The novel that explores a world where women stopped belonging to themselves under a totalitarian regime.
"It can't happen here could not be depended on: anything could happen anywhere, given the circumstances."
When I decided to read The Handmaid's Tale, I was attracted by the 'speculative fiction' (as the author puts it) of a society where women were reduced to their reproductive roles.
Bodies treated like vessels under a regime that solely instills in them a biological purpose. Maybe these ideas resounded closer with me after the feminist movement's growth in the last few years or the debate about abortion that is still today being discussed in many parts of the world.
I became curious about how the book dealt with this issue in a dystopian world and was not disappointed with my choice. To this day, I have not watched the shows produced to keep a fresh view on the storyline.
In 2019, Margaret Atwood released a sequel called The Testaments that continues with the events described in The Handmaid´s Tale. Born in 1939, the author explains how she grew up in a world where "established orders could vanish overnight". A divided Germany was the stage in which she wrote the novel. The iconic Berlin Wall makes an appearance in the society created by Atwood by establishing an 'Inside' and 'Outside', where the handmaids cannot get information about what is happening on the other side unless someone infiltrates their environment.
"During my visits to several countries behind the Iron Curtain - Czechoslovakia, East Germany - I experienced the wariness, the feeling of being spied on, the silences, the changes of subject, the oblique ways in which people might convey information, and these had an influence on what I was writing".
When the author tries to distance herself from the term 'science fiction' she does so with an intention to depict what could happen given certain circumstances.
The action takes place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the Republic of Gilead has been established following the model of the 17th century Puritan society. Margaret Atwood claims The Handmaid's Tale is not "anti-religious" but it's against the use of religion as a front for tyranny. Drawing inspiration from real events like "group executions, sumptuary laws, book burnings, the Lebensborn program of the S.S., and the child-stealing of the Argentinean generals" among others, she exposes the dangers of what the philosopher Hannah Arendt coined as 'the banality of evil'.
"One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the "nightmare" of history, nor any technology not already available."
It is perhaps this 'speculative fiction' that makes matters more ominous and engaging. Could we become this world again someday?
The use of religious symbols (the novel makes use of many Biblical ones), the colors and clothes to identify and control the handmaids, plus their given names, are just some examples of tyrannical expressions of a patriarchal society. It is the color of blood that defines the handmaids, a visceral hue that denotes the blood of giving birth and the risk of having their life taken away. They perform as mere blood chalices, like victims of sacrifice.
The names of the female characters are composed of a man's first name and a prefix denoting "belonging to". The action centers around Offred ('Of Fred'), our protagonist handmaid who makes us acquainted with the mechanism of this new society. Through her retrospections, we find that she used to live the life we live today. She was imperfectly happy once upon a time, with a husband, a child and a job. When she narrates how the hints started to appear and the parts of her life started to fall apart, we can easily imagine how her description mimicks real life events. It is interesting and appalling at the same time how the quicksand quickly swallows.
One of the novel's main oppositions is the difference between the roles of the handmaids and those of the Wives. Both are legitimate within the new society, but the latter ones are married to high-ranking Commanders, while the handmaids go from one Commander to the other with the sole purpose of birthing a child. They are treated as hallowed vessels, must perform the sacred act in the presence of the Wife and must take care of their bodies above all. In the meantime, the Wives keep busy knitting, like Penelopes trapped by their hopes or escaping through some idle hobby. Women are categorized either as barren or as fertile and this binary biological classification is something we can picture throughout history. The 'usefulness' of a woman many times depended on her ability to give descendants.
"The control of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet".
One could study in detail the use of bodies in this book, how the handmaidens must be shielded from the sight of others and how they themselves cannot see. They keep their heads down, lipreading and "whispering without sound".
Offred knows her body can be used as a tradeoff, she knows her value but at the same time she tries not to think too much: "Like other things now, thought must be rationed". It is shocking how what used to be a very free-thinking, independent woman starts losing her liberties to a system ruled by men. The first loss she experiences, out of a job and relying on the income of her husband, sets the tone for what comes next. Even being subject to her husband is the start of all other subjugations.
This is how Offred stops being a living person who was born and becomes a thing stripped from all common emotions.
"I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born."
What's going on the other side?
The idea of strangeness permeates the whole tale. The handmaids are accepted in a household for a while but they are never not strangers. There are 'others' watching all the tim. The plot's suspense relies on this insecurity about who belongs to what side? And are there sides at all? Is there really an underground opposition? What is happening behind the walls that entrap Offred? Her family has become an 'other' out of contact. Will she ever see them again?
Margaret Atwood chose to honor Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by selecting the title of this book and, at the same time, referred to the point of view of the protagonist, a survivor that narrates an unbelievable story. It will be interesting to read the sequel and find out what this testimony generates in subsequent generations.
The struggle for power and status brings about confusion as to for who are we fighting for, is there really a way out? And if caught, are we stepping into darkness or light?
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