2020 EDIT: Still an extremely important book that everyone needs to read. More for its messages than its story (or lack thereof) and characters (nearly all of them are vile and infuriating hypocrites, especially the narrator).
Great writing from Margaret Atwood, if overly wordy, and for some reason it switches from not using quotation marks when characters are talking (very confusing at the beginning), to using them suddenly at random near the end. Sometimes the writing flips from present events to the past with no warning, no clear transition, even in the same sentence with not even a comma to divide them.
At the second time reading 'The Handmaid's Tale', I've picked up on just how full of internalised misogyny and straight white woman privilege Offred is; or was, back when she had any kind of freedom, before Gilead. She seems to hate other women, even though she knows they are no better off than she is and are doing the best they can. She is much more sympathetic to men, including her captors, the Commander and Nick, who have complete control of her life and are free to abuse her as they wish, for their own whims. She inexplicably feels sorry for the very people - if they're men - who have the power; who have reduced her to a womb on legs and are responsible for separating her from her family, who could be dead, she has no way of knowing. Offred knows all of this, but she shrugs it off because she misses pleasurable, casual sex. She barely seems to care about anything else. Um, priorities!
Offred is a spineless, useless, complacent coward and has no solid personality traits; no original thoughts of her own. Not a good narrator for a pinnacle of feminist text.
Here is another review which explains in detail a lot better the issue of Offred's hatred and lack of empathy for other women, and her passiveness in her horrifying situation:
Ferdy's review of The Handmaid's Tale.
While we're on the subject of internalised misogyny when the women are on the same boat:
The worst thing about Offred, I feel, is: What she thinks about Janine, another Handmaid. Janine was gang raped at fourteen, and was blamed for it by the Aunts and other Handmaids-in-training, in group circles. She also got pregnant as the result of the gang rape, and had an abortion. For all of this she was literally treated like an animal; a shaved, crying pig to be yelled at, pitied, and made a cautionary tale out of. Offred joined in on the victim blaming and shaming, and not once does she feel any sympathy for Janine, or regard her as a full human being. Offred goes so far as to call Janine a "whiny bitch", an attenion seeker, a passive, brownnosing idiot (like she can talk!), and a "sucker", when Offred speculates that Janine must have taken sugar offered to her by a group of gossiping Wives once. This is speculation, mind you; a bitter, vindictive fantasy, not something that actually happened in the narrative. And so what if Janine took what she could get out of her impossible situation? A little pleasure, a little something? A tiny taste of freedom, to be human again? As if Offred wouldn't have done the same!
The heroine of 'The Handmaid's Tale' is a judgemental, snobby, woman-hating, slut shaming, male dependent, horny hypocrite, and I hated her after this information is given to the reader.
Another feature which took me out of the "story", the book, was when Offred mentions that a woman once tried to kidnap her baby in a supermarket, and she felt sorry for her . Those are her exact words.
This was from the time before the Republic of Gilead took over, before some women might have been this desperate to want babies, when the alternative was to be hanged or shipped off to the Colonies (for which Offred feels nothing for, again) or worse. The lady kidnapper was dismissed as crazy, and that's that. The incident is never brought up again.
Why is it that in a single paragraph Offred expresses more sympathy towards a woman who attempted to take her baby from her than she does any other woman in the entire novel?
I never got the impression that Offred ever loved her child. She never names her in her narrative, like she does other people in her past (and present), albeit with possible pseudonyms. I don't care for her patronising, faux feminist husband - who had appeared to be complacent with her rights being taken from her - in the slightest.
Also noteworthy: Offred's lifelong friend from before her name was taken from her, Moira, is fantastic. She's brave, she's loud and proud, she takes shit from no one, and she does stuff, she fights back. Moira does not need to rely on a man. I kind of wish 'The Handmaid's Tale' could have been about her and not who we got instead. Plus she's queer, which Offred thinks is something she chose, and after our oh-so sympathetic narrator finds out she refuses to even hug her long lost friend she'd thought might be dead, until Moira assures her that she isn't attracted to her in that way.
Yeah, I hate Offred. Her feminist, pro-choice, pro-freedom, protesting, rioting, personality-filled mother must be so proud of her.
I will say, however, that 'The Handmaid's Tale' is still miles better than 'The Testaments', its official sequel twenty four years later. At least the former acknowledges that gay people and people of colour exist.
'The Handmaid's Tale' - Recommended, with reservations concerning the awful characters who defeat the purpose of this vital, relevant feminist dystopian classic.
Final Score: 3/5
P.S. Another example of Offred acting like the embodiment of straight white, abled and upper class woman privilege, at least in former times, is when she had mused that the term "date rape" sounds like a dessert. This is from when she and Moira were at college, and Moira was writing a paper on date rape. Offred made a joke about it.
Oh, why couldn't Moira have been the narrator!?
P.P.S. Oh, and like in 'The Testaments', 'The Handmaid's Tale' contains a woman making a false rape accusation against a man. As a plot point. No. For fuck's sake, no. No. No. No. No. No. It's an additional instance of sympathy of men over women, as well.
Original Review:
This is a relevant novel. One of the most important things to look at when considering the state of progression in society and human equality. 'The Handmaid's Tale' is a novel everyone should read, regardless of whether you like dystopian stories. It will most likely have an effect on you one way or another.
The key to a fully realized dystopia is making it seem realistic. Observe today's world and imagine society regressing to the point of going back to the ways of the dark ages, or even further back than that. All because of fear and irrationality in terms of who gets the power to do anything he or she wants.
In the world of 'The Handmaid's Tale', women no longer have rights. A terrorist attack shakes things up in the country where the Republic of Gilead resides - the President is killed and radiation has effected everything. Suddenly women have no bank accounts, and no jobs that men can get. They are only allowed to clean, cook and serve men. Soon the occupation of handmaiden is created, and they are molded to only one life goal and purpose - breeding, because they are fertile.
Images of sex, along with thoughts and expressions of women's sexuality, are also forbidden. As are scientific discoveries, homosexuality, and secret organisations...
Our protagonist is called Offred (as in, Of Fred). Her real name is only implied; it doesn't matter because she exists only for the man (Fred) who's offspring she must carry and deliver perfectly for his Wife (who is freer than a handmaid but is oppressed nevertheless). She is his property, and she can even be given to another man of power if she is deemed either useless or a nuisance, just like an object. Taking a man's name after marrying him is heightened to this extreme in 'The Handmaid's Tale'.
Offred still has passions of her own, and memories of the world before. She wants to believe other women of her circumstances think that way too; that they are not all brainwashed by the teaching Aunts. A lot of them do think like her, and it lands them in terrible trouble. If any handmaid were to express herself or be unable to breed, she is in danger of being hanged.
Offred's husband Luke and their daughter are missing and presumed dead, but she will stop at nothing to try finding them, or at least find out what has happened to them - since they all got caught trying to escape the dystopian society, as revealed in flashbacks.
As a woman, this book terrified me; most of all because I can imagine this depiction of the future happening. Think feminism no longer matters, even in the 21st century - think again. Negative attitudes towards women and girls in popular culture and in real life - from the sexualised idea of female "empowerment", victim blaming, rape culture, to domestic abuse almost never seen as such or are not taken seriously - are all around us; in films, television, new books, music videos and songs etc.
In 'The Handmaid's Tale', women are blamed for society's faults, or are concluded to have too much freedom by higher-up's. Thus they are oppressed to the function of either serving men or having children, or both.
As well as giving us a memorable and significant dystopic novel, Margaret Atwood explores the ideas and assumptions of sexuality and women's and men's preferences concerning it.
'The Handmaid's Tale' is also beautifully written, with a range of realistic characters and events. You get to know all about Offred in the course of this horror story, except for her real name that's in the past and which she won't reveal to the reader.
Throughout reading, I kept hoping Offred will get back her freedom and find her family.
However, and this is a big however, I was disappointed by the ending. I won't give anything away, but it was almost like Ms Atwood came up with a brilliant concept and execution but didn't quite know how to end it. The book ends ambiguously, which is fine if it is still satisfying and fits with the plot points leading up to it. But in this case it felt like the author wrote herself into a corner in not wanting a clear and happy ending. And it involves the strong female main character using sex to get what she wants and as an escape, and I hate that. Offred's actions suddenly didn't make sense to me, even in the midst of the tragedies around her. It contradicts what the book is meant to be about.
I was also a little peeved that Offred never reveals her daughter's name, and yet her husband's she does, even if it is a false name she changed to protect his identity...
But this is all just my opinion.
The beginning and middle of 'The Handmaid's Tale' are great and they carry the book's overall message with power and grace, which flow naturally in the narrative. Again I recommend it.
There are important aspects to take from Margaret Atwood's classic and haunting cautionary tale. A good dystopia story shows how realistic progression can lead to realistic regression quiker and easier than you want to believe.
Final Score: 4/5
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