The Handmaid's Tale

 

Hello Charlie, 

I'd like to introduce you a book that I wanted to read for months now: The Handmaid's Tale.

This dystopic book, written by the very famous writer Margaret Atwood, is about the ancient America changed into an oppressive society: The Republic of Gilead.

Every person has a function: Guardian, Eye and other for men, and  for women house maintenance and cooking functions. The low reproduction rate decreasing, women are called to breed, if not they would certainely be killed. They can't get a job, have a house, their own money, can't choose their husbands, be free to do whatever they want and to dress however they want. But above all, they cannot think by themselves, be free internally, can't express their pain. Their intimacy is violated and the Government an the Eye keep a watch on all the citizens.

Nevertheless, most women being accomodated with that situation, some think the ancient America was too free, that women were to bad dressed. And that there were crimes everywhere (like in most dystopic histories). So the actual women found the're proteged from potential aggressions. Nobody would take the risk to be hanged in the back of a church.

The life women (and men) are living is not ideal, no-one is free but feels watched, every second of every day.

We follow the story of Offred, a Handmaid. She helps the Commander and his wife having a baby. As a Handmaid, she is not really appreciated by the Commander's wife. 

It is through her that we learn how this society works. She is really clever and is very attentive to details, thus giving accurate descriptions, and unusual comparisons, that are present throughout the book. You might think descriptions are boring, in fact, in this book they are not. All of them bring to the story an atmosphere of mystery, as she has doubts on everything she sees.

Offred has a dark sense of humour, and know how to play with the past, by telling in almost every chapter, some flashbacks of her anicent life. Her husband, her child, her best friend. They escaped to Canada, but she was catched by the Guardians.. And now she is stuck here. For 2 years. If she doesn't accomplish her mission of having a baby to give to the Commander...

    If you guys like dystopic books, I recommend you this classic one. I like dystopic stories where women can't act by themselves and are not free, because it gives me the opportunity to identify the main problems and the solutions to them, and how the women are feeling, in order to transpose those rules and clichés of women to our actual society, and so find the failures in it. And I think that books like The Handmaid's Tale or Vox (that is strongly recommend you, and I think I am going to write an article about) shows well how society could look like (even if it is really extreme) if WE don't act and let those flaws gain in importance.

The book has even been adapted to a TV Series (see image above).

Thank you far having read this (pretty long) article

I hope you enjoyed it

(The Handmaid's Tale is at the school library)

signed Valéria