title: The Handmaid's Tale by: Atwood, Margaret published: 1985 read: 2020-01 preview

Published in 1985 (why did I wait so long!), this book describes a dystopian society, the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the all-too-liberal US government. The main character, Offred, tells the story and is a “Handmaid”, assigned to produce children for the “Commanders”, the ruling class in Gilead. Handmaids are those few women who are still fertile, after pollution and radiation made those rare.

A second “category” of women are the Aunts, who train the handmaids; and they are also responsible for the Marthas, who take care of the household.

Offred’s goal is an escape to Canada. She remembers her life before Gilead, and yearns for freedom.

The bathroom is beside the bedroom. It’s papered in small blue flowers, forget-me-nots, with curtains to match. There’s a blue bath-mat, a blue fake-fur cover on the toilet seat; all this bathroom lacks from the time before is a doll whose skirt conceals the extra roll of toilet paper. Except that the mirror over the sink has been taken out and replaced by an oblong of tin, and the door has no lock, and there are no razors, of course. There were incidents in bathrooms at first; there were cuttings, drownings. Before they got all the bugs ironed out.

The narrative is immersive, descriptive and introspective, and is told from Offred’s perspective. The book jumps back and forth with frequent flashbacks and interjections of Offred’s thoughts and feelings. Atwood uses irony and dark humour in her imagery, symbolism, and metaphors to let you feel the grim reality of this oppressive world. It’s clear the patriarchal norms in the story are outdated… but still the commander can be nice, too, if it suits him:

I felt the Commander watching me as I turned the pages. I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing, and that he found pleasure in seeing me do it. I should have felt evil; by Aunt Lydia’s lights, I was evil. But I didn’t feel evil. Instead I felt like an old Edwardian seaside postcard: naughty. What was he going to give me next? A girdle?

Did I like it? Yes, I think I did. In fact, I am quite sure I did. But it did take me a bit by surprise, as I did not expect.

The story ends ambiguously. After Offred finishes her story, she is taken away by men dressed in the uniform of the secret police. Is she safe now? Is she taken into custody, or worse? And then, the epilogue surprises again: the book, we learn, is in fact a transcript of recordings on cassette tapes An academic, Dr. Pieixoto, explains that the novel we have read is a transcript of a tape recording, discovered many years after the Gileadean era has come to an end. But what about Offred?