The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SPOILERS AHEAD:

So sad, so real, and so frighteningly current, despite the fact it was written over 30 years ago. It's not hard to believe that, like Offred, we could be so easily disenfranchised and made into property. Listening to this book was truly like listening to someone tell me their story, and it made even more sense at the end when we find out that the "manuscript" of the book was "found" as a series of tapes, and placed into a patchwork order of sorts.

In the historical notes at the end, an interesting section in and of itself, it is noted about the Aunts in particular: "the best and most cost effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves. For this, there were many historical precedents. In fact, no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature. Control of the indigenous by members of their own group. In the case of Gilead, there were many women willing to serve as Aunts, either because of a genuine belief in what they called Traditional Values, or for the benefits they might thereby acquire. When power is scarce, little of it is tempting." We continue to see this happen, throughout history and in our current times. It's only when we start to recognize it as it's happening and work to stop such oppression that true change can be made.

The historians at the end refused to judge The Gileadian society, saying it was responding to economic and societal pressures, and trying to fix things they saw as wrong, but what that said to me is they were putting what they saw as a better society above the lives of the people themselves. As the commander said: "Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some." The people of Gilead became chattel to improve "society" as a whole, even though it doesn't seem as though anything was much improved - there were still things like brothels where men could do what they pleased, all state-sponsored, supervised by women.

Part of me hates how this book ends, with so many unanswered questions. Was Offred truly saved? Was Nick on her side the whole time, or was he a "Private Eye" and turned her in? Will she ever see her daughter again? What is her name? Is she pregnant? In the end, though, I have to be okay with the uncertainty, because what in this world ever has any certainty? We only have hope, and I'm going to choose to believe that Offred found freedom, somehow, somewhere, and that she has some measure of peace. I wish for her this desire she once spoke of: "I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable."

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