The Handmaid's Tale

For the film adaptation, see The Handmaid's Tale (film). For the operatic adaptation, see The Handmaid's Tale (opera).
The Handmaid's Tale

The first edition
Author Margaret Atwood
Cover artist Tad Aronowcz, design; Gail Geltner, collage (first edition, hardback)
Country Canada
Language English
Genre Dystopian novel, science fiction, speculative fiction
Publisher McClelland and Stewart
Publication date
 1985 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-7710-0813-9

The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a dystopian novel, a work of speculative fiction,[1] by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.[2][3] Set in the near future, in a totalitarian Christian 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; it was also 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.

Plot summary

The Handmaid's Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic military dictatorship formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America.

Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremists) that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. They are quickly able to take away all of women's rights, largely attributed to financial records being stored electronically and labelled by gender. The new regime, the Republic of Gilead, moves quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. In this society, almost all women are forbidden to read.

The story is presented from the point of view of a woman called Offred (literally Of-Fred). The character is one of a class of women kept as concubines ("handmaids") for reproductive purposes by the ruling class in an era of declining births due to sterility from pollution and sexually transmitted diseases. 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 of her life from before and during the beginning 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. Offred describes the structure of Gilead's society, including the several different classes of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theocracy.

The Commander is a high-ranking official in Gilead. Although he is supposed to have contact with Offred only during "the ceremony," a ritual of sexual intercourse intended to result in conception and at which his wife is present, he begins an illegal and ambiguous relationship with her. He offers her hidden or contraband products, such as old fashion magazines and cosmetics, takes her to a secret brothel run by the government, and furtively meets with her in his study, where he allows her to read, an activity otherwise prohibited for women. The Commander's wife, Serena Joy, also has secret interactions with Offred, arranging for her secretly to have sex with Nick, Serena's driver, in an effort to get Offred pregnant. In exchange for Offred's cooperation, Serena Joy 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 discovers she enjoys sex with Nick, despite her indoctrination and her memories of her husband. She shares potentially dangerous information about her past with him. Through another handmaid, Ofglen, Offred learns of the Mayday resistance, an underground network working to overthrow 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. Offred contemplates suicide. As the novel concludes, she is being taken away by the secret police, the Eyes of God, known informally as "the Eyes", under orders from Nick. Before she is put in the large black van, 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 a member of the Mayday resistance or 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 her future uncertain.

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 is "a partial transcript of the proceedings of the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies" written in 2195. According to the symposium's "keynote speaker" Professor Pieixoto, he and colleague, Professor Knotly Wade, discovered Offred's story recorded onto cassette tapes. They transcribed the tapes, calling them collectively "the handmaid's tale". Through the tone and actions of the professionals in this final section of the book, the world of academia is highlighted and critiqued.[5] The epilogue implies that, following the collapse of the theocratic Republic of Gilead, a more equal society, though not the United States as it previously had existed, re-emerged with a restoration of full rights for women and freedom of religion.

Characters

Offred is a slave name which describes her function: she is "of Fred", i.e. she belongs to her Commander, Fred, as a concubine. In the novel, Offred says that she is not a concubine, or a geisha girl, but just a tool; a "two legged womb". It is implied that her birth name is June. The women in training to be handmaids whisper names across their beds at night. The names are "Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June", and all are later accounted for except June. In addition, one of the Aunts tells the handmaids-in-training to stop "mooning and June-ing".[7] Miner suggests that "June" is a pseudonym. As "Mayday" is the name of the Gilead resistance, June could be an invention by the protagonist. The Nunavit conference covered in the epilogue takes place in June.[8]
He engages in forbidden intellectual pursuits with Offred, such as playing Scrabble, and introduces her to a secret club that serves as a brothel for high-ranking officers. Offred learns that the Commander carried on a similar relationship with his previous handmaid and that she killed herself when his wife found out. In the epilogue, the academics speculate that one of two figures, both instrumental in the establishment of Gilead, may have been Fred, based on his first name. It is strongly suggested that the Commander was a man named Frederick R. Waterford who was killed in a purge shortly after Offred was taken away, on charges that he was harboring an enemy agent.
Another handmaid named Ofglen is assigned as Offred's shopping partner. She threatens Offred against any thought of resistance. She breaks protocol by telling her what happened to the first Ofglen.

Setting

The novel is set in an indeterminate future, with a fundamentalist theocracy ruling the territory of what had been the United States. Individuals 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.

Politics

The novel is set in the Harvard Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts.[9]

In Gilead, the bodies of women are controlled for political purposes. The population is falling as more and more women and men become infertile and sterile, so the government takes total control over their lives and bodies. Women are not allowed to do anything that would make them independent of their households. They cannot vote, they cannot have a job, they cannot read, and they cannot own anything, among many other things. A particular quote from The Handmaid’s Tale sums this up particularly well: “The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you” (HT 5.2). This describes that there is no way around the societal bounds of women in this new state of government. To oppress women further, they are assigned to a certain commander in Gilead and are given new names, such as Offred. The name essentially is “of” in front of the Commander’s name. When a handmaid is reassigned, her name changes with her. Their original identities before this revolution are useless, although the women try to learn each other's original names to hold some sense of self, giving them hope that change can come.

In this book, the government appears to be strong though “no one in Gilead seems to be a true believer in its revolution” (Beauchamp). The Commanders, portrayed through Commander Fred, do not agree with their own doctrines. The commander takes Offred at one point to a club in order to have sex with her in an informal setting apart from the Ceremony. The wives, portrayed through Serena Joy, former television evangelist, disobey the rules set forth by their commander husbands. Serena smokes black market cigarettes and even tries to help get Offred impregnated by the chauffeur.

Gilead demonstrates decline in every aspect of its society; some of its people want only to escape to Canada. Critics have taken Gilead (the U.S.) to symbolize a repressive regime and the mistreated Handmaid to represent Canada.[10] Atwood was "in the vanguard of Canadian anti-Americanism of the 1960s and 1970s."[11]

Caste and class

African Americans, the main non-white ethnic group in this society, are called the Children of Ham. A state TV broadcast mentions their having been relocated en masse to "National Homelands" in the Midwest, which suggest the Apartheid-era homelands in South Africa. Roman Catholics were given seldom mention, but did say that nuns were considered "Unwomen" and most banished to the Colonies on account of their reluctance to marry and bear children. Jews are called Sons of Jacob, also the name of the fundamentalist group who rule the Republic of Gilead. The novel recounts that Jews were offered a choice of converting to Christianity or emigrating to Israel, and most chose to leave. Professor Pieixoto in the epilogue says that some of the emigrating Jews were dumped into the sea on the way to Israel by ship, due to privatization of the "repatriation program" and capitalists' effort to maximize profits. Offred reveals that many Jews who chose to stay were caught secretly practicing Judaism and executed.

Gender and occupation

The sexes are strictly divided. Gilead's society values reproduction by white women most highly. 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 expresses the prevailing opinion that women are considered intellectually and emotionally inferior to men.

Women are segregated by clothing, as are men. With rare exception, men wear military or paramilitary uniforms, which takes away their individualism as it does the women, but also gives them a sense of bravado and empowerment. All classes of men and women are defined by the colors 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 dresses.

Men

Men are classified into four main categories:

Men who engage in homosexuality or related acts are declared "Gender Traitors;" they are either hanged or sent to the "colonies" to die a slow death.

Women

Six main categories of "legitimate" women make up mainstream society. Two chief categories of "illegitimate" women live outside of mainstream society:

Legitimate

The division of labor among the women generates some resentment. Marthas, Wives and Econowives perceive Handmaids as promiscuous. Offred mourns that the women of the various groups have lost their ability to empathize with each other. They are divided in their oppression.

Illegitimate

Babies

In this society, birth defects have become increasingly common.

There are two main categories of human children:

The Ceremony

"The Ceremony" is a non-marital sexual act sanctioned for reproduction. The ritual requires the Handmaid to lie supine upon the Wife during the sex act. The handmaid lies between the Wife's legs as if they were one person. The Wife has to invite the Handmaid to share her power this way, which is considered both humiliating and offensive by many wives. Offred describes the ceremony:

My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for.[12]

Language

In the novel's fictional fundamentalist society, sterile is an "outlawed" word.[13] In this society, there is no such thing as a sterile man anymore. In this culture, women are either fruitful or infertile, the latter of which is declared to be an “unwoman” and is sent to the colonies with the rest of the “unwomen” to do life-threatening work until their death, which is, on average, three years.

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.[14] 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".[15] Through living in a morally rigid society, Offred has come to perceive the world differently from earlier. Offred expresses amazement at how "It has taken so little time to change our minds about things".[16] Wearing revealing clothes and makeup had been part of her former life, but when she sees Japanese tourists dressed that way, she now feels the women are inappropriately dressed.[16]

Offred can read but not translate the phrase "nolite te bastardes carborundorum" carved into the closet wall of her small bedroom; this mock-Latin aphorism signifies "Don't let the bastards grind you down".[17] The significance of this phrase is intensified by the challenges the book has faced, creating a "Mise en abyme" as both the protagonist and the reader decipher subversive texts.

Classification as science fiction or speculative fiction

In interviews and essays Atwood has discussed generic classification of The Handmaid's Tale as "science fiction" or "speculative fiction", observing:

I like to make a distinction between science fiction proper and speculative fiction. For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do, such as going through a wormhole in space to another universe; and speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand, such as DNA identification and credit cards, and that takes place on Planet Earth. But the terms are fluid.[2]

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.)" He says:

Atwood prefers to say that she writes speculative fiction—a term coined by SF author Robert A. Heinlein. As she told the Guardian, "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." She used a subtly different phrasing for New Scientist, "Oryx and Crake is not science fiction. It is fact within fiction. Science fiction is when you have rockets and chemicals." So it was very cruel of New Scientist to describe this interview in the contents list as: "Margaret Atwood explains why science is crucial to her science fiction." ... Play it again, Ms Atwood—this time for the Book-of-the-Month Club: "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians." On BBC1 Breakfast News the distinguished author explained that science fiction, as opposed to what she writes, is characterized by "talking squids in outer space."[3]

In distinguishing between these genre labels science fiction and speculative fiction, Atwood acknowledges that others may use the terms interchangeably. But she notes her interest in this type of work to explore themes in ways that "realistic fiction" cannot do.[2]

Awards

Frequent challenges, ALA conference, and controversy

The American Library Association (ALA) lists The Handmaid's Tale as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000".[18] Atwood participated in discussing The Handmaid's Tale as the subject of an ALA discussion series titled "One Book, One Conference".[19]

The book's inclusion in school curricula and assignments has been challenged by some groups in particular cities in the United States:

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."[21] 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.'[21]

In her earlier account (14 Jan. 2009), Rushowy reported that 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."[22]

In November 2012 two parents in Guilford County, North Carolina protested against inclusion of the book on a required reading list at a local high school. The parents presented the school board with a petition signed by 2,300 people, prompting a review of the book by the school's media advisory committee. According to local news reports, one of the parents said "she felt Christian students are bullied in society, in that they're made to feel uncomfortable about their beliefs by non-believers. She said including books like The Handmaid's Tale contributes to that discomfort, because of its negative view on religion and its anti-biblical attitudes toward sex."[23]

Adaptations

Further information: The Handmaid's Tale (film)

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.[24] It was the opening production of the 2004–2005 season of the Canadian Opera Company.[25]

A stage adaptation of the novel, by Brendon Burns, for the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, England, toured the UK in 2002.[26]

A ballet adaptation choreographed by Lila York and produced by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet premiered on 16 October 2013. Amanda Green appeared as Offred and Alexander Gamayunov as The Commander.[27]

In 2014, Canadian band "Lakes of Canada" released their album "Transgressions," which is intended to be a concept album inspired by The Handmaid's Tale. [28]

A a one-woman stage show, adapted from the novel by Joseph Stollenwerk, premiered in the U.S. in January 2015.[29]

Related works

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The Handmaid's Tale is the inaugural winner of this award for the best science fiction novel published in the United Kingdom during the previous year.
  2. ↑ The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given out annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal, Prometheus.

References

  1. ↑ "About Speculative Fiction", The Handmaid's Tale Study Guide, Gradesaver, 22 May 2009 Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help).
  2. 1 2 3 Atwood, Margaret (17 June 2005), "Film: Science fiction, fatasy & horror", The Guardian (UK), If you're writing about the future and you aren't doing forecast journalism, you'll probably be writing something people will call either science fiction or speculative fiction. I like to make a distinction between science fiction proper and speculative fiction. For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do, such as going through a wormhole in space to another universe; and speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand, such as DNA identification and credit cards, and that takes place on Planet Earth. But the terms are fluid. Some use speculative fiction as an umbrella covering science fiction and all its hyphenated forms–science fiction fantasy, and so forth–and others choose the reverse. ...I have written two works of science fiction or, if you prefer, speculative fiction: The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake. Here are some of the things these kinds of narratives can do that socially realistic novels cannot do. |contribution= ignored (help)
  3. 1 2 Langford 2003.
  4. ↑ Kantor, Elizabeth (2006), "2. Medieval Literature: Here Is God's Plenty", The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, Washington, DC: Regenery, pp. 27–44, ISBN 1-59698-011-7.
  5. ↑ Grace, DM (1998). "Handmaid's Tale Historical Notes and Documentary Subversion". Science Fiction Studies (Science Fiction Studies) 25 (3): 481–94. JSTOR 4240726.
  6. 1 2 "Character List", The Handmaid's Tale Study Guide, Gradesaver, 22 May 2009 Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help).
  7. ↑ Atwood 1986, p. 220.
  8. ↑ Madonne 1991.
  9. ↑ Atwood 1998, An Interview: 'Q: We can figure out that the main character lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts'
  10. ↑ Tandon, Neeru; Chandra, Anshul (2009). Margaret Atwood: A Jewel in Canadian Writing. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 154–55.
  11. ↑ Reingard M. Nischik (2000). Margaret Atwood: Works and Impact. Camden House. pp. 6, 143.
  12. ↑ Atwood 1998, p. 94.
  13. ↑ Atwood 1998, p. 161.
  14. ↑ Atwood 1998, pp. 144, 192.
  15. ↑ Atwood 1998, pp. 178–79.
  16. 1 2 Atwood 1998, pp. 36.
  17. ↑ Atwood 1998, pp. 235.
  18. ↑ "The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000", Issues & advocacy (ALA) (some of the ALA's links are no longer active. The ALA website does not update and redirect its moved links automatically; if they are updated, one must perform a new search for them.)
  19. ↑ "One Book, One Conference", Annual Report 2002–2003 (conference), American Library Association, June 2003, retrieved 21 May 2009. Concerns inaugural program featuring Margaret Atwood held in Toronto, 19–25 June 2003.
  20. ↑ Banned Books: 2007 Resource Guide, ALA.
  21. 1 2 Rushowy 2009
  22. ↑ Rushowy 2009b
  23. ↑ Winston-Salem Journal, 11/2/2012 Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help).
  24. ↑ Clements, Andrew (Apr 5, 2003), "Classical music & opera", The Guardian (first night review) (UK)
  25. ↑ Littler, William (December 15, 2004), Opera Canada.
  26. ↑ The Handmaid's tale, UK: UKTW.
  27. ↑ "The Handmaid's Tale debuts as ballet in Winnipeg". CA: CBC News. 15 October 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  28. ↑ http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2015/10/First-Play-and-QA-Lakes-of-Canada-Transgressions
  29. ↑ Lyman, David (24 January 2015). "'Handmaid's Tale' offers extreme view of future". Cincinnati.com.

Works cited

Further reading

External links

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
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