Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale
Writer: Margaret Atwood
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 311
There's a little something you should know about me and social dystopias. I love them. So, so much. They depress some people, but I, with my absolutely messed-up mind, revel in them. Learn from them. Am inspired by them. Social dystopias are the Halloween candy you keep eating and eating till you have a stomach ache, and then you just keep eating because you simply can't get enough.
When I heard about The Handmaid's Tale, I knew I had to read it. And the fact I read it right after To Write Like a Woman: Essays on Feminism and Science Fiction, it became even more poignant, because here was a concrete example in the difference Russ was getting at in men's writing and women's writing. Curious yet? Onward, then!
Note: this should be a given, but sometimes I cut for length rather than spoiler content, and in this case, it's spoiler content. I will talk about events and actions in the book, so if you want to be surprised (though, that's a horrible term for a book with a structure like this), then hold off on this review.
Let's talk book, and then structure:
If I have any complaint about social dystopias, it's this: it's difficult to swallow the idea that the world as you know it could become something so dysfunctional, so horrible, so quickly. The Handmaid's Tale is no exception: the protagonist, always known as "Offred" (read: Of Fred) and never as her real name (she is the everywoman in this tale; she's meant to be anonymous so you, the reader, realize that it could be YOU in her shoes), remembers what like was like before the change, and entire book goes back and forth: the woman who accepts her position in the now, the woman she used to be, the woman in transition. Offred is not a strong character, and by strength, I mean strength of will. Her narration and reflections made it easy to understand how and why some people would roll over and let something like this happen, because character doesn't have the strength for the alternative. The book shows reveals her situation, her need to rebel, her need to hold on to what she's lost, and while on some level she's successful, by the end, we learn she's mostly lucky.
The end is tricky: the end of the narrative is completely relative: a pessimist will believe that if it wasn't a rescue, then it was a rescue that would go sour sooner or later. An optimist will believe that indeed, it was a rescue, and that for this character at least, there is some kind of hope, even if the world around her doesn't change.
This woman is no activist. She wants the little things. She wants her daughter back, her husband, but mostly, she wants to feel human again. But she's an object: subject to scorn by the Wives and Marthas, and suitable only for bearing children. This is truly some of the most uncomfortable, yet mind-boggling, sections in the whole book: it adds a new meaning to the phrase "love triangle". Actually, it's just a triangle: there's no love involved here, just duty that isn't enjoyed by any one involved.
For me, it's hard to figure out what message the book is delivering: yes, this is horrible. No, this should NEVER happen. But, there's mixed messages. I can easily see the whole, "You women think you have it rough NOW (translate NOW to the eighties), think of what it COULD become." But there's a disjoint that concerns me: there's clearly religious overtones to this book, that while religion isn't an excuse for what's happening, they certainly believe themselves pious. Yet, Gilead (the republic) is at war with various religious factions: namely Baptists, though I know others aren't excluded. With this detail, and my own woeful lack of knowledge, who would be in charge of such a radical change? It's not Protestant, it's not Quaker, or Jew, and while I wondered at first if it was Catholic (the outfits the women wear are referred to as "habits"), nuns are treated poorly in this narrative too. So what's the religious fuel behind this society? We never learn. We learn about the infamous "they" (which I thought was originally women but think it's more men) infiltrated the government, created a system to control finances (no doubt, this was a reaction to the rise of credit cards and the sudden devalue of the dollar--paying in cash wasn't the honorable thing to do anymore), then assassinated the President and Congress, blamed it on Islam extremists (that got my attention, even today), and then declared a state of emergency. Before anyone knew it, women had no access to their finances, and they lost their jobs. Husbands stood by and watched. Everything snowballed from there.
It's truly frightening to think about. Because in today's day and age, reading the time-line of events makes you realize that yes, something like this COULD happen, if certain people were in charge. But even if not this particular society, it made me think about the future of finances, and how easily it could be to be cut off from your funds, to kicked off the job for your sex (or color, or sexuality, or whatever, for that matter) and how helpless a person would be to stop it. It reminded me of reports I've heard of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, of how your average citizen dealt with the changes in their country. And indeed, there were parallels to that too.
This book does have hope at the end. I was surprised, because I kept gearing myself up for a 1984-esque ending, where people betrayed each other and there is no chance for happiness (echoes of 1984 also echo in this novel: the Commander tells Offred that for women, one and one and one and one does not equal four: it's one each, individiual, not to be lumped together).
The writing: lyrical and pretty with some fabulous moments of description and reflection on society. But technically, I was bothered. Forget the fact it's a shifting narrative of flashback and present action: for every bit of dialogue in a flashback, there were no quotation marks. That continuously bothered me, despite the fact I could tell it wasn't an entirely trendy use. Then, the sentence structure: long, rambling, with little regard to grammar, and by grammer, I mean it was likely used properly, but anyone with any grammatical sense could've dissected some sentences and made them shorter and easier to swallow. But hey, this is style, so why bother? I ride a fine line between art and practicality in this case, so I say, to each their own.
Now, connecting structure to Russ's book, particularly her essay on "What Can a Heroine Do? or Why Women Can't Write": Russ spoke of Virginia Woolf, and how the protagonist's world is defined by experience, which is much like the experience of a woman: day to day living, waiting, wondering, longing, remembering. This lends itself to an un-linear style, and this same style applies exactly to Atwood's book. The protagonist waits. Indeed, other than a daily walk/shopping trip, there is little for her to do but exist. So she remembers, bits and pieces, and through the course of the book we learn the truth of her life and society as she knew it and as she experienced it. Yes, this was told in first person present. But this book, and I don't say this as a criticism, it had no plot: experience has been EXCHANGED for plot, and what compels the reader (what should) is the character: her world: her experience. You read knowing that something will happen, some small or big epiphany will enable the character to see something in a different light, and they may make a decision. They may not. The "climax" (which it should not really be called so) may be entirely symbolic.
In this case, tensions were raised. We saw the daily life, and gradually saw the darker, more disturbing aspects of that life, right to the end when the worst is happening to Offred. But like I said, it ends in hope: ambiguous hope: this, my friends, is so true, and I could say characteristic, of a feminine writing: not hope, but ambiguity: because truly, women do not know what the next day will bring. It may be the same; it may be worse or better. But women, on the whole (and in this particular situation), live with uncertainty, so the reader, in turn, is left with uncertainty.
This is, in my humble opinion, genius. Our standard, traditional plot structure has definition: rises and falls and climaxes and in the case of endings, one way or another: there is, at least, resolution, and if there's a cliffhanger (I wish I could think of a good example of this), it gives you a definite impression of what will happen next. This could be called (and I'm sure it is, by some), masculine writing. Sure, women write this way, and there's nothing wrong with it. But to see the other side, to see what else can be done and how it is truly reflective of the woman's (and I'm speaking generally here) experience, especially back in that day and even currently depending on your social circles. Ursula K LeGuin once commented that men, by nature, are very goal oriented. That women are more attuned to cycles (which makes sense, given the nature of our bodies): writing in this regard, then, makes a lot of sense.
I should note that the book actually ends with a fake lecture that puts the whole story and society in perspective, people from the future, on the outside looking in. I get the impression this society didn't last, and likely collapsed on itself. We also learn the choice to leave the protagonist nameless was indeed intentional. This is all good, but it doesn't beat the fabulous ambiguity of the ending. In fact, it adds to it.
Also, I should note that given the trends in literary fiction, this "feminine" form of writing is more popular now than it used to be, and more accepted in those circles at least. Trying to write a general fantasy or general SF (yes, The Handmaid's Tale is SF, but it's not popular SF) in this style is likely to turn-off and confuse a lot of readers. Not saying it can't be done, or that it hasn't, but it certainly isn't the general trend.
How much do I recommend this? So much. It's not a happy story, but it's not entirely depressing either. A lot rests in your own interpretation. But it's something that I think everyone should read, especially women.