Margaret Atwood - Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood - Handmaid's Tale Review



Overall 5.00 of 5 (by 1 user)
 




2008 Reviewer
RobAstor
Jackson, MI

Tale Of Alternate Future Past

5 star rating

avid reader
Pros

    Fictional Autobiography, Alternate Future History, Engaging Characters


NOV
25
2008
Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" centers around the life of a woman forced into servitude by a religious government based in Old Testement beliefs.  The Republic of Gilead is a part of the former United States after some great upheaval has wiped out democracy while a war rages.  One of the effects is rampant sterility among men and woman who are basically used to breed for high ranking military officers.  Ofglen spins her yarn about living with the Commander and his wife.  She shares details of her former life and the loss of a daughter and husband while carrying out menial duties such as shopping.  Soon, Ofwarran, her companion, draws her into a rebel movement.  The Commander's wife also realizes her husband is probably unable to bear a child and enlists Ofglen into sleeping with a young soldier because her life would be complete with a child.  All the while, episodes of the past converge with her present, creating a realisitically terrifying scenario where women have no power and are legally unable to own any kind of property.  They either become handmaids, vessels to bear childer, or they are sent off to the colonies where radiation is sure to kill them in a few short, agonizing years.  Told in first person, the book is engaging, drawing the reader into the events before revealing what set the stage for the changes in the world.  The story spawned a movie of the same name and remains one of my favorites to this day.  There's an appeal of someone else being in power, similar to Nazi Germany, or the science fiction cult classic "V".  It's a study of human nature at it's very worst in very bad circumstances.  We should all take heed.  The premise of how The Republic of Gilead formed is no longer so far-fetched.



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