The Handmaid's Tale Book Review

     The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a chilling story about the intersection between religion and reproduction. In a country with alarmingly low birth rates, protagonist Offred lives in the Republic of Gilead as a Handmaid where her sole purpose as a woman is to reproduce children for the Commander whom she serves. In Gilead, women cannot have friendships, read, wear revealing clothing, and the color of their dresses signify their marital status. Sex is not pleasurable, but necessary merely for reproduction. Doctors and scientists who supported abortion before the war between Christian denominations are hanged in public to set an example. Ironically, the seemingly smooth change from a normal 1980s Western society to a mechanical, orthodox Catholic society prides on ridding the world of its disgusting sexual violence rates, despite perpetrating societal beliefs that a woman’s value as a human is based on her ability to have children. This is seen when Offred mentions that women who cannot reproduce are sent to the colonies as “Unwomen.” Throughout the book, this new society depicts disgusting scenes in which the “Aunts,” nuns who condition women into becoming silent, obedient Handmaids, reduce Handmaids-in-training to objects. For example, Aunt Helena places blame onto victims of rape, not the rapist, insisting that the victims "led them on” (Atwood 72). Therefore, God punishes women with rape to teach them a lesson.

     As Offred reflects back to her old life with her husband and daughter in a free society, there is a haunting distinction between the freedoms of her old life compared to the restrictive, woman-hating society she lives in now. The way society shifts so plainly made me wonder just how easy it is for an entire country to change the way in which it functions, especially since other countries like Japan seemed to retain its ways in the book despite the war. Because today discussing topics such as victim blaming, toxic masculinity, and abortion has become normalized in my community, it is eye-opening to remember the Republic of Gilead is still the reality for many women in 2018. The Handmaid’s Tale painted a stark image of the role of women in religion who are always antagonized. In connection to the Seneca Falls intensive, the novel allowed the reader to step in the shoes of American women of the past before the suffrage movement through the perspective of Offred. I thoroughly enjoyed the 100 pages I read and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in women's rights.