gave away little about the story ...  Read the complete review

"And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die." The first paragraph of Genesis, 30:1-3 and how Atwood, begins her most famous of books, The Handmaid's Tale. Booker Prize nominated and winner of both the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction and the Governor's Generals Award, hardly high profile awards but The Handmaid's Tale has gone on to be a set text in many A level syllabus and was of all the "great" books that I haven't read, the most recommended to me. The quotation from Genesis, sums the book up - in a futuristic landscape, ...  Read the complete review

Imagine a world where women are allowed no possessions or no money of their own. Where their name is taken from them and, instead, they are known only as a possession of the man whose child they are to bear. Some men living in the Dark Ages may find this quite a good idea, but I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that as a woman I would find this situation unbearable. Yet this is the world that we are introduced to in ‘The Handmaids Tale’. The story is told through the eyes of Offred – we do not know her given name, only the name of her master (of Fred). Offred is a national resource – in the time when women had rights ...  Read the complete review

One thing I have to say about this novel is that it's hard to get into. The story sets out a future America (or part of America at least), called Gilead, in which a complete return to 'traditional values' has taken place - i.e. women have been reduced either to breeding machines or housekeepers, and men dominate. Initially, a military coup takes place in which the government is assassinated; then the new rulers move to destroy all women's independence (and many men's too in fact) by sacking them from their jobs, removing their savings, and then dividing them into groups - those who are fertile and those who aren't. This is in an effort to ...  Read the complete review

The Handmaid's Tale is a book that is often seen as merely a feminist novel in which the author describes female subjugation and the main characters struggle to survive. However it is more than that; it is a book that challenges society and the society of the future that we are creating and asks us to think about how the choices we make and the ideas we have today will affect the lives we and others lead tomorrow. The novel tells the story of Offred, a Handmaid, who lives in a society named Gilead. Before Gilead was formed the birth rate was falling dramatically and so somehow (we never find out how) Gilead was implemented to try and rectory this problem. ...  Read the complete review