The Handmaid's Tale
Book - 1998
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Add a QuotePg. 463
Humanity is so adaptable, my Mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.
Pg. 411
"Well officially," he says. "But everyone's human, after all."
I wait for him to elaborate on this, but he doesn't, so I say, "What does that mean?"
"It means you can't cheat Nature," he says. "Nature demands variety, for men. It stands to reason, it's part of the procreational strategy. It's Nature's plan." I don't say anything, so he goes on. "Women know that instinctively. Why did they buy so many different clothes, in the old days? To trick the men into thinking they were several different women. A new one each day."
"So now that we don't have different clothes," I say, "you merely have different women." This is irony , but he doesn't acknowledge it.
"It solves a lot of problems," he says, without a twitch.
Pg. 392
With that man you wanted it to work, to work out. Working out was also something you did to keep your body in shape, for the man. If you worked out enough, maybe the man would too. Maybe you would be able to work it out together, as if the two of you were a puzzle that could be solved; otherwise, one of you, most likely the man, would go wandering off on a trajectory of his own, taking his addictive body with him and leaving you with bad withdrawal, which you could counteract by exercise.
If you don't like it, change it, we said, to each other and to ourselves. and so we would change the man, for another one. Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.
Pg. 391
The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.
And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time.
Pg. 380
We've given them more than we've taken away, said the Commander. Think of the trouble they had before. Don't you remember the singles' bars, the indignity of high school blind dates? The meat market. Don't you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn't? Some of them were desperate, they starved themselves think of pumped their breasts full of silicone, had their noses cut off. Think of the human misery.
Pg. 366
Better never means better for everyone, he (The Commander) says. It always means worse, for some.
Pg. 338
But she (Aunt Lydia) knew too the spiritual value of bodily rigidity, of muscle strain: a little pain cleans out the mind, she'd say.
Pg. 334
What the commander said is true. One and one and one and one doesn't equal four. Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They cannot be exchanged, one for the other. They cannot replace each other.
Notices
Add NoticesSummary
Add a SummaryOffred lives in a society where women are valued purely for their ability to reproduce because of rampant bareness caused by radioactive materials. Offred is one of the handmaids who are forced to procreate under the direct supervision of their commanding 'wives'. Offred had a family and a child of her own which were taken from her when she was forced to become property. All aspects of her life are controlled on pain of death. Things start to spiral downward when her Commander (baby daddy) starts speaking to her outside of the prearranged time he promises her glimpses of her old life. She is also forced into a sexual encounter with one of the servant men after her commanding wife feels the commander is incapable of getting her pregnant. She continues on this relationship even though she is afraid of being found out. The book ends rather abruptly when Offred is taken away in a van which is known to dispose of rebellious handmaids. It is implied that her lover helps her escape although it is ambiguous.
Comment
Add a CommentA dystopian Novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, an interesting narrative tone is used to describe Offred and her life in Gilead, a fictional religious society, and the civil and feminists rights that are violated in this totalitarian nation. Atwood campaigns for Women's rights, drawing parallels to issues in modern society and providing a terrible vision of a world, were extreme politics have made ordinary female freedoms non-existent.
Good read.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is a dystopian style novel where women have no rights and must abide by the rules of men. Offred, a handmaid, is placed in a home with a commander where she is used for her fertility to give the commander and his wife the child they are incapable of having. The Republic of Gilead has eyes on everyone and everything but many people will risk their life in order to escape into the normal world again. This book is great for those who like the reading about possible futures and new world ideas. It also captures readers' imaginations and may interest those who like the study of politics and culture. I enjoyed the dystopian aspect of this novel and how it used a totalitarian government in order to provide perspective on different political powers.
I read this book to fulfil the goal read a book with only images and no words on the cover (this wasn't the exact copy i had, but it is the same story.) It is like george orwell's 1984 which both bore me and scare me. I was planning to write a very negitive review. I found the book a little confusing and the characters unrelatable, and then the book ended. just like that. I was so surprised and upset. I discovered there is a sequel and i have to read it. so, yes, i guess i will call it a good book. it certainly sparked an emotion in me. It is #63 on Listopia's 300 books everyone should read once list. I say it deserves its place there, and as soon as i can i'm reading the sequel.
The hype was better than the actual story. It's a time passer, which is about the best thing I can say about it.
As a woman raised in Iran reading this book was very hard and constantly brought back painful memories. I had to get up and take walks or drink water at points while reading this book simply because flashbacks were too painful. I don't think a typical Canadian woman knows how close to reality this book is and will dismiss it as a purely dystopian fiction.
I recommend reading this book to any woman and I will tell them that a variation of events that happens in this book could very easily become reality one day. It happened in my home country; one day women had the right to choose their outfit and engage in any social activity that men participated. Three months later all of that freedom was gone and the ruling regime's ideal role for women was to be buried at homes never to come out and just produce and raise kids and satisfy men!
If you found yourself holding your breath while you turned pages and felt like The Handmaid's Tale was just a bit too apt for our time read It Can't Happen Here. Remember -- nothing Atwood wrote about in The Handmaid's Tale was really fiction. It has all happened in some form in some place at some time. You have to decide for yourself if it will happen here.
This was nearly a DNF. It was frustrating to read. I'm not a fan of Atwood it appears. I read this purely because I wanted to read the sequel, I can't see that happening any time soon.
The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel about a totalitarian patriarchal society in Cambridge, Massachusetts in The Republic of Gilead formerly known as the United States. In Gilead, women were stripped of all rights. Their sole purpose was reproduction. High ranking official couples that could not have children were assigned handmaids to conceive with the husbands so that the couple could have children. This novel is about Offred, short for Property of Fred, her life as a handmaid for Commander Fred and his wife. Before she was a handmaid, she, her husband, and their young daughter were caught escaping to Canada. Her husband was captured and never heard from again. Her young daughter was taken away by another woman. Offred was forced to become a handmaid. She often recalled the freedom she enjoyed before Gilead, her best friend in college and her family. It was a stark contrast from the totalitarian government she lived now.
This is a powerful book about human rights or lack thereof under a totalitarian government. Even high ranking officials like Commander Fred and his wife who supported the government seemed to seek freedom. The commander kept a private library while books were outlawed. His wife, a gospel singer before Gilead banned music, often hummed a melody when she thought no one was listening. No one could trust a neighbor or a friend because that person could be a spy for the government. It is disheartening that totalitarian government still exists and that there are many people who still live in an oppressed society today.
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel that follows a totalitarian state where women are deprived of all of their rights (read, write, own property or handle money). The main character, Offred, is one of the only remaining fertile women. Therefore she is forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders" or the ruling class of men. The rest of the women are classed socially and are forced to follow a strict dress code.
The Handmaid's tale explores themes of subjugated women, and the various means by which women resist and attempt to gain independence. However, due to the explicit sexual content, this book is not suitable for people under the age of 15.