tomgray's Full Review: Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale
Kansas this isn't
In her best-known novel, The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood gives us a world in which society has changed, almost overnight and almost out of all recognition:
* The "Republic of Gilead," a military-religious dictatorship, occupies much of the territory formerly part of the United States, and security police (the "Eyes of the Lord") keep the populace under an iron control.
* Fertility rates have nosedived owing to the pervasive spread of pesticides and other harmful chemicals throughout the biosphere.
* In partial consequence, women who are potentially fertile are "handmaids," taken into the homes of high-ranking military officials and reserved for impregnation by them.
* The officials' wives, mostly barren, are required to accept these interlopers into their lives and are fiercely resentful. They gain a measure of revenge by making the handmaids' lives as hellish as possible.
* Women--all women--are forbidden to own property, hold jobs, or even read.
* Handmaids, like Offred ("of Fred"), the protagonist, have had even their names taken away, and are known only by those of their patrons.
Simple and stark
Offred's narrative is told with the simplest of words, for the most part, and it's an effective way of conveying what comes across as extreme bitterness and anger at her situation. There are no quotation marks, a technique that is occasionally slightly confusing, but adds to the stark, barren feel of the language that is used. Here, for example, Offred meets Fred's wife for the first time: So, you're the new one, she said. She didn't step aside to let me in, she just stood there in the doorway, blocking the entrance. She wanted me to feel that I could not come into the house unless she said so. There is push and shove, these days, over such toeholds. Yes, I said.
At the same time, Atwood often looks to the alternative and root meanings of words, and to unique and sometimes elegant turns of phrase, to add an extra helping of art to Offred's story:
. . . I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.
. . . I know why there is no glass, in front of the water-color picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.
Conditions are beyond bearing, and punishment for the slightest disobedience is instant and severe, so Handmaid's Tale is very tense throughout. Offred rebels in small ways, and eventually large ones as well, but in the end, her ultimate fate is not revealed. That's dissatisfying in a way, but understandable, because it leaves the novel as one of hope, without detracting from the strongly downbeat tone Atwood has set.
Picky, picky
As the "bottom line" above indicates, I found it hard to accept Atwood's premise. The story of the status of women since the Middle Ages has basically been one of steady, if slow, improvement, and it's difficult to believe it all could be swept away so completely within the space of a few months.
Aside from that defect, Handmaid's Tale is exceptionally well-written and absorbing.
Echoes
Handmaid's Tale, interestingly, reminds me of one of the earlier works of SF great Robert A. Heinlein, his novelette "If This Goes On . . . ," which describes a revolt against a religious-military dictatorship by John Lyle, one of the elite troops known as Angels of the Lord ("Angels" are also soldiers in Atwood's novel). "If This Goes On . . . " provides an excellent contrast, because it establishes the same sort of tension as in Handmaid's Tale, but in classic Heinlein fashion focuses on techniques for organizing a rebellion rather than broad-scale social commentary.
Writing: 9
Characterization: 10
Big Issues/Ideas: 8
Recommended reading: Heinlein's story and Marge Piercy's first-rate Woman on the Edge of Time, another harsh look at the current status and prospects for future oppression of women. Also worth checking out: Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country, where women turn the tables, and It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, a classic novel of the rise to power of a fascist dictatorship in the U.S.
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