What do women REALLY want?? Well not this, that's for sure (Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood)

Member Name: deedles

Product:	Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Date:	13/05/03 (228 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very powerful, vivid vision of the future of our society, will really make you think about the way we live

Disadvantages: hard to get into

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 improve the desperately low birth rate, caused largely by infertility due to radiation and environmental disasters. The Handmaid of the title, 'Offred', is one of the fertile ones, and as such is trained to be a handmaid - which means she is assigned to a high-ranking male, a Commander, and must have sex with him (lying between the legs of the Commander's wife) at regular intervals in the aim of getting pregnant.

The tale is told by Offred, and involves jumping constantly from present to past, to even further past, to her hopes for the future, to present again, so that it's only part way through that the reader begins to get a clear picture of the events leading up to Offred's current situation. This is a deliberate technique on Atwood's part to display Offred's mixed-up feelings and thoughts as she tries to cope with the huge changes that have just happened, but it does make the going rather tough at first! However if you persist, the book is one of the most thought-provoking, shocking and, yes, believable that you will ever read. Atwood outlines a vision of the future which is really horrifying, but she does it so cleverly that it is hard to avoid imagining what it would be like to be in that situation yourself.

Of course the reason 'The Handmaid&#
39;s Tale' is so believable is that it bases itself around real-life current problems, such as low birth rates and environmental destruction, and also because Gilead's ideology comes entirely from other, real, totalitarian states, like Nazi Germany for example. As Atwood says herself in the novel, "there was little that was truly original with or indigenous to Gilead: its genius was synthesis." You only have to look at states such as in Afghanistan under Taliban rule to see that what she writes can so easily come true. Much of what happens in 'The Handmaid's Tale' is shockingly close to real events under the Taliban, including the constant use of religion as justification for the inhumanity of the ruling power. The women in the novel are forced to wear long dresses and, in the Handmaids' case, wings around their face so that their view is restricted. Not a far cry from the burqas of the women in Afghanistan. The use of violence is also prevalent in both societies - in 'The Handmaid's Tale' public hangings take place, and even worse, physical savaging of certain unlucky members of the 'Resistance'.

Aside from all the deep meaningfulness of the novel, however, 'The Handmaid's Tale' is simply a gripping and enjoyable read. Atwood's subject matter may be grim, but she still manages touches of humour and clever word plays to make the reader smile despite themselves. As for accusations that 'The Handmaid's Tale' is nothing but a rewritten 1984, there are undoubtedly numerous likenesses between the two novels, but whichever is better, Atwood's version of the frightening vision of the future still stands as a brilliant, powerful story.

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