The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel
 

The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel

by Margaret Atwood

In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because... (read more)

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Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Keneti
  • Rated 4 stars

A haunting story that is going to stick with me much longer than the sparse narative would seem to initially warrant. This book was probably first witten as a rebuke toward some of the more conservative Christian reaction to the abortion debate in the mid-1980s. Now it has very scary implications to the anti-terrorism panic of modern US society. To me the story shows the consequences of our indifference to the loss of civil rights in the name of security. The creation of a political...

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Didn’t Like It

2 of 3 members found this review helpful.
Kevin H
  • Rated 1 stars

Ugh. Absolute worst book ever. Good if you like man hating propaganda I suppose.

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Community:
  • Rated 4.209677 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 0 stars
 

Newest Comments

  • Melissa M

    melissa m said:

    I originally read this in college. (For fun - if you can believe that!) Now it's probably part of someone's required reading for freshman lit. I read it again it following the ousting of the Taliban from Afghanistan and I couldn't help drawing comparisons with Atwood's fictional Gilead regime. That said, I think it's rather reactionary for tiny d to take Atwood to task for being a feminist writer using a fantasy setting. All of Atwood's work has in one way or another examined the role played by women in society. (That would be what those freshman lit majors would call "a literary theme.") Why is it immature or adolescent for any writer to use a futuristic or fantasy setting to tell their tale? That suggests that the genres of fantasy or science Fiction are inherently immature. As for The Handmaid's Tale being "A poor woman's version of 1984," I fail to comprehend why Atwood's examination of gender roles, religion, and societal norms is any less worthy than Orwell's thinly disguised, Cold war era diatribe against communism.

    posted 3 weeks ago
  • Thom

    thom said:

    Hmm, this one was a chore to read, I'm not going to lie. It wasn't very gripping. It was quite tedious if not a little repetitive.
    Although with that being said, Atwood's imagery and metaphors are truely fantastic; there are some absolute gems hidden in there which make the novel well worth reading and gave enough excitement (for me) to read it all the way through.

    posted Monday, June 16 2008
  • Selina C

    selina c said:

    We lived..as usual, by ignoring...

    Female genital mutilation, Westerners paying poor Indian women to mother their surrogate babies, sexually abusive nuns, expensive fertility treatment for rich career women who 'forgot' to have children, nuclear radiation fallout, Japanese wives who's only function in life is to shop and have sex, burqas, legalisation of prostitution, female infanticide, academic shortsightedness...

    I am so glad Ms Atwood was given the gift to write. Without her brilliant, disturbing writing these issues probably wouldn't even get a look in. If feminism means basic human rights for females then I'm all for it.

    Aside from that..in 'The Handmaids tale,' it must be said the men are equally trapped. It can't be said that Atwood is feminist in that she champions women over men, it is just she is writing from a female point of view. A trend I've noticed in Atwood's writing is the men are more or less emasculated, they are either afraid of women or bewitched by them...neither side seems to communicate with the other...maybe it's just me but I find it an curiously outmoded idea, probably belonging to earlier generations, that female and male are different species or different planets when in these enlightened times one would hope everyone realises that underneath it all we are all human.

    posted Saturday, June 14 2008
  • drinknread

    drinknread said:

    I don't know if I was more fascinated by the artful writing or the horror of living such a sheltered, 'primitive' life. Either way, it woke me up to issues of feminism, which thankfully I've passed 'through' and "out" the other side. I felt that the diehards took feminism way too seriously for our (women AND men's) own good. I agree with Amy's comment, that some church women don't see the pretense and are trapped by fear and ritualistic habits - no pun intended - rather than freed, as suggested by Christ' teachings...which is why I eventually read some of Bishop Selby Spong's books - but that's a while ago now, and I'm returning to read a few of them again. I enjoyed the movie of this book, which I normally don't, so perhaps the script interpretation matched the essence of Margaret Atwood's story...

    posted Sunday, April 27 2008
  • drinknread

    drinknread said:

    I don't know if I was more fascinated by the artful writing or the horror of living such a sheltered, 'primitive' life. Either way, it woke me up to issues of feminism, which thankfully I've passed 'through' and "out" the other side. I felt that the diehards took feminism way too seriously for our (women AND men's) own good. I agree with Amy's comment, that some church women don't see the pretense and are trapped by fear and ritualistic habits - no pun intended - rather than freed, as suggested by Christ' teachings...which is why I eventually read some of Bishop Selby Spong's books - but that's a while ago now, and I'm returning to read a few of them again. I enjoyed the movie of this book, which I normally don't, so perhaps the script interpretation matched the essence of Margaret Atwood's story...

    posted Sunday, April 27 2008
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