The Handmaid's Tale

First and foremost, you should know that I am a little biased when it comes to Margaret Atwood. The first book of hers that I read was The Blind Assassin for a course I took on contemporary literature, which I absolutely loved (both the novel and the class). Since that time I have read two more of her novels, not including this one, and own three of her collections of poetry. I am a huge fan of her writing and included her on my 2011 reading list as an excuse to read more of her work.

I chose The Handmaid's Tale because of it's popularity and the fact that the description on the back of the book made absolutely no sense. Offred? The Republic of Gilead? I love reading books that I am intrigued and confused by. As with the other books I've read so far, I made a point not to research it or read any reviews before reading it, so that I can experience it without any preconceptions.

As I started reading, I found myself in the not-too-distant future, where society is structured much like that of the Biblical Old Testament - patriarchal, with women reduced to a status significantly lower than their male counterparts. In the new Republic of Gilead, where the novel takes place, men are employed in a military-style hierarchy ranging from lowly servant types to powerful commanders. Women are categorized by the role they are expected to fill, including Wives (those technically married to the men), Marthas (serving women), Handmaids (young women whose sole job is to reproduce), and Aunts (women who teach the Handmaids). This bizarre reorganization of societal roles emphasizes the new mentality that life is only rules and regulations; no longer are emotions and individual thoughts important. It reminded me a lot of The Giver, the young adult novel where villagers must get permits to have children, jobs and marriages are assigned, and only one person in each generation can see color.

The scariest part of this novel is how quickly the new Republic of Gilead took over, and how creepily plausible the transition from typical American society to cult regime actually was. One day people were going about their lives, the next women were no longer allowed to work or spend money and the soldiers posted nearby were suspiciously wearing unfamiliar uniforms. Atwood created an authentic sense of dystopia, where in contrast to a far-fetched futuristic novel, this featured a situation that actually could happen. All of the characters in the new Gilead, even the men who seem to be in powerful positions, are under the control of some larger organization that quietly gained power and is never discussed. Other than the fact that they employ Eyes as their scouts, we (both the reader and the narrator) know nothing about them.

This unnamed, invisible leadership was a brilliant move by Atwood. They--whoever they are--created a "monotheocracy," as its called in the Historical Notes section, and used religion to back up their new laws and regulations. Biblical scripture is twisted and altered to instate the Handmaids and Marthas (both Biblical references) and to push the female population into submission. But despite the "manifest destiny"-like propaganda that God ordained this rather than the government, the people don't seem to believe it. They're simply afraid of the consequences - and rightly so, for those are also of Biblical proportion. In this new Gilead where punishments that rely on psychology are the norm (such as hangings displayed publicly as examples, or male rapists presented to groups of rallied women for group beatings reminiscent of stonings, it is easier for the characters to repress their memories of the world before and follow the rules, at least on the surface. Under the surface, however, is an entire network of people trying to escape to a life that even remotely resembles the one they knew before.

It is revealed at the end that this book, much like The Blind Assassin, is essentially a nested narrative - the entire book is a transcript of a recorded diary found much later by a society that has thankfully progressed past the "Gilead" stage. This new society, set in 2195 when the outer narrative takes place, looks back at Gilead much like we do pre-Civil War slavery or the Salem witch trials. They study it, teach courses on it in their universities, collect artifacts from the period. There is something unsettling about this future society of 2195 that comes about in their "Historical Notes" epilogue.  In one of the few pop-cultural references say that they "must be grateful for any crumbs that the Goddess of History has deigned to vouchsafe us." They also reference Eurydice, the daughter of Apollo in Greek mythology that dies but is retrieved from the underworld. Is this new society female-centric?

I have so many questions that remain unanswered. What caused the fall of Gilead? Was Offred ever reunited with her daughter? Was anything ever done to memorialize the women objectified by Gildeadeans, or are gaudy things like the "Outdoor Period-Costume Sing-Song" the only way they're remembered? And more importantly, should we stop romanticizing time periods like the Antebellum south and the European medieval era and instead look at the historical atrocities that accompanied them? Should we be careful not to let church and state get entangled so that out-of-context religious rules never become deity-ordained laws? It's been almost a week and I still find myself wondering about this book. As the professor of that contemporary lit class always said, if you find yourself thinking about a movie days after watching it, you know it was good. I think the same thing goes for great novels.