Science Fiction Retrospective 2: The Handmaid’s Tale

 

This harrowing tale of theocratic hell was read for you by Hedgie.

This novel was actually pretty hard to buy. I mean it wasn’t hard to buy at all actually, I bought it for Kindle in three easy steps but before I remembered that the internet existed I fumbled around with local bookstores like someone from the mid-twentieth century.

Of the local book emporiums that I visited on my earnest mission to find Margaret Atwoods 1985 dystopian masterpiece; three had never heard of it and had to look it up to determine they didn’t have it, two had never heard of it and when they looked it up their catalogue returned no result, one had no digital catalogue in which to look and one drone, I shit you not, gave me a beaming smile before leading me to the Pre-teen Necrophilia Department and announcing “These are all our science and fantasy novels, so it’s in here” before wandering aimlessly away.

Spoiler alert; it wasn’t.

The Story

Set in the fictional Republic of Gilead, The Handmaid’s Tale weaves a harrowing, intricately plotted narrative from the perspective of Offred, the Handmaid after which the novel is named. Rising from the ashes of the former United States, the Republic of Gilead is a darkly patriarchal, deeply misogynistic, theocratic dictatorship where women have been stripped of all rights and divided into castes based on their own skills and reproductive prowess.

After a calamity of some kind renders much of the female population sterile, those who are still capable of bearing children are taken as Handmaids and assigned to the homes of wealthy, powerful men; the commanders. These Handmaids act as surrogates, used only for the purposes of breeding, after which they are transferred to a new home and the process of weekly ‘rituals’ – code for being used as a reproductive sex slave – begins once again. Forever.

Through the first-person narrative the reader is given occasional glimpses into the pre-Gileadean life of Offred – the name awarded to her upon her arrival at the home of her Commander, Fred; thus that she is the Handmaid of Fred – and the cataclysm and subsequent uprising of a powerful fundamentalist group. We are also shown how the threads of such a society are delicate, and how fragile the power of the dominant few really is.

The novel ends in a change of style, an early and effective use of metanarrative that gives further insight into the events of the story and those events which took place after. These act as a sort of framing device, giving the reader a way to contextualise the story they have already read.

The Influence

The Handmaid’s Tale was clearly influenced by other dystopian fiction, Orwell’s NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR and Huxley’s Brave New World to name but two. It’s a scathing commentary on the role of women in society and the role of the religious right in shaping policy. Through the Republic of Gilead’s absolute rule, we see a life under the thumb of extreme religious views; a mirror of the populist view of some current regimes in the Middle East, which are seen by many as a system of institutionalised misogyny hiding behind a mask of religious freedom.

Indeed, it is not only the women of Atwood’s Gilead who are subjugated, although they do take primary focus; scientists, priests of the old world (inferred to be Catholic), homosexuals and non-Caucasians are also shown to be under the screw of an unforgiving and rigidly theocratic government.

There are clear parallels to be made here in contemporary society. The far right, hiding behind Biblical passages to defend their hate-speech is echoed in the defence of heinous acts of cruelty against women, gays, non-Whites and non-Christians by declaring scriptural precedence.

Fundamentalist defence of ‘traditional marriage’ and ‘traditional values’ is stretched to it’s potential conclusion; a return to the days when women were property. The pro-life movement’s denial of a woman’s right to choose takes centre stage; abortion in Gilead is illegal on religious grounds, making all pre-natal exams defunct. Babies are now either born healthy and offered to the Wives, or have defects and are declared unbabies – a reference to Orwell’s unpersons – and disposed of.

The way in which Atwood describes the life of Offred; the secret discussions with her fellow Handmaids, the wholly unceremonious description of ‘The Ceremony’ where the Commander and his wife simulate the act of reproduction with the Handmaid as proxy, the salvagings where heretics and traitors are executed for crimes against the state or against their gender.

You’ll feel for the struggles of these people to the very end, and be left hanging, wanting for more.

The Impact

The Handmaid’s Tale is not without controversy. According to the American Library Association it was number 37 on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. It has been challenged by parents; who have demanded its removal from high school reading lists in Canada and the United States. It was called “anti-Christian” and “pornographic” by parent groups calling for the book’s banning after it was placed on the syllabus for a Texas secondary school. Citing the books cruel treatment of women, anti-religious message and high impact sexual content, it has many detractors.

Oddly, some of the most vocal dissent comes from the books genre; whether it is to be classed as “science fiction” or “speculative fiction” is something still hotly debated.

The novel is, however, used in Women’s Studies and Feminist Studies classes across the world.

The Summary

 The novel is bleak, but engrossingly so.

Like NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR there is no happy ending; no cheerful resolution will greet you at the summation of this book. You’ll come away thinking; about the role of women in a post-feminist society, about the role of sex in a relationship, about the role of religion in the politics of today.

Praise be.

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You can harass the author of this post on Twitter: @CAricHanley

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