The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

In The Handmaid's Tale, the United States' government has been overthrown by a totalitarian theocracy. This would be enough to make the current society a religious fundamentalist Nazi-like state, but there is also the added bonus that procreation and births have greatly diminished (either for environmental or social reason that are not fully explained). It has that Children of Men storyline going on. Now, you combine a patriarchal, male-driven, extremely religious, chauvinist society with declining birth rates and you end up with the story of Rachel and Leah from the Bible Remixed. That story tells of an infertile Rachel who used handmaids as proxies to have children for her:

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.

And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath witheld from thee the fruit of the womb?

And she said, Behold my maid Billah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.
- Genesis 30:1-3

How messed up is that passage? Anyway, in the world of Gilead, handmaids such as the narrator are the first generation of women to be used as concubines for the wealthy elite class in order to bear them children.

The novel, as narrated by Offred (not her real name, just a moniker meaning she belongs to Fred, the head of the elite family that she serves), immediately plunges us into this strange new world where women are not allowed to read, they wear huge costumes to cover their entire body including most of their face, they must be chaperoned at all times, and public hangings are the daily ritual. Right away I'm thinking "yeah, right," eye-roll. I think the story begins to gain an eerie believability when Offred describes her life prior to the coup. She was married. She had a child. She had a job, a mother, she went to college. She describes herself as "I am thirty-three years old. I have brown hair. I stand five [feet] seven [inches] without shoes" (I immediately cast Natalie Portman in the role, though she is considerably shorter I think). That juxtaposition, the description that things were perfectly normal "before" until everything started to degrade and eventually became a bizarre reality, is what most captivated me about the story.

The Handmaid's Tale is thought provoking because, as strange and unlikely as the Gilead society may seem to us today, these things have already happened. Subjugation of the few by the many, total government control and societal shutdown, unchecked repression, trading freedom for security and progress. And that's just the larger themes. The book also explores sexual violence, social conservatism, religious fanaticism, censorship. Hell, these things are still happening. Atwood pushes these themes to the extreme, into territory that we can only hope is really just the stuff of fiction. She has said: "this is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusion." As a skeptic, I want to shrug off this comment as a lot of hot air. But as a woman, I already deal with enough male-centered, misogynistic views, and a noticeable dose of fear. I think a lot of other women do too, and the themes in the book are not completely off the wall.

Two themes from the book profoundly shook me and, to be perfectly frank, downright scared me. The first is when Offred begins to doubt whether her husband Luke harbors the same anti-feminist beliefs as the rest of society:

"He doesn't mind this, I thought. He doesn't mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other's anymore. Instead, I am his. Unworthy, unjust, untrue. But that is what happened. So Luke: what I want to ask you know, what I need to know is, Was I right? Because we never talked about it. By the time I could have done that, I was afraid to. I couldn't afford to lose you."

It is a very sad and lonely moment where she wonders if she might lose all support. Wondering if someone you trust without question could betray you has to be the loneliest and most soul-crushing realization.

The other moments that were very discomforting were when Offred is trying to find the motivation, not just to keep living, but to accept that this is her new life and that the old one isn't coming back. Makes me wonder where my motivation would come from if my life were turned upside down. It is the backbone to any apocalypse/survivor/dystopian story and it always makes me wonder how I would survive, if at all. And those types of questions are definitely not just relegated to fiction.

The narrative uses stream of consciousness heavily and is almost too poetic most of the time to ring true, but in the book's epilogue we learn why Offred's narrative is like this. For such a short book, it takes on some hefty themes, presents very complex characters, and tells a unique story.

Another good pick out of my deck of cards. Thanks for the loaner, Subie!

I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance.

If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.

It isn't a story I'm telling.

It's also a story I'm telling, in my head, as I go along.

Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else.

Even where there is no one.