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The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
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The Handmaid’s Tale

by Margaret Atwood

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Showing 1-5 of 208 (next | show all)
Although this book was a bit dark, I found it good reading as Margaret Atwood is one of my faves. Scary, almost unbelievable, haunting. ( )
  bibliophileofalls | Nov 18, 2009 |
For some reason I avoided this book for quite a while--I wasn't sure what it was about, though I thought maybe it had something to do with Geishas, actually. Picking it up yesterday and finally giving it a chance was well worth my time, though. I loved this book.

Basically, it's set in a dystopian America where modesty laws are extraordinarily strict (Christianity-based in this book, though I was reminded of the Sharia law upheld in some Muslim sects), and women are divided into three classes--Marthas (housekeepers), Wives, and Handmaidens (surrogate mothers). The story is told from a Handmaiden's perspective, as the title would suggest.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys books like 1984, A Brave New World, The Giver, Winterflight, etc. but someone familiar enough with the Bible to appreciate how those in power misquote and subtly twist the meanings of the verses used in the book would probably get the most out of it; I know this was one of the creepiest elements of the story for me. ( )
1 vote krysbrezinski | Nov 13, 2009 |
Now if all science fiction were this good, it could stand as a respectable genre. Atwood future dystopia envisages a militaristic dictatorship which enslaves the few, remaining fertile women and forces them to procreate with a privileged elite. The protagonist is Offred, a concubine to a person she knows solely as the Commander.

Atwood has created the details of an entire and fully believable society and creates a very dark and sinister story. There are many symbols and allegories woven into the text, but the whole remains engagingly readable.

Quite properly, Margaret Atwood's most celebrated achievement. ( )
1 vote dylanwolf | Oct 4, 2009 |
Plot Synopsis

Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, narrates her story. Told in fragments, Offred introduces readers to a world where women are partitioned out: a wife, a servant, a walking uterus. While she can remember her life before, a relatively normal life, she has become immersed in this new order, at once resisting and accepting her role.

My Thoughts

I am horrified, horrified by the warning inherent in the book. The believability of the civilization created within these pages spoke to me. First published in 1985, bits and pieces of the justification for the Republic resonate. Everything is "blamed on the Islamic fanatics"; this was done for the protection of women from rape, sexual slavery, and physical abuse; the suspension of personal freedoms were temporary; consistent identification is needed and "everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn't be too careful"; and little by little rights and freedoms were denied to select groups with nary a word of protest. Everything being done to you and against you is done for you. It's all for your own good.

How far will a society go, how much will it sacrifice, for safety? For power? These questions, so prevalent in Atwood's book, are increasingly relevant in American society today. As we relinquish what were once considered our rights for protection against "terrorism", we slide further away from the ideal of democracy the country was founded on (albeit through violence, racism, and genocide). As we further objectify ourselves, elevating physical beauty and commodifying our bodies, we become less individual humans and more subject to social control and acceptance of our own lack of self worth.

And yet when I ask myself: Is Atwood's vision a likelihood? Will women be once again subjugated to male property under the auspices of protection? I have to say no. I believe in the goodness of men (literally males). I believe that women will not allow such a regression to take place. Of course, when Clinton ran for president, a few of my students made disheartening remarks about a female being president. Female students, under 22. Sad. Women are women's worst enemies.

Outside of the themes inherent in Atwood's tale, the story itself entices. At first discouraged by the short, choppy sentences and fragmentary retellings, I eventually became rather in tune with them, reading at a quick pace, easily comprehending the bite-sized bits of information given to me. I also felt this style highly appropriate for the narrator. Having been removed entirely from literacy and having verbally narrated the tale, Offred's voice, her pacing and disjointed sense of telling seems necessary.

I sincerely hope this tale is non-prophetic. As with all dystopian literature, I hope societies learn from the story, see their flaws as printed on the page and prevent the horror from happening. Of course, for this to happen, we have to read these tales.

The Handmaid's Tale is number 37 on the ALA's list of most frequently challenged books. What I find sad in this is that the book is normally challenged because it portrays the mistreatment of women. EXACTLY! The novel is a warning not an encouragement. What do we do? Ignore the possibility? Pretend that this mistreatment isn't a truism of the past, present, and possibly future? When will people realize that ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away? And that if you don't "nip the problem in the bud" so to speak through awareness and prevention, you may one day see Atwood's dystopian future? Maybe if we don't let kids hear the word rape, rapes won't happen? Yes, let's not warn anyone; they'll learn later.

Of course challenges to the book are made on other grounds as well: That it's anti-Christian. It's not; it's anti-fundamentalism. That it portrays sex. Yep, and people have sex. That it vividly describes birth and menstruation. Ovaries, vaginas, and blood, OH MY! I highly recommend reading this book both for the lessons within, and for the less socio-political amongst us, for the story itself.

Memorable Scene: At one point, the handmaids are gathered together for one purpose: the violent killing of a man they've been told raped a handmaid. The women use their bare hands to rip this man apart. Disturbing.

Memorable Quote: "That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on." ( )
2 vote EclecticEccentric | Sep 30, 2009 |
Margaret Atwoods novel takes place some time in the future. Religious sects are fueding and women are subjugated to lives with little "freedom to" but with many "freedom(s) from". Offred is the narrator of this floaty stream of consciousness recollection of her time as handmaid to an influential "Commander" in the ruling fanatical governance . Her only purpose, as is every handmaids, is to procreate. Not out of love but duty.
I found Atwood's writing to be regimented, isolated, lonely and quiet, so similar to Offred's life. For this I give the novel credit. I found little else to enjoy reading in this book. At times I felt I could not trust the narrator's "recollection" and found the majority of the characters to be unlikeable. For me, the flashforward at the end left a bitter taste. Sort of like a synopsis of what you may not have been able to figure out yourself. I had. Overall I found this to be a very unsatisfactory read despite all of the praise I had heard reading it. ( )
2 vote Carmenere | Sep 22, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 208 (next | show all)
As a cautionary tale, Atwood's novel lacks the direct, chilling plausibility of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. It warns against too much: heedless sex, excessive morality, chemical and nuclear pollution. All of these may be worthwhile targets, but such a future seems more complicated than dramatic. But Offred's narrative is fascinating in a way that transcends tense and time: the record of an observant soul struggling against a harsh, mysterious world.
added by Shortride | editTime, Paul Gray (Feb 10, 1986)
 
How sad for postfeminists that one does not feel for Offred-June half as much as one did for Winston Smith, no hero either but at any rate imaginable. It seems harsh to say again of a poet's novel - so hard to put down, in part so striking - that it lacks imagination, but that, I fear, is the problem.
 
It's a bleak world that Margaret Atwood opens up for us in her new novel, ''The Handmaid's Tale'' - how bleak and even terrifying we will not fully realize until the story's final pages. But the sensibility through which we view this world is infinitely rich and abundant. And that's why Miss Atwood has succeeded with her anti-Utopian novel where most practitioners of this Orwellian genre have tended to fail.
 
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Epigraph
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 withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?
And she said, Behold my maid Bihah, go in unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her ---Genesis 30:1-3
But as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal... ---Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal
In the desert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones. ---Sufi proverb
Dedication
For Mary Webster and Perry Miller
First words
We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.
Quotations
As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and 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.
Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.
The shell of the egg is smooth but also grained; small pebbles of calcium are defined by the sunlight, like craters on the moon. It's a barren landscape, yet perfect; it's the sort of desert the saints went into, so their minds would not be distracted by profusions. I think that this is what God must look like: an egg. The life of the moon may not be on the surface, but inside.
But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest. Maybe none of this is about control...Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.
Last words
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Book description
From the back of the book: Offred is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the commander and his wife once a day to walk to food market whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offredd and the other handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offredd can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke, when she played with and protected her daughter, when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now…..

Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0099740915, Paperback)

In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate “Handmaids” under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred’s persistent memories of life in the “time before” and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:24 -0400)

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