The Handmaid's Tale

A crass but honest way of describing Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale would be to say it is 1984 for women. While I don't like to think of books being FOR only one specific gender, I cannot ignore my own discomfort when reading The Handmaid's Tale. The fact is there is a certain sub-genre within literature that deals primarily with women's issues; that has a heavy focus on child birth, menstruation, and the inhuman alieness of men.  As a guy, I can read something like The Red Tent and get something out of it (like a bout of depression roflamao), but there is an unshakable sense of being an intruder. Is the feeling a societal construct?  Subconscious misogyny? Interestingly, I experienced no such discomfort while reading Analogue: a Hate Story. Despite the fact that it is very much alike to The Handmaid's Tale and The Red Tent in that its plot revolves around women trapped in a despotic patriarchal system.  Perhaps because A Hate Story saw fit to include multiple male perspectives.  But I digress.

So what is the Handmaid's Tale like?  There is not much to the plot, and virtually no characters beyond the narrator. Like 1984, Handmaid's Tale is most interested in introducing and building up a horrifying near future dystopia. Handmaid's Tale is a sort of alternate present where Evangelical Christians have toppled the US government and instituted a brutal theocracy in the vein of modern Iran. Much of the book is spent exploring attitudes, power structures, and day to day life in a tyrannical imitation of biblical times.

The pacing of the book serves it well. The first third of the story feels out the new surroundings cautiously, laying each new revelation like a brick in an unassailable wall. The narrator is part of a new caste of women- ones whose sole purpose is to bear children. Imperceptibly the pace quickens with each new chapter. This is a book that takes a long time to get any real plot but it is gripping all the same. And as the narrator becomes more accustomed to her new world things start moving faster and faster. The monolithic theocracy begins to show cracks. As in 1984, everyone in Handmaid's Tale seems to hate their system and yet are totally trapped in it. But as The Handmaid's Tale barrels towards its conclusion, the instability of the system is apparent. People can grow used to almost any hardship, and this sense of familiarity, of knowing the rules, can lead to foolhardy boldness.

This probably sounds pretty awesome. But there were times when I just had to stop reading the Tale. It is not an easy read. And the constant focus on child birth becomes a little trying. The Tale can't go a page without some obvious symbolism alluding to ovulation or birth. Atwood manages to portray the main characters feelings of being smothered by an overbearing government a little too well. The claustrophobia one feels when reading the Tale can become overwhelming sometimes. And in a minor quibble, the setting is not well served by having the fall of the US take place in less than a year. The intention no doubt is to shock by contrasting the fact that all the women in the book are modern educated people rapidly devolving to a medieval state. It makes the whole thing seem kind of ridiculous though.

An America that can give us feminist Ryan Gosling could never fully submit to the Patriarchy.

I recommend The Handmaid's Tale with reservations. It was not the most pleasant read. But it was quite well written. It lacks 1984's creativity and power. But Handmaid's Tale has closer real world analogues in Middle Eastern theocracies. Read it if you feel like being bummed out I guess. 1 out of 2 stillbirths, sigh.