It's different everytime (Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood)

Member Name: MI9to5

Product:	Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Date:	07/05/08 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Really makes you think

Disadvantages: Can be difficult to read

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. Gileadean's believe (or are supposed to believe) in the virtues proposed by the bible and women like Offred are seen as little more than vessels to carry children.
Offred is owned by the Commander and his wife Serena Joy and is living in their household for one reason; to give them a child. Offred is however haunted by the memory of her husband Luke and her daughter, both of whom she hasn't seen for a long time and whose whereabouts she knows nothing. Offred's old college friend is also a prominent figure in Offred's flashback and remains a pillar of strength for her when she joins the resistance movement in an attempt to rebel against the regime.
The novel also contains a romantic element in the form of the Guardian, Nick, who also works for the Commander. Serena Joy initially throws them together in the hope that Nick will help Offred to conceive a child. Their relationship however doesn't end here but the motives behind their continuing participation is unclear.
Even more unclear is the ending to the novel, which is never fully explained and is like most of the novel left open for interpretation. Furthermore the story is however in a jumbled order and seems to have no real structure. The Historical Notes at the end of the novel, which are a transcript of a talk on Gileadean studies, explain why this is so, in a way that turns the entire novel on its head and asks the reader to re-think what he/she thinks the story told is really about.

Is the novel merely the tale of a Handmaid's plight or is it a book determined to highlight the suppression of women?
On the other hand however is the novel merely trying to tell us that we cannot truly understand what we do not know?

Read it and draw your own conclusions and then re-read it and think again.

"As all historians know, the past is a great darkness filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day." - HANDMAID'S TALE

Summary: A book everyone should read at some point in their life