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A review by susana82
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I saw the Hulu series before I read the book. If the book had enough material to terrorize our minds, the series went beyond.
The story in the book is not as developed, neither the characters, but the oppressive environment, the strictness, the claustrophobia, the fear, it is all there. We have enough to work with with this terrible, brutal world. Women are no more than baby-makers, so if you cannot have one, you either are lucky enough to be a Wife of a Commander, and be relatively safe, or you have to make yourself useful by working as a Martha, an Aunt, or sent to the Colonies until you die. Men of power make the strict rules for others, but as usual, those rules don't apply to them. Sounds familiar? Some things never change, I guess.
Gilead is a country born out of a coup d'état and civil war in which women become second or third class citizens. But come to think of it, women are already treated differently in our society, as if less than men. Funny how men consider themselves better, when they cannot cope with a simple flu, or organise things, and they would never be able to go through the pains of menstruation or childbirth. Neither they control their emotions. Anger is an emotion, right? Pathetic.
The whole thing makes me angry, to be honest.
Atwood gives us a world where misogyny, control over women, lack of religious freedom (and lack of many other things that we took for granted) come to an extreme. Everything is enforced through fear, propaganda, brutality, punishment. This was wrote to be a dystopian story, but take a look at what is going on out there. We have never been closer to Gilead than now. Caucasians like to brag how they are better and far superior to other "races", and how evil Muslims are, because of the way they treat their women (one of the many reasons, anyway), and how they are stripped of many basic things, but women too are stripped of many basic things in our Western "civilization". Well, civilization is a failure.
The story in the book is not as developed, neither the characters, but the oppressive environment, the strictness, the claustrophobia, the fear, it is all there. We have enough to work with with this terrible, brutal world. Women are no more than baby-makers, so if you cannot have one, you either are lucky enough to be a Wife of a Commander, and be relatively safe, or you have to make yourself useful by working as a Martha, an Aunt, or sent to the Colonies until you die. Men of power make the strict rules for others, but as usual, those rules don't apply to them. Sounds familiar? Some things never change, I guess.
Gilead is a country born out of a coup d'état and civil war in which women become second or third class citizens. But come to think of it, women are already treated differently in our society, as if less than men. Funny how men consider themselves better, when they cannot cope with a simple flu, or organise things, and they would never be able to go through the pains of menstruation or childbirth. Neither they control their emotions. Anger is an emotion, right? Pathetic.
The whole thing makes me angry, to be honest.
Atwood gives us a world where misogyny, control over women, lack of religious freedom (and lack of many other things that we took for granted) come to an extreme. Everything is enforced through fear, propaganda, brutality, punishment. This was wrote to be a dystopian story, but take a look at what is going on out there. We have never been closer to Gilead than now. Caucasians like to brag how they are better and far superior to other "races", and how evil Muslims are, because of the way they treat their women (one of the many reasons, anyway), and how they are stripped of many basic things, but women too are stripped of many basic things in our Western "civilization". Well, civilization is a failure.