The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)

Dallas Plotline Page
Apr 22, 2024
3 min read

All of you Hulu subscribers may be familiar with the show The Handmaid's Tale, and vaguely aware that it is adapted from Margaret Atwood's novel of the same name. If you have been considering diving into the source material but are still on the fence, read on and see if I can convince you to give it a read!

The Gist

The Handmaid's Tale follows Offred, a woman trapped in the dystopian society of Gilead. She is used as a handmaiden, a lesser class of woman whose sole purpose is to bear children for the men of the community. She recounts her life within the secluded sect and the whispers of rebellion from amongst her fellow handmaidens.

The Take

This is not a straightforward tale by any means, and much of the story is told in the fragmented perspective of our protagonist, Offred. She does not lay out in any systematic way the workings of her society as though info-dumping is her passion, but instead doles out nuggets of background knowledge as she progresses through the events in her time. What results is a story that is more surreal and mysterious than anticipated, since much of her society looks disturbingly similar to ours. Offred is not necessarily accepting of her role as handmaiden, treated as a second class citizen with minimal autonomy, but rather dealing with what she sees as her only option. But the crux of this novel focuses on Offred trying to retain her inner self, which in itself is rebellion against the Gilead society.

Offred's motivation for these micro-rebellions is because of her family - she refuses to forget her husband and daughter, and peppers her current observations with past recollections of her former life. The focus on lost family gives Offred a much more emotional resonance that could be lost if the focus is only on the society. So many of us can empathize with a character who loses her family - a fate none of us would want to share. Her growing determination to escape and seek her daughter provides the necessary connection to her character, since for so much of the story Offred does not have individuality under threat of death.

The plot of The Handmaid's Tale is scary in its possibility, and a main reason why it is considered a classic. The Gilead community is ruled by the military officers, with a twisted religious fanaticism permeating its laws and society, wherein female bodily autonomy is reserved for the privileged few. These same ideologies run rampant in contemporary cult and fringe societies today; the only difference being that there are enough Netflix documentaries about these communities to help educate and warn the masses away from subscribing to the same mindset. While the inner workings of the society are not always described to a satisfactory degree, they are described in enough detail to instill a sense of fear in the reader.

Possibly the most polarizing aspect of the novel is the open ending. Offred's ultimate fate is left up for interpretation with the final chapter, which adds to the unnerving sensation I felt throughout the story. These types of endings are polarizing in general; why spend time reading about someone if you don't get a conclusion to their story? I have mixed feelings on this device myself, though I believe The Handmaid's Tale is one of the more successful examples of providing an unknown future to a protagonist.

The Handmaid's Tale is considered a modern classic, for many good reasons. While Offred's character and the society of Gilead can seem at times opaque, her motivations and the horrors of such a world create a connection with the reader that helps give the story additional merit. I recommend you give this one a try if you're up for being a little confused and a lot affected.

Rating: 7.5/10

Memorable Moments

“When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.”
“We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?”
“I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born”