Review: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Title: The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Genre(s): Spectulative Fiction, Dystopian
Page Count: 311
Publication Date: March 16, 1998
Publisher: Anchor Books

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 in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now...

The Handmaid's tale tells of an extremist form of Juedo-Christianity where women are enslaved by society by men. It is a horrific representation of female mistreatment and a feminist's worst nightmare come true. Any vessel with a penis is void of feeling and is a threat to women. Women are divided by a caste system--Aunts, Wives, Marthas, Handmaids--who please the Commander and carry out their stereotypical feminine roles.

           To begin, it is supposed to be a warning about social beliefs, but I found it to be more of a cheap statement rather than portray any meaningful theme. There is not much of a story, the characters are flat, and the worldbuilding is frustratingly arbitrary. It is told from the perspective of Offred,  a Handmaid. This role demonstrates the most horrific experience out of the other titles that women hold, in order to make Atwood's statement more impactful. Like a surrogate, the only role of a Handmaid is to become pregnant. It is the role that exploits women the most, by exposing the mistreatment of a female's reproductive organs. Offred, being a woman from the transitional generation, is able to recount and compare her life before and after the social phenomenon. There are some aspects that are done well, but at the same time, I cannot overlook the number of gaps, plotholes, and the ambiguous writing style.

          The largest problem I had with this novel is the lack of an explanation about the social phenomenon. What caused society to be transformed into this nightmare? Why did it happen? Why does everyone comply with the social transformation? The worldbuilding was lacking and incomplete, and the telling of it was so held back as if Atwood was not sure how to proceed with the concept. Instead, the central goal was to drive readers into shock and disgust. The story is extremely fragmented and the writing style is jargonic at times, with many breaks in the writing to a flashback or a random thought that was supposed to carry a significant meaning. However, I found it ostentatious because of the overuse of this style, and I found it frustrating that it tried hard to launch readers into a frenzy of moral messages while being unclear about what it was trying to achieve. The symbolism, metaphors, and similies is excessive and takes away from the message. Figurative language is a tool to portray the thematic statement, but it must be done in a way that is memorable and powerful. There are simply too many in here for any one of them to stand out.

          It is chilling and gruesome, but because it focuses so much on portraying the brutal treatment of women that it lacks trepidation. It is a consistent dark atmosphere with little relief and recovery time in between, and this causes the story to be one monotonous dark blur by inserting endless ideas about misogyny in every scene, compensating with little to no overall plot. I would not call the Handmaids Tale consisting of a plot, but having events. The main focus is not the plot, but Offred's inner ramblings and thoughts about misogyny. There is a lack of overall convergence and interrelatedness, and there are no ends to beginnings. There is no plot resolution, and there are only proposals of problems and situations that portray the brutality of the patriarchal society.

           However, the writing style has a lot of variation as it switches back and forth between being profound and being gruesome, bleak and uncensored. I found this technique, though inconsistent, to be quite powerful. Atwood would switch from flowery, elegant and descriptive writing to writing as vulgar as "my breasts are swollen and his penis looks like a month old carrot". It is extremely explicit, which makes the narrative more uncanny than it already is. In addition, there is an interesting dialogue style used throughout the novel. When Offred spoke, there would be no quotations around her speech. This may have been to emphasize the oppression and lack of freedom women have in the society. The feelings of thoughts being trapped inside one's head effectively demonstrated the consequences of such an unjust society. I found this clever from an analytical perspective, but personally, I did not enjoy this feeling.

           In conclusion, I found the The Handmaid's Tale is less of an educational warning but a fear-mongering novel. Although I can appreciate some techniques used, I think it was too ambitious with the figurative language. The idea was obvious but the value of it was lost because of how emphasized and exaggerated it was, which turned it into a comical piece of writing.

Overal Rating: 2/5 stars