The Handmaid's Tale

1984. Brave New World. Farenheit 541. The Handmaid's Tale. These are the cornerstone classics of dystopian science-fiction... visions of a future not entirely fictitious to our minds and reflective of our current existence as a perversion of ideals. They work as warnings of what could come forth from the right wing or ultra-conservative stances of our contemporaries. For me, they're the ultimate in terrifying literature.

When I recently read Margaret Atwood's critically-acclaimed and multi-award winning novel, The Handmaid's Maid I was completely blown away by her unique but scarily familiar vision. It could be seen as 1984 written from a feminist standpoint. I don't mean to diminish either 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale through comparison though, they are both incredibly important works of literature in their own rights... to the extent that I fear to cheapen either of them just by comparing them here (but not enough to make me delete this paragraph, ho ho). To put it simply, this book = wow.

The handmaid of the title is Offred, one of the first wave of handmaids established in Gileadian society. This is the near future, a sizeable portion of western society is sterile, and the nation of Gilead has established itself in North America after the en masse assassination of the President and his cabinet (via a mysterious act of terrorism). It is a totalitarian theocracy engaged in various wars with other religious groups or countries (it isn't exactly clear), and the oppression of the population is fundamentally tied to women. With the abundance of sterility, women have become all but useless in the eyes of Gileadian society.

The 'best' women are designated Wives, and allowed to marry high-profile men. Older women are designated as 'Marthas', they do all the housework and cooking. Women with no use are designated 'Un-women' and sent to the Colonies - hell-ish areas of Chernobyl-like pollution in need of a clean-up. Women who are still fertile are designated as Handmaids, they are given to the lucky households for three-year terms, where it is hoped they will produce a child with the husband of that household. If they do, that child becomes the child of the husband and wife, and the handmaid moves on to another household. Handmaids are said to do a noble task, but almost everybody is resentful of them and they are given almost no rights whatsoever. The handmaid of this tale, Offred, narrates the story of her time in this society.

Offred intersperses her life in this regime with snatches of her life from before it. Gradually we put together a picture of how this society came about, how each line of escape was cut off from women desperate to leave before it became too late, and how Offred came to be a handmaid. Her personal viewpoint of this world is what makes it so terrifying... to a certain degree, Offred accepts the terrible position she has come to inhabit, and it feels normal. She gets used to the incredible restrictions she lives under... even as she is forced into an compromising position, she comes to accept it as something she can do nothing about. Everything has been taken away from her... her husband, her child, her freedom, her future. She has no hope.

Atwood builds a brilliantly distorted perversion of our society. Strong themes of conformism and power through knowledge permeate nearly every paragraph. Offred yearns for any kind of information and the small degrees of power this can give her... she is starved of power. She hungers for any kind of choice or freedom. You can really feel the nightmare that Offred is forced to live within - a world of religious intolerance and brutal conservatism. This ultra-conservative all-American society gives so little to the realm of women that their already paltry roles must be split up into 'reproductive', 'household' and 'wife' categories. And these little worlds they are granted are incredibly closed-off thanks to the restriction of information allowed to women.

As I mentioned early on, this is a true classic. It's every bit as important as 1984 or Brave New World. This is the best freaking book I've read in ages. Atwood demonstrates perfectly and poetically how the terror of power and the restriction of knowledge can make an underclass of people (EG. Women) into hopeless slaves. It's beautifully written, expertly crafted, full of amazing ideas, increasingly relevant in our current post-9/11 climate, and absolutely terrifying to the soul. I highly recommend this to anyone who hasn't read it.