The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10
This was sort of reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode. I enjoyed the book a lot – it was very well written (I would have expected nothing less from Margaret Atwood) and the topics are extremely relevant today. I’d say a major theme would be the relationship between power and identity. In the feminist dystopian world, women are stripped of all identity: their names are patrimonial, they are grouped into sects (handmaids, wives, unwomen), they are dressed in the same vestments, and even the rooms they live in are devoid of personality. This is enforced because the sole purpose of a woman is to provide offspring. We see very quickly that this is the result of a huge power imbalance between the “true believers” and everyone else. I think it was wise of Atwood to form this dichotomy rather than the generic men vs. women dichotomy because the reality, as alluded to in the book, is much more complex. The fact that the Aunts were enforcing the rules on the handmaids because they were women reflects the practice of suppressing a people with one of their own. Nevertheless, in this society we still see the power imbalance between the sexes.
I was really hoping that I would be able to find out Offred’s real name by the end of the book. I read the last 5% of the book voraciously, trying to get to the part where her name was revealed, but it never came. I honestly don’t know if knowing her name would have made the book more enjoyable, or at least memorable, to me. Because Atwood never reveals Offred’s real name, and I’m 100% sure she does it on purpose, because the last chapter is dedicated to trying to figure it out, the handmaids really do blend together. The sexism and inequality is etched in the name Offred for eternity — and maybe that’s the reason why she chose this option.
Here are a couple quotes that I highlighted:
There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.
pg 21
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.
pg 48
A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze
pg 141
Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.
pg 183
Peter's Life 