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.The Handmaid's Tale has never been out of print since it was first published in 1985.

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 that 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, speculated to be around the year 2005,[9] with a fundamentalist theocracy ruling the territory of what had been the United States but is now the Republic of Gilead. 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.[10]

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.[11] Atwood was "in the vanguard of Canadian anti-Americanism of the 1960s and 1970s."[12]

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 and are taught to scorn them. 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.[13]

Language

In the novel's fictional fundamentalist society, sterile is an "outlawed" word.[14] 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.[15] 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".[16] 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".[17] 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.[17]

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".[18] 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]

Historical Context and Connections

Fitting with her claims that The Handmaid’s Tale is a work of speculative fiction, not science fiction, Atwood’s novel offers a satirical view of various social, political, and religious trends of 1980s United States. Further, Atwood questions what would happen if these trends, and especially “casually held attitudes about women” were taken to their logical ends?[19] Atwood continues to argue that all of the scenarios offered in The Handmaid’s Tale have actually occurred in real life—in an interview she gave regarding her most recent work of speculative fiction, Oryx and Crake, Atwood maintains that “As with The Handmaid's Tale, I didn't put in anything that we haven't already done, we're not already doing, we're seriously trying to do, coupled with trends that are already in progress …So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil.”[20] Atwood was also known to carry around newspaper clippings to her various interviews to support her fiction's basis in reality.[21] Atwood has explained that The Handmaid's Tale is a response to those who claim the oppressive, totalitarian, and religious governments that have taken hold in other countries throughout the years ‘can’t happen here’—but in this work, she has tried to show how such a takeover might play out.[22]

Atwood’s inspiration for the Republic of Gilead came from her time studying early American Puritans while at Harvard, which she attended on a Woodrow Wilson fellowship.[19] Atwood argues that the modern view of the Puritans—that they came to America to flee religious persecution in England and set up a religiously tolerant society—is misled, but that instead, these Puritan leaders wanted to establish a monolithic theocracy where religious dissent would not be accepted.[19] Atwood also had a personal connection to the Puritans, and she dedicates the novel to her own ancestor Mary Webster, who was accused of witchcraft in Puritan New England but survived her hanging.[23] Due to the religious nature of Gileadan society, Atwood clearly drew from the Bible for both the title of this novel as well as some of the specific traits and practices of this theocracy.[24] In fact, Atwood has often argued that in order for a coup such as the one depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale to occur, religion would have to be evoked:

...if you wanted to seize power in the US, abolish liberal democracy and set up a dictatorship, how would you go about it? What would be your cover story? It would not resemble any form of communism or socialism: those would be too unpopular… Nations never build apparently radical forms of government on foundations that aren't there already. Thus China replaced a state bureaucracy with a similar state bureaucracy under a different name, the USSR replaced the dreaded imperial secret police with an even more dreaded secret police, and so forth. The deep foundation of the US – so went my thinking – was not the comparatively recent 18th-century Enlightenment structures of the republic, with their talk of equality and their separation of church and state, but the heavy-handed theocracy of 17th-century Puritan New England, with its marked bias against women, which would need only the opportunity of a period of social chaos to reassert itself. Like any theocracy, this one would select a few passages from the Bible to justify its actions, and it would lean heavily towards the Old Testament, not towards the New.[25]

In 1984, when Atwood began writing The Handmaid’s Tale, women in the United States were experiencing a reduction in many of the social, political, and economic gains that they had made during the 1960s and 1970s. In her work ‘Just a Backlash:’ Margaret Atwood, Feminisim, and The Handmaid’s Tale,” Shirley Neuman outlines many of the attacks on women that occurred during the Reagan administration:

...women made up an increasing percentage of those in the lowest-paid occupations, and they made no gains or lost ground in the better-paid trades and professions. The number of elected and politically appointed women declined. One-third of all federal budget cuts under Reagan's presidency came from programs that served mainly women, even though these programs represented only 10 per cent of the federal budget. The average amount a divorced man paid in child support fell 25 per cent. Murders related to sexual assault and domestic violence increased by 160 per cent while the overall murder rate declined; meanwhile the federal government defeated bills to fund shelters for battered women, stalled already approved funding, and in 1981 closed down the Office of Domestic Violence it had opened only two years earlier. Pro-natalists bombed and set fire to abortion clinics and harassed their staff and patients; Medicaid ceased to fund legal abortions, effectively eliminating freedom of choice for most teenage girls and poor women; several states passed laws restricting not only legal abortion but even the provision of information about abortion. The debate about freedom of choice for women flipped over into court rulings about the rights and freedom of the fetus. The Equal Rights Amendment died.[21]

The leaders of the New Right and Moral Majority of 1980s America preached against the feminist movement, arguing that feminists ‘encourage women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians', as explained by former minister Pat Robertson in a letter to his congregation.[26] Women such as Phyllis Schlafly and Tammy Faye Messner built their careers preaching against feminism, telling women to “return home, to let their husbands provide, and to use their femininity and feminine wiles as the core of their success and fulfilment as women.”[21] Schlafly and Messner are often viewed as potential inspirations for the characters Aunt Lydia and/or Serena Joy.

Atwood also draws connections between the ways in which Gilead’s leaders maintain their power and other examples of actual totalitarian governments. In her interviews, Atwood offers up Iran and Afghanistan as examples of religious theocracies forcing women out of the public sphere and into their homes like in Gilead.[21] During World War II, German soldiers would offer certain “perks” to those they subjugated in countries like Ukraine and Poland to offer incentive to maintaining the power structure.[19] From the 17th-20th centuries, British officials adopted similar tactics in colonial India.[19] The “state-sanctioned murder of dissidents” was inspired by the Philippines, and the last General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party Nicolae Ceausescu’s obsession with increasing the birth rate led to the strict policing of pregnant women and the outlawing of birth control and abortion.[21] However, Atwood clearly explains that many of these deplorable acts were not just present in other cultures and countries, “but within Western society, and within the ‘Christian’ tradition itself.[25]

The Republic of Gilead struggles with infertility, making Offred’s services as a Handmaid vital to producing children and thus reproducing the society. Handmaids themselves are “untouchable”, but their ability to signify status is equated to that of slaves or servants throughout history.[25] Atwood connects their concerns with infertility to real-life problems our world faces, such as radiation, chemical pollution, and venereal disease (HIV/AIDS is specifically mentioned in the “Historical Notes” section at the end of the novel, which was a relatively new disease at the time of Atwood’s writing whose long-term impact was likely still unknown). Atwood’s strong stance on environmental issues and their negative consequences for our society has presented itself in other works such as her MaddAddam trilogy, and refers back to her growing up with biologists and own scientific curiosity.[27]

Awards and Critical Reception

Awards

Reception and Categorization

The Handmaid's Tale was well-received by critics, helping to cement Atwood's status as a prominent writer of the 20th century. Not only was the book deemed incredibly well-written and compelling, but Atwood's work was notable for sparking intense debates both in and out of academia.[28] Atwood maintains that the Republic of Gilead is only an extrapolation of trends already seen in the United States at the time of her writing, a view supported by other scholars studying The Handmaid’s Tale.[29] Indeed, many have placed The Handmaid's Tale in the same category of dystopian fiction as 1984 and A Brave New World,[22] with the added feature of confronting the patriarchy, a categorization that Atwood has accepted and reiterated in many articles and interviews.[30] Even today, many reviewers hold that Atwood's novel remains as foreboding and powerful as ever, largely because of its basis in historical fact.[31][32] Yet when her book was first published in 1985, not all reviewers were convinced of the “cautionary tale” Atwood presented. For example, Mary McCarthy’s New York Times review argued that The Handmaid's Tale lacked the “surprised recognition” necessary for readers to see “our present selves in a distorting mirror, of what we may be turning into if current trends are allowed to continue.”[33]

The Handmaid's Tale and Feminism

Much of the discussion around The Handmaid's Tale has centered on its categorization as feminist literature. Atwood does not see the Republic of Gilead as a purely feminist dystopia, as not all men have greater rights than women.[25] Instead, this society presents a typical dictatorship: “shaped like a pyramid, with the powerful of both sexes at the apex, the men generally outranking the women at the same level; then descending levels of power and status with men and women in each, all the way down to the bottom, where the unmarried men must serve in the ranks before being awarded an Econowife”.[25] Additionally, Atwood has argued that while some of the observations that informed the content of The Handmaid's Tale may be feminist, her novel is not meant to say “one thing to one person” or serve as a political message—instead, The Handmaid's Tale is “a study of power, and how it operates and how it deforms or shapes the people who are living within that kind of regime”[22][30] Some scholars have offered such a feminist interpretation, however, connecting Atwood’s use of religious fundamentalism in the pages of The Handmaid's Tale to a condemnation of their presence in current American society.[34][35] Yet others have argued that The Handmaid's Tale critiques typical notions of feminism, as Atwood’s novel appears to subvert the traditional “women helping women” ideals of the movement and turn toward the possibility of “the matriarchal network…and a new form of misogyny: women’s hatred of women.”[36] In a similar vein, Atwood's own work suggests that “‘excessive’ feminism” was partially responsible for creating the Republic of Gilead: in the novel, women fought against the pornography's oppression of women by burning racy magazines, and the “women’s world” that many feminists fought for was eventually created, although still “policed by men.”[33]

Frequent challenges and controversy in academics

Atwood’s novels, and especially her works of speculative fiction The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, are frequently offered as examples for the final, open-ended question on the Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition exam each year.[37] As such, her books are often assigned in high school classrooms to students taking this Advanced Placement course, despite the mature themes the work presents. Atwood herself has expressed some surprise that her books are being assigned to high school audiences, largely due to her own censured education in the 1950s, but has assured readers that this increased attention from high school students has not altered the material she has chosen to write about since.[38]

However, many people have expressed discontent at The Handmaid’s Tale’s presence in the classroom, as it has been frequently challenged or banned over the last 30 years. Some of these challenges have come from parents concerned about the explicit sexuality and other adult themes represented in the book. Others have argued that The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a negative view of religion, a view supported by several academics who propose that Atwood’s work satirizes contemporary religious fundamentalists in the United States, offering a feminist critique of the trends this movement to the Right represents.[34][35]

The American Library Association (ALA) lists The Handmaid's Tale as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000".[39] Atwood participated in discussing The Handmaid's Tale as the subject of an ALA discussion series titled "One Book, One Conference".[40]

Some complaints have included:

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."[42] 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.'[42]

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."[43]

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."[44]

Other Use in Academics

In institutions of higher education, professors have found The Handmaid's Tale to be useful , largely because of its historical and religious basis and Atwood's captivating delivery. The novel’s teaching points include: introducing politics and the social sciences to students in a more concrete way,[45][46] demonstrating the importance of reading to our freedom, both intellectual and political,[47] and acknowledging the “most insidious and violent manifestations of power in Western history” in a compelling manner.[48] The chapter entitled “Historical Notes” at the end of the novel also represents a warning to academics who run the risk of misreading and misunderstanding historical texts, pointing to the satirized Professor Pieixoto as an example of a male scholar who has taken over and overpowered Offred’s narrative with his own interpretation.[49]

Adaptations

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.[50] It was the opening production of the 2004–2005 season of the Canadian Opera Company.[51]

A stage adaptation of the novel, by Brendon Burns, for the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, England, toured the UK in 2002.[52]

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.[53]

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.[54]

A one-woman stage show, adapted from the novel by Joseph Stollenwerk, premiered in the U.S. in January 2015.[55]

Hulu announced in 2016 that they will produce a 10-episode series of the novel starring Elisabeth Moss as Offred. Margaret Atwood will serve as consulting producer.[56]

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.
  2. 1 2 3 Atwood, Margaret (17 June 2005), "Aliens have taken the place of angels", 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.
  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.
  7. ↑ Atwood 1986, p. 220.
  8. ↑ Madonne 1991.
  9. ↑ Oates, Joyce Carol (November 2, 2006). "Margaret Atwood's Tale". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  10. ↑ Atwood 1998, An Interview: 'Q: We can figure out that the main character lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts'
  11. ↑ Tandon, Neeru; Chandra, Anshul (2009). Margaret Atwood: A Jewel in Canadian Writing. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 154–55.
  12. ↑ Reingard M. Nischik (2000). Margaret Atwood: Works and Impact. Camden House. pp. 6, 143.
  13. ↑ Atwood 1998, p. 94.
  14. ↑ Atwood 1998, p. 161.
  15. ↑ Atwood 1998, pp. 144, 192.
  16. ↑ Atwood 1998, pp. 178–79.
  17. 1 2 Atwood 1998, pp. 36.
  18. ↑ Atwood 1998, pp. 235.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 "An Interview with Margaret Atwood on her novel, The Handmaid's Tale" (PDF). Nashville Public Library. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  20. ↑ Gruss, Susanne (2004). ""People confuse interpersonal relations with legal structures." An Interview with Margaret Atwood". Gender Forum. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 Neuman, Shirley (2006). "'Just a Backlash': Margaret Atwood, Feminism, and The Handmaid's Tale". University of Toronto Quarterly. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  22. 1 2 3 Rothstein, Mervyn (17 February 1986). "No Balm in Gilead for Margaret Atwood". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  23. ↑ Evans, Mark (1994). Nicholson, Colin, ed. Versions of History: The Handmaid’s Tale and its Dedicatees. Margaret Atwood: Writing and Subjectivity (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK). pp. 177–188.
  24. ↑ Morris, Mary (Winter 1990). "Margaret Atwood, The Art of Fiction No. 121". The Paris Review. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  25. 1 2 3 4 5 Atwood, Margaret (20 January 2012). "Haunted by the Handmaid's Tale". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  26. ↑ Lapham, Lewis (September 2004). "Tentacles of rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  27. ↑ Curwood, Steve (13 June 2014). "Margaret Atwood on Fiction, The Future, and Environmental Crisis". Living on Earth. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  28. ↑ Greene, Gayle (July 1986). "Choice of Evils". The Women's Review of Books. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  29. ↑ Armbruster, Jane (Fall 1990). "Memory and Politics -- A Reflection on "The Handmaid's Tale"". Social Justice. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  30. 1 2 Atwood, Margaret (May 2004). "The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake "In Context"". PMLA.
  31. ↑ Robertson, Adi (20 December 2014). "Does The Handmaid's Tale hold up?". The Verge. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  32. ↑ Newman, Charlotte (25 September 2010). "The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  33. 1 2 McCarthy, Mary (9 February 1986). "Book Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  34. 1 2 Hines, Molly (2006). "Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale": Fundamentalist religiosity and the oppression of women". Angelo State University. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  35. 1 2 Mercer, Naomi (2013). ""Subversive Feminist Thrusts": Feminist Dystopian Writing and Religious Fundamentalism in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", Louise Marley's "The Terrorists of Irustan", Marge Piercy's "He, She and It", and Sheri S. Tepper's "Raising the Stones"". University of Wisconsin - Madison. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  36. ↑ Callaway, Alanna (2008). "Women disunited : Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale as a critique of feminism". San Jose State University. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  37. ↑ "AP English Literature and Composition Exam". College Board. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  38. ↑ Perry, Douglas (30 December 2014). "Margaret Atwood and the 'Four Unwise Republicans': 12 surprises from the legendary writer's Reddit AMA". The Oregonian. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  39. ↑ "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.)
  40. ↑ "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.
  41. ↑ Banned Books: 2007 Resource Guide, ALA.
  42. 1 2 Rushowy 2009
  43. ↑ Rushowy 2009b
  44. ↑ Winston-Salem Journal, 2 November 2012 Missing or empty |title= (help).
  45. ↑ Burack, Cynthia (Winter 1988-89). "Bringing Women's Studies to Political Science: The Handmaid in the Classroom". NWSA. Check date values in: |date= (help);
  46. ↑ Laz, Cheryl (January 1996). "Science Fiction and Introductory Sociology: The "Handmaid" in the Classroom". Teaching Sociology. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
  47. ↑ Bergmann, Harriet (December 1989). ""Teaching Them to Read": A Fishing Expedition in the Handmaid's Tale". College English. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  48. ↑ Larson, Janet (Spring 1989). "Margaret Atwood and the Future of Prophecy". Religion and Literature.
  49. ↑ Stein, Karen (1996). "Margaret Atwood's Modest Proposal: The Handmaid's Tale". University of Rhode Island. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  50. ↑ Clements, Andrew (Apr 5, 2003), "Classical music & opera", The Guardian (first night review) (UK)
  51. ↑ Littler, William (December 15, 2004), Opera Canada.
  52. ↑ The Handmaid's tale, UK: UKTW.
  53. ↑ "The Handmaid's Tale debuts as ballet in Winnipeg". CA: CBC News. 15 October 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  54. ↑ http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2015/10/First-Play-and-QA-Lakes-of-Canada-Transgressions
  55. ↑ Lyman, David (24 January 2015). "'Handmaid's Tale' offers extreme view of future". Cincinnati.com.
  56. ↑ Hardawar, Devindra (29 April 2016). "Hulu is adapting Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'". Engadget. Retrieved 30 April 2016.

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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