Reviews of The Handmaid’s Tale almost invariably start like a collective trauma memory: where were you when it happened? I was twenty-ish, an English major at a nearby university. I was taught how to analyse literature, but not how to consume it, how to distinguish it, and I don’t think we ever read this one for class. Needless to say, most of my professors were middle-aged men. I did read it, though, and it stuck with me; I read it again a few years later. I remembered the details fairly well, considering I hadn’t touched the book in twenty years or so; but two decades on, the impact the book has on me has only grown.
The Handmaid’s Tale is many things: a timeless classic, a thriller, but most of all a warning. The main character notices her country’s government is slipping but fails to act until it is too late. It costs her everything. It is impossible not to look at what’s happening in certain parts of the world without heeding Atwood’s warning: it’s unnervingly prescient. Or perhaps it’s just basic psychology. Authoritarian regimes climb up, establish themselves, and topple under their own weight. It’s the waiting in the mean time that’s the hardest.
The book is clever in its horrors. Offred, who has been given the choice of becoming a handmaid or becoming a corpse, has picked the former and now leads a life staggeringly free of stimuli. There are no books, no TV shows except the news when the lady of the household deigns to let her watch it; no outings. She wears the same clothes every day, clothes that mark her out as a slut though she has no say in how she lives her life. Even the food she is served is deliberately bland. Signs on shops have been replaced with pictograms; women aren’t supposed to read. Her real name is taken from her; she now has to call herself after her commander. She is a possession to be distributed at will.
Predictably, the people at the top of the pyramid are hypocrites. The commander, Offred’s owner and namesake, entices her to do things she isn’t allowed to do. He gives her magazines, takes her on outings, plays Scrabble with her. She goes along with it; refusing is as dangerous as playing along. Around her, the horrors of Gilead continue. Offred seems to have accepted her fate, though she is far from a true believer.
The novel is also highly effective in the way it portrays the totalitarian regime. It’s effective but unsubtle, from the Handmaid’s bright red clothes to the particicutions that make them complicit in the state’s corruption. Bureaucracy is the real horror here, and the novel forces the reader to ponder the uncomfortable question: what would you have done?
I know many people have found the open ending incredibly frustrating and while I recognise that frustration, I think it’s also the only possible conclusion here. Offred puts her fate in the hands of others. We don’t know what will come of her because she doesn’t know either. The coda, taking place at a conference a century after the events of the book, tells us Gilead has failed. That is unsurprising, sure, but neither is the fact that it existed in the first place.
The Testaments, on the other hand, is much less opaque. If The Handmaid’s Tale is a cautionary tale for the reader, then The Testaments is one for aspiring autocrats. Like The Handmaid’s Tale it is a thrilling ride, but in a more literal way.
The plot centers around three women: Canadian teenager Daisy, who discovers early on in the novel that she was taken out of Gilead as a baby; she is unaware that she is the person at the heart of a massive diplomatic row (other countries tread lightly; they don’t support Gilead, but they fear its army). The second character, Agnes, is a teenager growing up in Gilead, to whom the repression is nothing new. We as readers are able to guess fairly early on who their mother is. The third character is the formidable Aunt Lydia, and we get to read her story. Lydia, in her previous life, was a judge. When all unmarried women, particularly educated ones, are rounded up, Lydia is the one who manages to carve out a new space for herself. The novel once again asks the uncomfortable question: how far can you go to reach your goal? Has Lydia always been playing the long game, or is she simply fed up? Lydia, despite the actions she causes at the end of the novel, is not a likable person. She does, however, get things done.
As for Agnes and Daisy, they are an interesting juxtaposition. Daisy has grown up in free Canada, is used to wearing trousers and speaking her mind. Agnes, despite her name, is no lamb, but her frame of reference is incredibly narrow: she has been kept deliberately ignorant by the regime that sees her as a breeding machine and little else. Both of them are shockingly naive in different ways, and that makes you fear for their fates.
The novel offers a view on how women carve out niches in a society that sees them as inferior and incompetent, as trinkets to be enjoyed; their bodies are shameful, so naturally women are used to repress women. The safe spaces are created at great cost. Do we blame Lydia for the road she takes, or do we envy her ability to do so?
Ultimately, for me, the resolution was a bit too neat; I preferred the uncertainty of The Handmaid’s Tale. But nevertheless, the cautionary tale eked out by both books is impressive. Don’t say feminism never did anything for you.