| The Handmaid's Tale | |
|---|---|
Cover of first edition (hardcover) |
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| Author(s) | Margaret Atwood |
| Cover artist | Tad Aronowcz, design; Gail Geltner, collage (first edition, hardback) |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | dystopian novel, science fiction or speculative fiction |
| Publisher | McClelland and Stewart |
| Publication date | 1985 (Hardcover) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 324 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0771008139 |
| Preceded by | Bodily Harm |
| Followed by | Cat's Eye |
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel, a work of science fiction or speculative fiction,[1] written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood[2][3] and first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985. Set in the near future, in a totalitarian theocracy which has overthrown the United States government, The Handmaid's Tale explores themes of women in subjugation and the various means by which they gain agency. The novel's title was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, which is a series of connected stories ("The Merchant's Tale", "The Parson's Tale", etc.).[4]
The Handmaid's Tale won the 1985 Governor General's Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987, and it was nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. It has been adapted for the cinema, radio, opera, and stage.
Contents |
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead, a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. It was founded by a racist, male chauvinist, nativist, theocratic-organized military coup as an ideologically driven response to the pervasive ecological, physical and social degradation of the country.
Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremist terrorists) that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launched a revolution and suspended the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order.
Taking advantage of electronic banking, they were quickly able to freeze the assets of all women and other "undesirables" in the country, stripping them of their rights. The new theocratic military dictatorship, styled "The Republic of Gilead", moved quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious orthodoxy among its newly created social classes.
The story is presented from the point of view of a woman called Offred (a patronymic name that means "Of Fred", referring to the man she serves). The character is one of a class of individuals kept as concubines ("handmaids") for reproductive purposes by the ruling class in an era of declining births. The book is told in the first person by Offred, who describes her life during her third assignment as a handmaid, in this case to Fred (referred to as "The Commander"). Interspersed in flashbacks are portions her life from the beginnings of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, through her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter to Canada, to her indoctrination into life as a handmaid. Through her eyes, the structure of Gilead's society is described, including the several different categories of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theocracy.
The Commander, a high ranking official in Gilead, participates in a sexual ritual (known as "The Ceremony") once a month with his wife and Offred (who lies upon the wife) in an attempt to conceive. During Offred's assignment at the Commander's house, he begins an illegal and ambiguous relationship with her, exposing Offred to many hidden or contraband aspects of the new society, such as fashion magazines and cosmetics. He takes her to a secret brothel run by the government, and he furtively meets with her in his study, where he allows her the contraband activity of reading. The Commander's wife strikes a deal with Offred—she arranges for Offred to secretly have sex with her driver Nick in an effort to get her pregnant. The Commander's wife believes the Commander to be sterile, a subversive belief as official Gilead policy is that only women can be sterile. In exchange for Offred's cooperation, the Commander's wife gives her news of her daughter, whom Offred has not seen since she and her family were captured trying to escape Gilead.
After Offred's initial meeting with Nick, they begin to rendezvous more frequently. Offred finds herself enjoying sex with Nick despite her indoctrination, and even goes as far as to divulge potentially dangerous information about her past. Through another handmaid, Ofglen, Offred learns of the Mayday resistance, an underground network with the intent of overthrowing Gilead. Shortly after Ofglen's disappearance (later discovered to be a suicide), the Commander's wife finds evidence of the relationship between Offred and the Commander, and Offred contemplates suicide. As the novel concludes, she is being taken away by men from the secret police, known as the Eyes, in a large black van under orders from Nick. Before she is taken away, Nick tells her that the men are part of the Mayday resistance and that Offred must trust him. Offred does not know if Nick is truly a member of the Mayday resistance or if he is a government agent posing as one, and she does not know if going with the men will result in her escape or her capture. She enters the van with a final thought on her uncertain future.
The novel concludes with a metafictional epilogue that explains that the events of the novel occurred shortly after the beginning of what is called "the Gilead Period." The epilogue itself is a "transcription of a Symposium on Gileadean Studies written some time in the distant future (2195)", and according to the symposium's "keynote speaker" Professor Pieixoto, he and "a colleague", Professor Knotly Wade, discovered Offred's narrative recorded onto thirty cassette tapes. They created a "probable order" for these tapes and transcribed them, calling them collectively "the handmaid's tale".[5][6][7][8] The epilogue implies that, following the collapse of the theocratic Republic of Gilead, a more equal society re-emerged with a return of the legal rights of women and also Native Americans. It's further suggested that freedom of religion was also re-established.
In this novel characters are segregated by categories and dressed according to their social functions. The complex sumptuary laws (dress codes) play a key role in imposing social control within the new society and serve to distinguish people by sex, occupation, and caste.
African Americans, the main non-white ethnic group in this society, are called the Children of Ham, and one state TV broadcast mentions them being relocated en masse to "National Homelands" reminiscent of Apartheid-era South African homelands, in the Midwest. The narrator wonders what they're supposed to do up there, thinking "farm, supposedly." Jews are called Sons of Jacob, which is also the name of the fundamentalist group that rules the Republic of Gilead. In the body of the novel, it is explained that the Jews were offered a choice of converting to Christianity or emigrating to Israel, and that most chose to leave. But in the epilogue, Professor Pieixoto says that at least some Jews who chose to leave were dumped into the sea on the way to Israel in boats, as a result of privatization of the "repatriation program" in order to maximize private profits. The narrator also reveals that many Jews who chose to stay were caught practicing Judaism in secret and executed.
The sexes are strictly divided. Gilead's society values reproduction by white women more than reproduction by other women: women are categorised "hierarchically according to class status and reproductive capacity" as well as "metonymically colour-coded according to their function and their labour" (Kauffman 232). The Commander makes it clear that women are considered intellectually and emotionally inferior. Women are not permitted to read and girls are not educated.
Women are as visually segregated as men are. The men are equipped with military or paramilitary uniforms, constraining but, perhaps, empowering them as well. All classes of men and women are defined by the colours they wear (as in Aldous Huxley's dystopia Brave New World), drawing on color symbolism and psychology. All lower status individuals are regulated by this dress code. All non-persons are banished to the 'Colonies' (usually forced-labor camps in which they clean up radioactive waste, becoming exposed and dying painful deaths as a result). Sterile, unmarried women are considered to be non-persons. Both men and women sent there wear grey clothing. Only rare civilians (who are increasingly persecuted) and Commanders seem to be free of sumptuary restrictions.
According to their particular roles and duties, men are classified into four main categories:
Men who engage in homosexuality or related acts are declared "Gender Traitors" and either executed or sent to the "colonies" to die a slow death.
There are six main categories of "legitimate" women, who make up mainstream society, and two main categories of "illegitimate" women, who exist outside of mainstream society:
The division of labor between women engenders some resentment between categories. Marthas, Wives and Econowives perceive Handmaids as sluttish. The narrator mourns that none of the various groups are able to empathize with the others; women are taught to hate and fear other women and thus remain divided in their oppression.
In this society, birth defects have become increasingly common.
There are two main categories of human offspring:
In interviews and essays Atwood has discussed generic classification of The Handmaid's Tale as "science fiction" or "speculative fiction", observing:
Hugo-winning science fiction critic David Langford observed in a column: "(…The Handmaid's Tale, won the very first Arthur C. Clarke award in 1987. She's been trying to live this down ever since.)" and goes on to point out:
In distinguishing between these genre labels science fiction and speculative fiction, Atwood stated that while others might be using the terms interchangeably, whether classified as "science fiction proper" or as "speculative fiction", her narratives give her the ability to explore themes in ways that "realistic fiction" cannot do.[2]
Human sexuality in Gilead is regulated by the notion that sexual intercourse is fundamentally degrading to women. Men are understood to desire sexual pleasure constantly, but are obliged to abstain from all but marital sex for religio-social reasons. The social regulations are enforced by law, with corporal punishment inflicted for lesser offences and capital punishment for greater ones.
"The Ceremony" is a non-marital sexual act sanctioned solely for the purpose of reproduction, based on a Biblical passage described below. This Gileadian enactment has the Handmaid lying supine upon the Wife during the sex act itself. The handmaid is to lie between the Wife's legs as if they are one person. In this way, the Wife has to invite the Handmaid to share her power by inviting her to lie in her own personal space, which is considered both humiliating and offensive by many wives. Offred describes the ceremony:
Once a Handmaid is pregnant, she is venerated by her peers and the Wives. After the baby is born, if it is not an "unbaby" or a "shredder", it is given to the Wife of her Commander, and she is reassigned to another household. She has the guarantee that she will never be declared an "Unwoman".
The novel indicates that pre-Gileadian society was not favorable for women. This society was a late 20th-century version of the United States as Atwood envisioned it developing at the time of its writing (1985). In this society, women feared physical and sexual violence, and despite long-running feminist campaigns (approximately 1970–2000 within the text), they had not achieved equality. Feminist campaigners like Offred's mother and Moira were persecuted by the state. Radical feminism had teamed up with social conservativism in campaigns against pornography. In addition, mass commercialization had reached a nadir of "fast-food" and "home delivery" sexuality. Women outside of prostitution in "the former times" were subject to a socially constructed vision of romantic love that encouraged serial monogamy in favor of men's social and sexual interests.
In pre-Gileadean society, despite holding a university degree, Offred was a menial white collar worker whose colleagues were all women, with a male boss. Aside from having had to cope with oppressive cultural and social phenomena, women lacked full and meaningful control over their economic lives.
The book also hints that the birth rate was in decline due to infertility caused by AIDS and "R-Strain" Syphilis epidemics prior to the revolution by noting that the Center where Moira and Offred were kept was a high school that had been closed sometime in the mid-1980s due to a lack of students.
In the novel, women are depicted as the property of men in both societies, in the United States as private property and in Gilead as social property.
The novel is set in the Harvard Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts,[12] where Atwood studied at Radcliffe College, and many locations in the novel are recognizable. Victims of "Salvagings" (public executions) are hanged on the wall of Harvard Yard; Fred's home is on the famous "Professor's Row"; and the Brattle Theatre, Memorial Hall and Widener Library make very prominent cameos. "There are no lawyers now, and the university is closed", Offred thinks to herself, observing the changes.
| Republic of Gilead | |
| Source | The Handmaid's Tale |
|---|---|
| Creator | Margaret Atwood |
| Genre | Dystopian novel |
| Capital | unknown |
| Language(s) | English (de facto) |
| Ethnic groups | Whites, Sons of Jacob, Children of Ham |
| Government | Theocratic military dictatorship |
The Republic of Gilead is a fictional country that is the setting of the Margaret Atwood dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale.
The country exists within the borders of what was originally the United States of America. However, after an unspecified catastrophe (possibly a nuclear or biological war or extreme environmental pollution), a meticulously planned terrorist attack was staged against the President and the Congress, which was afterwards referred to as "the President's Day massacre." Immediately after this, a revolution occurred which deposed the United States government and abolished the United States Constitution, and a new theocratic government was formed under the rule of a military dictatorship. The government has proclaimed martial law due to the destabilizing effect of "hordes of guerrillas" roaming the countryside, although the actual threat from the "guerrillas" may be greatly exaggerated.The guerrillas in the novel are people from opposing religious groups, even Christians, who follow the teachings of the New Testament .
The Republic of Gilead is governed according to strict Old Testament-based religious dogma. Other religions are not tolerated, and those who do not conform are quickly executed by the state or shipped to areas of the former US known as the "colonies" which have dangerously high levels of radiation. The colonies are also the source of most of Gilead's agricultural production. For a brief period at the outset of the Republic, Jewish people also have the option of emigrating to Israel, as they are regarded as Sons of Jacob and therefore deserving of special treatment.Those who may have formerly been considered African-American are redesignated the Children of Ham and transported to National Homeland One, believed to be located somewhere within the boundaries of what was previously North Dakota. However, some sources have suggested that formerly African-American women form part or all of the complement of the Marthas, a group of sterile, older women who are deemed most appropriate for a life of domestic servitude.
The Republic also has a brutal policy towards women, which forms much of the novel's central theme. In Gilead women are forbidden to read, and are segregated into an elaborate caste system in which their sexual activities are strictly controlled and regulated so as to serve the procreative agendas of the government. Ironically, despite its claim to be based on "traditional values", the Republic's misogyny is far more extreme than that of even the most misogynistic periods of premodern human history.
Some of the underpinnings of the Republic of Gilead come from the Bible, especially the Book of Genesis. The primary reference is to the story of Rachel and Leah (Genesis 29:31–35; 30:1–24). Leah, Rachel's sister and the first wife of Jacob, was fertile and was blessed by God; but Rachel, Jacob's second wife, was thought to be infertile until much later in her life. Rachel and Leah compete in bearing sons for their husband by using their handmaids as proxies and taking immediate possession of the children they produce. In the context of Atwood's book, the story is one of female competition, jealousy, and reproductive cruelty.
The name "Gilead" is also from Genesis and means "hill of testimony" or "mount of witness".
In this context of the novel's fictional futuristic fundamentalist social hierarchy, sterile is an "outlawed" word (161).
Atwood emphasises how changes in context affect behaviours and attitudes by repeating the phrase "Context is all" throughout the novel, establishing this precept as a motif (e.g., 144, 192). Playing the game of Scrabble with her Commander illustrates the key significance of changes in "context"; once "the game of old men and women", the game became forbidden for women to play and therefore "desirable" (178–79). Through living in a morally rigid society, Offred has come to perceive the world differently than earlier. At one point, Offred is amazed at how "It has taken so little time to change our minds about things" (36). Revealing clothes and makeup were part of her former life; yet, when she encounters some Japanese tourists wearing these, she is intrigued by her feeling that they are inappropriately dressed (36).
Another ironic motif in the novel derives from Offred's inability to understand the phrase "nolite te bastardes carborundorum" carved into the closet wall of her small bedroom: a well-known mock-Latin aphorism mockingly signifying "Don't let the bastards grind you down" (235).
The Handmaid's Tale comprises a number of social critiques. Atwood sought to demonstrate that extremist views might result in fundamentalist totalitarianism. The novel presents a dystopian vision of life in the United States in the period projecting forward from the time of the writing (1985), covering the backlash against feminism. This critique is most clearly seen in both Offred's memories of the slow social transformation towards theocratic fascism and in the ideology of the Aunts. Atwood's motivations for writing the novel, reflecting the above statements, can be found in the interview appended to the 1998 version of the novel. She says, "This is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusions" (394).
Atwood mocks those who talk of "traditional values" and those who suggest that women should return to being housewives. For Serena Joy, a formerly successful TV personality and public speaker, the religious and social ideology she has spent her entire long career publicly promoting has, in the end, destroyed her own life and happiness.
Atwood also offers a critique of contemporary feminism. By working against pornography, feminists in the early 1980s opened themselves up to criticism that they favoured censorship. Anti-pornography feminist activists such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon made alliances with the religious right. This critique was adopted and made popular by dissident feminists such as Camille Paglia. Atwood warns that the consequences of such an alliance may end up empowering feminists' worst enemies. She also suggests, through descriptions of the narrator's feminist mother burning books, that contemporary feminism was becoming overly rigid and adopting the same tactics of the religious right.
Most notably, Atwood critiques modern religious movements, specifically fundamentalist Christianity in the United States, with a reference to Islamic fundamentalism such as the theocracy founded in Iran in 1979. An American religious revival in the mid-1970s had led to the growth of the religious right through televangelism. Jimmy Carter, then president, had avowed his renewed and reaffirmed Christianity; Ronald Reagan was elected as his successor using a specifically Christian discourse.
Atwood pictures revivalism as counter-revolutionary, opposed to the revolutionary doctrine espoused by Offred's mother and Moira, which sought to break down gender categories. A Marxist reading of fascism explains it as the backlash of the right after a failed revolution. Atwood explores this Marxist reading and translates its analysis into the structure of a religious and gender revolution. "From each according to her ability… to each according to his needs" (117) is a deliberate distortion of Marx's phrase, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" — the latter, an ideological statement on class and society; the former, a stance taken by Gileadian society towards gender roles.
Atwood's social critique in the novel has been challenged, such as by conservative pundit Elizabeth Kantor.[4] Kantor argues that Atwood's "dreary" and "third-rate" novel, being based on a superficial and selective interpretation of Chaucer, misrepresents its source of inspiration: "Medieval literature is nothing at all like the what you expect if you go into it with the impression that an explicitly Christian society must be some kind of totalitarian nightmare." Christianity—in the form of the Pope—actually serves as a check on the abuses of royal power, suggests Kantor. In contrast to Atwood's depiction of a society where oppression of women is the norm, Kantor suggests that Chaucer reveals a world where courtly love has improved the social status of women, and where women are depicted vividly, realistically and sympathetically; they "choose husbands or lovers, are disobedient, exert control over their husband's money, and have a very healthy interest in sex. [...] Chaucer pokes fun at the kind of man who is so deluded about a woman's innocent, shrinking-violet nature as to imagine that his physical attentions will be too much for her."
The American Library Association (ALA) lists The Handmaid's Tale as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000".[15]
Atwood participated in discussing The Handmaid's Tale as "the subject of the ALA's first conference-wide discussion series, 'One Book, One Conference,' which was so successful that its Public Programs Office was considering hosting a second series in 2004."[16]
According to Education Reporter Kristin Rushowy of the Toronto Star (16 Jan. 2009), in 2008 a parent in Toronto, Canada, wrote a letter to his son's high school principal, asking that the book no longer be assigned as required reading, stating that the novel is "rife with brutality towards and mistreatment of women (and men at times), sexual scenes, and bleak depression."[17] Rushowy quotes the response of Russell Morton Brown, a retired University of Toronto English professor, who acknowledged that "The Handmaid's Tale wasn't likely written for 17-year-olds, 'but neither are a lot of things we teach in high school, like Shakespeare. … 'And they are all the better for reading it. They are on the edge of adulthood already, and there's no point in coddling them,' he said, adding, 'they aren't coddled in terms of mass media today anyway.' … He said the book has been accused of being anti-Christian and, more recently, anti-Islamic because the women are veiled and polygamy is allowed. … But that 'misses the point,' said Brown. 'It's really anti-fundamentalism.' "[17] In her earlier account (14 Jan. 2009), Rushowy indicates that, in response to the parent's complaint, a Toronto District School Board committee was "reviewing the novel"; while noting that "The Handmaid's Tale is listed as one of the 100 'most frequently challenged books' from 1990 to 1999 on the American Library Association's website", Rushowy reports that "The Canadian Library Association says there is 'no known instance of a challenge to this novel in Canada' but says the book was called anti-Christian and pornographic by parents after being placed on a reading list for secondary students in Texas in the 1990s."[18]
The 1990 film The Handmaid's Tale was based on a screenplay by Harold Pinter and directed by Volker Schlöndorff. It starred Natasha Richardson as Offred, Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy, and Robert Duvall as The Commander (Fred).
A dramatic adaptation of the novel for radio was produced for BBC Radio 4 by John Dryden in 2000. An operatic adaptation, The Handmaid's Tale, by Poul Ruders, premiered in Copenhagen on 6 March 2000, and was performed by the English National Opera, in London, in 2003. It was the opening production of the 2004–2005 season of the Canadian Opera Company.[19]
A stage adaptation of the novel, by Brendon Burns, for the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, England, toured the UK in 2002.
Translated into Danish as Tjenerindens fortælling; Dutch as Het Verhaal van de Dienstmaagd; Estonian as Teenijanna lugu; French as La Servante écarlate; German as Der Report der Magd; Greek as Η ιστορία της πορφυρής δούλης; Hungarian as A szolgálólány meséje; Polish as Opowieść podręcznej; Spanish as El relato de la criada; Vietnamese as Chuyện người tùy nữ (translation sponsored by Canada Council for the Arts); and Icelandic as Saga þernunnar.
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| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by The Engineer of Human Souls |
Governor General's Award for English language fiction recipient 1985 |
Succeeded by The Progress of Love |
| Preceded by - |
Arthur C. Clarke Award 1987 |
Succeeded by The Sea and Summer |