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Summary: The Handmaid's Tale- A Review
Review: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, is the story of Offred who once lived a normal life with her husband Luke and her daughter. After trying to escape from a changing world, then taught her about the new world around her and her new role in it, Offred was brought to a family. Her sole job is now to become pregnant; every month the captain tries to impregnate her. The reason that this is her job is because the number of children being born each year is decreasing at an alarming rate and they now believe this is the only way to solve the problem. Offred's life is sad and boring until her relationship with the captain changes and his wife makes an interesting proposition.
I believe that this novel created controversy because of the role of women in this world. All of the "lower" class women, like Offred, are basically prostitutes without the pleasure. They offer a sexual service in return for payment, but this payment is in the form of providing the basic necessities of life, such as room, board, food and health care. Many people might have a problem with this novel because of the moral and sexual questions that it raises. The women, like Offred are alive for one reason, only to have children that will be taken away from them and treated like the children of their captain and his wife. Once the women have given birth, they will leave and go to a new family that needs a child. I do not have a problem with this novel. I see it as a warning to the society and the world that women need power but we can not let men do nothing because they do not help to further the society. This novel is simply a warning that changes may not seem drastic in the beginning but slowly they will change our whole way of life.
I think that his novel has positively contributed to the literary world because it has allowed other controversial novels about women to come out and be published. It has allowed other "warning" novels about women to be published. I would recommend this novel but it is not for everyone. If you do choose to read this novel, approach it with an open mind and it will evoke some interesting feelings. You may not enjoy this novel but it will get you thinking about the world around you and how much it can change.
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Summary: Like The Giver... for adults...
Review: I read this book in one day. It tells the story of Offred, a handmaid. Each handmaid's name is similiar, like Ofglen, etc... They have be reduced to be called "of" and then their master's name. Even if the world was not entirely believable, I still felt the story was good and hard to put down. Basically, in a time not far from when the author wrote (in the mid-80s) the United States of America has ceased to exsist. Government and religion are one in the same. Offred is better off than most, for she is a handmaid, in her words "a walking womb". The handmaid's job is to be the carrier of children for a household, but the child is in no way hers. In fact, as soon as it is born, it gets placed into the arms of the wife of the house, who is treated like she just gave birth herself. Offred can still remember the past, and the people she left behind, her mother, her best friend, her husband, and her baby girl. Where are they? Did they survive? That ray of hope seems to keep Offred alive, that, and breaking the rules, which could land her in serious trouble...perhaps even strung up on the Wall as an example for others.
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Summary: Ignorant
Review: This book has been made into a cheesey "opera". That should tell you everything you need to know about this book.
The plot follows. An extremist religious group gains control of the US military and overthrows our government. They then establish their own theocracy where women have no rights and they persecute members of other religious groups, not much unlike modern day Iran (2002). If you don't know why this is not very imaginative and laughably impossible you need to spend more time in reality and less time in fantasy land.
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Summary: Hardly unlikely....
Review: I've been reading the other reviews, and noted that many women here seem to think that the Handmaid's Tale more accurately describes the life of women in Muslim Countries and is something that could never happen in a "Christian" nation.Wake up. The latest attempts to remove abortion rights (by defining the fetus as a person) show that the Christian Right is willing to use any back door they can get to deny women our human rights. I re-read the book for the third or fourth time after the non-election of 2000, and thought that Atwood was prophetic. Offred's life is the end result of many of the reforms that are "suggested" by various Right-Wing Christian Groups. It is a terrifying glimpse at a future that I, and many other women, hope never arrives. As Atwood so carefully outlines, the Bible has a history of being used to promote completely different points of view: while it was being used by African American ministers to prove that slavery wasn't allowable, it was also used by White Southern Ministers to prove that blacks were meant to be a slave race. It has been used to prove that women cannot speak in church and to prove that women cannot even ask questions of their minister (only their husband, and they must rely upon his answer). This is a daily reality for women who live in conservative Amish or Mennonite communities. The Bible states, repeatedly, what women cannot do. The Qur'an, on the other hand, states repeatedly what rights women have. Which means that it is actually EASIER to use the Bible as a tool to deny women's rights than it is to use the Qur'an. I do not say this lightly. My husband is Palestinian, and I have lived in Saudi Arabia. But when I interacted with non-related men, I was more valued for my mind when I lived in Saudi Arabia. In America (which is where I grew up), I find myself increasingly convinced that men are only interested in interacting with me as a sexual being. There is constant pressure for me to wear less, to put on make-up, and to "do something" with my hair. That is not to say that living in Saudi Arabia is pleasant. But as a woman wearing the Abaya with so many other women, I was, essentially, completely unidentifiable. Men did not follow me, look at me, or ask me about my availability. I only interacted with them as a cerebral being. In some ways, this allowed me MORE freedom than I experience in America, dressed as an average American female (jeans, t-shirt, skirt-suit, etc.). Needless to say, there are many Muslim countries where women are not forced to veil, such as Jordan, Turkey, etc. But in these countries, I have experienced more harrassment than in Saudi Arabia - until I decided to put on the Abaya, after which I was left alone. I tried the same experiment in America - only to find that the Abaya made me stick out, that men spent even longer trying to undress me with their eyes, and attracted far too much attention. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so blinded by their preference for a particular religion that they do not see that the same faults of another religion exist in the one they practice. The Handmaid's tale shows what happens when the Bible is read from the viewpoint of a misogynist, right-wing male, and many parts of it fit very closely with how members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Amish, and various other groups with conservative readings of the Bible treat "their" women. And its not a pretty picture.
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Summary: Inexplicably overrated
Review: Neither subtlety nor realism necessarily rank among the most important ingredients of a successful polemic, but one largely devoid of both cannot claim much merit. Having said that, it is just about possible to read Atwood's book against itself as a parody of a certain sort of contemporary American feminist writing. The saddest thing about 'The Handmaid's Tale' is that Atwood is clearly a highly intelligent, educated and cultured individual. She *must* know *herself* that 'HT' is ludicrously over the top. Why on earth she chose to offer it to a publisher remains a mystery to me.
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Summary: its the end of the world as we know it
Review: One of the most compelling and disturbing books I've ever read, The handmaid's tale remains one of my all-time favorite novels. Atwood forces you to reimagine a world where women are only good for reproduction and must not think for themselves.....is she really so far off the mark?
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Summary: Completely absorbing
Review: I see many reviewers of this book claim that Atwood's Gilead world is unlikely and not believable. This may be true for some, but I was completely absorbed into the world Atwood created. Her attention to detail made it real for me. Offred's struggle with the choice of resigned complacency or clandestine rebellion make the reader question what one's own reaction would be in such a situation. The epilogue, designed as a paper presented at a conference on Gilead by scholars after Offred's time, wraps everything up in the sense that it answers the reader's questions without revealing everything and leaving possibilities open for the reader to ponder. Atwood, too, was smart to incorporate all members of society into her new world; no one was left out, though the reader is only offered glimpses into what actually happens to other, "less desirable" people.
I loved Offred - she was strong without being unbelievable, smart but not infallable, and courageous but still hesitant. This book was a highly developed political fantasy that still afforded strong character development. I don't think Atwood was trying to make any "leftist" statement, as some reviewers claim; I think she took some elements we see every day around us and stretched them to the extreme to create an intriguing tale that makes us ask, "What if?"
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Summary: Unimaginitive, Unrealistic...a feast of feminist propaganda
Review: I read this book for an English class ('Sex and Gender Issues'). Without hesitation, I can say it is among the worst books I've ever read. The prose is acceptable and fits the novel, but I can scarcely think of a more blantant rip-off than The Handmaid's Tale. Without improvising the anti-Utopian genre, this book cheaply copies 1984, Brave New World, and We. Handmaid's Tale fails miserably fails to approach the realism and totality of those works; while satire is not necessarily intended to be realistic, this book is not really satirical. Why is that so? Atwood wrote this book as some kind of reaction to the US' slight movement Right in the early 1980s. She does not, however, understand American political realities; it's almost painful to imagine what she was thinking as she penned the novel. The shift of the Republican Party away from Ford's centrism was not rooted in a religious revival- in fact, it was quite the opposite. While Southern religious Conservatives emerged full force in 1980, Barry Goldwater set the table much earlier (particularly his 1964 Presidential bid). Goldwater was actually pro-choice, and never associated with the religious Right. Likewise, Reagan was not fundamentally driven by a sense of moral duty. Inevitably, Atwood's political ignorance results in a hackneyed and utterly unbelievable setting. I even laughed at certain elements of her 'Republic of Gilead.' Discussing the book's fantastic elements is almost difficult, despite being obvious. A bizarre group somehow gets the military to pledge it's loyalty (which is, of course, ridiculous). Worse, Congress is "machine gunned..." by the Army and the President is assasinated. US soldiers are trained to disobey illegal orders, and that is exactly what would happen- not that an entire bureaucracy like the US military could be easily turned against the country, anyway. Oh, and Catholics are persecuted by this regime; I suppose the fact that the military is over 1/3 Catholic posed little challenge to the "Commanders." Red is an appropriate motif of the novel- because that's what color Atwood's politics boil down to. She (imagine fingernails scratching a chalkboard) heaps racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism etc ad nauseum into her Leftist field day. Her essential claim is that the end of Conservatism is a 100% Patriarchal, White society of zero tolerance and zero love (and zero freedom). Atwood's understanding of organized religion is also called into question here, as the RoG is some kind of new Christian Sect (at one point, the book reveals them to be in conflict with Baptists). Consider for yourself: a random new religion appears, it's leaders take over the country, and Harvard is the HQ of their Secret Police. Yeah, right... If you need to read a book about Gender, "The Garden of Eden" by Hemingway is quite good. If you need to read about anti-Utopias, the three novels I listed previously are all very powerful. This book is not a significant work in either sense. Time has revealed its silly urgency to be unfounded. It serves as part complaint, part scare tactic, and part political statement; perhaps feminists enjoy it for precisely those reasons, but preaching to the choir is not the mark of a good novel. The praise this book has garnered is downright weird... I think it speaks to a paranoia with regard to religious people (among leftists, especially feminists), and a more subtle hatred of people that "oppress" women. Serene Joy mocks the notion of religious women...the epilogue essentially describes a better world that is free of White people (and perhaps Christians). Thinking about it, I do not recall a more offensive and ludicrous book from my experience, though they surely must exist...
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Summary: If Orwell was a woman
Review: A very frightening alternative reality stressing the utter fragility of our country. Not too far fetched if the religious fanatics that we all know exist in this country get organized and take action. Just think of it, a return to the dark ages in terms of ideology but with nuclear weapons. Very dark, very frightening, impossible to put down. A brilliant piece of work.
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Summary: Margaret Atwood, one of the finest living writers
Review: I have long been a fan of Margaret Atwood, and The Handmaid's Tale is surely one of her most enthralling reads. A dark vision of the future, Atwood's novel makes us really look at the attitudes of today and how they really may affect out future. At times very intense, you will be caught up in the flow and no doubt be shocked, appalled and finally amazed by the sheer beauty of this book. Read!! Enjoy..
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