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triviahanni 's review for:
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
— 4.25/5 ★ //
“We lives, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it. Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it… The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable. They were too melodramatic, they had a dimension that was not the dimension of our lives. We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.”
After reading this book, I’m genuinely stuck on where to even begin this review. I’m unsure whether I should start with the writing of the novel, the plot, the context, or even my “enjoyment” of it. This novel doesn’t feel half as straightforward or as simple as that. After all, this is a powerfully woven story that highlights the tribulations of women who are either long gone or still with us. This is because misogyny is still very much with us. Unfortunately, I can’t even say that it’s really evolved or developed like a parasite or a disease; it’s the same as it always has been, infecting and poisoning our societies in its same old, undying ways. This is a never-ending cycle that The Handmaid’s Tale recognises and doesn’t hesitate to call attention to.
Incredibly isolating and thought-provoking, Atwood primarily writes about the rights of women, or lack thereof. You experience the world through the eyes and thoughts of the protagonist, Offred. This existence is solemn, controlled, and suffocating, tinged with paranoia, suspicion, and doubt. Despite the women in this society having different roles and “levels” of power, every single woman is being oppressed and abused under the patriarchal regime, stripped of their rights and former existence. However, despite having no autonomy or meaningful power in this world, there is a quiet, practically silent, rebellion taking place beneath the surface. The rebellion is cloaked by a kind of “pass-key” system, where key phrases secretly allow the women to express their true allegiances to one another, allowing them to find who is “compromised” or not. This world is plagued by a constant suspicion and distrust in one another, leaving the women to have to endure their sufferings in a silence that is not reflected internally, as we experience with the story of Offred. I often pondered whilst reading the novel whether some of these suspicions were justified or whether they were simply stoked by the regime to limit the possibility of an uprising.
The brief sense we get of the “normal” world, before this patriarchal, totalitarian regime came into force, is one of building tension. Just as the quote I added at the start of this review mentions, “Nothing changes instantaneously.” Yet I suppose that makes it even more surprising when you read about how quickly accustomed everyone becomes to this new life they lead. It feels unfair, truthfully, to have to watch the slow death of your once-lived existence become something utterly unrecognisable from what you lived through as a child. It’s just like what’s said in the book, “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”
Normalisation and desensitisation are the methods that are commonly used to achieve total collapse of society; by slowly introducing new rules or behaviours or even systems, you eliminate the need for panic because, after all, this is normal. There’s nothing to worry about. Until, of course, you wake up one day and realise you don’t even have basic autonomy left. How do you battle this? In my opinion it’s by education, communication, and language. This is how we monitor the world around us, how we spread news that isn’t being reported by big media. How we stay awake and aware and alert.
The way this novel has been written is through the lived account of life in this dystopian society. The things that we learn from this world are provided to us in a sense of disassociation and detachment. The unspeakable trauma that Offred experienced consequently leads us down paths of haunted thoughts, jumping timelines, and an at times stoic description of the events happening around her. To me, this is an unquestionable survival mechanism. To recount this tale, she must try to put the puzzle pieces of her life together; she must try to pretend to know the thoughts of others. Hell, sometimes she even has to make things up, adding fictional or exaggerated details onto truths like embellishments, just to not fracture into pieces. Toward the end of the story, we begin to see the cracks deepen, thoughts of suicide, passive and not, forming: the breaking of a spirit.
The ending/epilogue of this book was a little confusing at first; that was until I thought about the tone of the writing some more. What I found most interesting was the lecturer’s retelling of the events of the book, marked with jokes, laughter, and overall lightheartedness. This felt so keenly poignant and haunting to me. The fact that (in this world) we read about the firsthand experiences of this woman, and consequently, women like her, and then at the very end we read it being retold, given context, by a man, and it’s so apathetic and completely detached from the suffering of these women. Much like when we read about history or even the news about the suffering and experiences of others. There’s this feeling of difference towards these fable people, as though they’re a work of fiction, something that we can easily discount and disconnect from, as though they’re a make-believe story.
Atwood, upon writing this book in the mid-1990s, swore that she “would not put any events into the book that had not already happened, nor any technology not already available. No imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities.” This chilling context is what has allowed this book to be written into being; these are already events that have happened someplace in human history. This never-ending cycle, inspired by the past, is a forewarning about the future. We are living in the handmaid’s tale, just as our ancestors were and, unfortunately, just as our children will. Misogyny, authoritarianism, hypocrisy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc,. are issues from our past and our future. We are not progressing as we had hoped to. Forever one step forward, two steps back.
The number of connections I see within this book to real current-day society is staggering and horrifying to think about. I can completely understand why this book is educational and enlightening to some but threatening and disturbing to others. Its relevance leads it to feel like a story that was written within the last few years, never mind forty years ago. It’s because of this that we see that these fears and concerns aren’t new, and nor do they appear to be going away anytime soon.
This dystopian world lies in the shadow of a real one, our one. It’s a social commentary that applies to an incredible number of current human and political topics. Today we are witnessing the reversal of rights and freedoms of women, LGBTQ+ people, and BIPOC which, may I add, is exactly how this dystopian society first came into being. Governments and people in power like to make you feel as though you are incapable of creating meaningful change as an individual, causing mobilisation against these issues to fall because people begin to see these events that are happening in the world and around them as inevitable and unpreventable — something which is simply not true. Just a small group of voices, an individual life, can influence masses and create meaningful change, as we have already seen with the likes of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Marsha P. Johnson, Emily Davison, etc. And that’s not even including the countless groups and organisations of people who have empowered movements that have changed society and the way we see, think, and interact with marginalised groups around the world.
This is exactly why when I learn about books, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, being banned in the likes of America, a supposed beacon of “freedom, free speech, and democracy” in the west, I laugh. Under a guise of moral superiority and righteousness, they seek to eliminate the rights and freedoms of others. Protesting about the “barbarism” and the oppression of women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled people in other parts of the world, without acknowledging their own failures to these people. The hypocrisy is beyond belief.
Overall, I fully believe this book should be a necessary, required read in education. Just as I believe the likes of Animal Farm and, despite me not having read them just yet, though I do plan to soon, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Even the little knowledge and context I have about these books has changed the way I see and think about the world. The influence of a book should never be understated when a government is so terrified of them that they’ll pass a law to ban them.
“We lives, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it. Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it… The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable. They were too melodramatic, they had a dimension that was not the dimension of our lives. We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.”
After reading this book, I’m genuinely stuck on where to even begin this review. I’m unsure whether I should start with the writing of the novel, the plot, the context, or even my “enjoyment” of it. This novel doesn’t feel half as straightforward or as simple as that. After all, this is a powerfully woven story that highlights the tribulations of women who are either long gone or still with us. This is because misogyny is still very much with us. Unfortunately, I can’t even say that it’s really evolved or developed like a parasite or a disease; it’s the same as it always has been, infecting and poisoning our societies in its same old, undying ways. This is a never-ending cycle that The Handmaid’s Tale recognises and doesn’t hesitate to call attention to.
Incredibly isolating and thought-provoking, Atwood primarily writes about the rights of women, or lack thereof. You experience the world through the eyes and thoughts of the protagonist, Offred. This existence is solemn, controlled, and suffocating, tinged with paranoia, suspicion, and doubt. Despite the women in this society having different roles and “levels” of power, every single woman is being oppressed and abused under the patriarchal regime, stripped of their rights and former existence. However, despite having no autonomy or meaningful power in this world, there is a quiet, practically silent, rebellion taking place beneath the surface. The rebellion is cloaked by a kind of “pass-key” system, where key phrases secretly allow the women to express their true allegiances to one another, allowing them to find who is “compromised” or not. This world is plagued by a constant suspicion and distrust in one another, leaving the women to have to endure their sufferings in a silence that is not reflected internally, as we experience with the story of Offred. I often pondered whilst reading the novel whether some of these suspicions were justified or whether they were simply stoked by the regime to limit the possibility of an uprising.
The brief sense we get of the “normal” world, before this patriarchal, totalitarian regime came into force, is one of building tension. Just as the quote I added at the start of this review mentions, “Nothing changes instantaneously.” Yet I suppose that makes it even more surprising when you read about how quickly accustomed everyone becomes to this new life they lead. It feels unfair, truthfully, to have to watch the slow death of your once-lived existence become something utterly unrecognisable from what you lived through as a child. It’s just like what’s said in the book, “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”
Normalisation and desensitisation are the methods that are commonly used to achieve total collapse of society; by slowly introducing new rules or behaviours or even systems, you eliminate the need for panic because, after all, this is normal. There’s nothing to worry about. Until, of course, you wake up one day and realise you don’t even have basic autonomy left. How do you battle this? In my opinion it’s by education, communication, and language. This is how we monitor the world around us, how we spread news that isn’t being reported by big media. How we stay awake and aware and alert.
The way this novel has been written is through the lived account of life in this dystopian society. The things that we learn from this world are provided to us in a sense of disassociation and detachment. The unspeakable trauma that Offred experienced consequently leads us down paths of haunted thoughts, jumping timelines, and an at times stoic description of the events happening around her. To me, this is an unquestionable survival mechanism. To recount this tale, she must try to put the puzzle pieces of her life together; she must try to pretend to know the thoughts of others. Hell, sometimes she even has to make things up, adding fictional or exaggerated details onto truths like embellishments, just to not fracture into pieces. Toward the end of the story, we begin to see the cracks deepen, thoughts of suicide, passive and not, forming: the breaking of a spirit.
The ending/epilogue of this book was a little confusing at first; that was until I thought about the tone of the writing some more. What I found most interesting was the lecturer’s retelling of the events of the book, marked with jokes, laughter, and overall lightheartedness. This felt so keenly poignant and haunting to me. The fact that (in this world) we read about the firsthand experiences of this woman, and consequently, women like her, and then at the very end we read it being retold, given context, by a man, and it’s so apathetic and completely detached from the suffering of these women. Much like when we read about history or even the news about the suffering and experiences of others. There’s this feeling of difference towards these fable people, as though they’re a work of fiction, something that we can easily discount and disconnect from, as though they’re a make-believe story.
Atwood, upon writing this book in the mid-1990s, swore that she “would not put any events into the book that had not already happened, nor any technology not already available. No imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities.” This chilling context is what has allowed this book to be written into being; these are already events that have happened someplace in human history. This never-ending cycle, inspired by the past, is a forewarning about the future. We are living in the handmaid’s tale, just as our ancestors were and, unfortunately, just as our children will. Misogyny, authoritarianism, hypocrisy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc,. are issues from our past and our future. We are not progressing as we had hoped to. Forever one step forward, two steps back.
The number of connections I see within this book to real current-day society is staggering and horrifying to think about. I can completely understand why this book is educational and enlightening to some but threatening and disturbing to others. Its relevance leads it to feel like a story that was written within the last few years, never mind forty years ago. It’s because of this that we see that these fears and concerns aren’t new, and nor do they appear to be going away anytime soon.
This dystopian world lies in the shadow of a real one, our one. It’s a social commentary that applies to an incredible number of current human and political topics. Today we are witnessing the reversal of rights and freedoms of women, LGBTQ+ people, and BIPOC which, may I add, is exactly how this dystopian society first came into being. Governments and people in power like to make you feel as though you are incapable of creating meaningful change as an individual, causing mobilisation against these issues to fall because people begin to see these events that are happening in the world and around them as inevitable and unpreventable — something which is simply not true. Just a small group of voices, an individual life, can influence masses and create meaningful change, as we have already seen with the likes of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Marsha P. Johnson, Emily Davison, etc. And that’s not even including the countless groups and organisations of people who have empowered movements that have changed society and the way we see, think, and interact with marginalised groups around the world.
This is exactly why when I learn about books, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, being banned in the likes of America, a supposed beacon of “freedom, free speech, and democracy” in the west, I laugh. Under a guise of moral superiority and righteousness, they seek to eliminate the rights and freedoms of others. Protesting about the “barbarism” and the oppression of women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled people in other parts of the world, without acknowledging their own failures to these people. The hypocrisy is beyond belief.
Overall, I fully believe this book should be a necessary, required read in education. Just as I believe the likes of Animal Farm and, despite me not having read them just yet, though I do plan to soon, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Even the little knowledge and context I have about these books has changed the way I see and think about the world. The influence of a book should never be understated when a government is so terrified of them that they’ll pass a law to ban them.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Trafficking, Religious bigotry
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Classism
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Gun violence, Infertility, Miscarriage, Suicide, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail