“The Handmaiden’s Tale” is sad, painful, and sinister. The way the story is told is unsettling for many reasons, but I think a lot of it has to do with how fragmented the telling is. I constantly felt like I wasn’t being told everything I needed to know, which made me feel anxious, just as the character Offred does. The alternate society created in this book is also upsetting because it seems close to something that could be possible. Fertility has been stunted by heavy chemical, pesticide, and radiation use such that the population is declining and drastic measures need to be taken to ensure more babies are born. It is interesting to me that the author choose to write about a character in the early days of this new society rather than a character in a more established time, as the author easily could have done (it’s her story after all). It seemed to me that there should have been more rebellion in the early days, but I suppose that would have all been squashed as quickly as possible, so only those who were obedient would be left. And still, Offred questions her predicament and wonders about how she might escape and what has become of her husband from before and their daughter.

My favorite part of the book was the final chapter in which it is revealed that the entire book was a transcript of audio recordings unearthed from the time of Gilead. It reveals more about the time the narrator was living in and filled in the gaps nicely. I felt satisfied with this ending, even though the fate of Offred herself remains unknown. The ending explained why the story was so fragmented and seemed to skip around so much. Knowing what I know from the last chapter, I can accept the author’s choice to write the story the way she did, though at times I was confused while reading. Had I known earlier that the story was to be read like a diary, or like a whispered conversation, I think I would have embraced that earlier. Still, an interesting book with many more themes to discover upon a second reading.

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Created Jun 28, 2020 at 3:11pm • Submit your own review...