The Handmaid's Tale: A Dystopian Novel

The Handmaid's Tale: A Dystopian Novel

Nicolas Leger

The Handmaid’s Tale

by Margaret Atwood

At any moment in time, our stable nation could be taken over by radicals -- people willing to take away the civil liberties of others for their own benefit. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood explores this concept through a dystopian universe that connects to our own. Throughout it, the main character, Offred, traces the recent history of the world she now lives in, wherein low-class women have been stripped from their lives for the well-being of infertile upper-class couples. Offred has left behind family and friends, and a life wherein she was once able to show her bare arms and legs in public. Now she must comply in producing a child for the Commander and his wife if she wishes to see her own daughter again. Otherwise, she will be just another body hanging from the wall that encloses her community.

The Handmaid’s Tale serves as an excellent transition from realistic fiction as it incorporates believable (and somewhat concerning) aspects of our modern world that have escalated to a point of dystopian. Atwood’s novel, while complexed and clearly well-developed, is a quick read. Despite Offred narrating events in a non-linear timeline, adding another layer to the novel’s excellence, it lacks the confusion that many dystopian novels have. It feels real.

As a central plot point and main theme, Atwood focuses on sexuality and how it relates to handmaids in this new world. Offred’s mother, a women’s rights activist prior to when everything changed, serves as a foil character to the handmaids. She embraced her sexuality, used artificial resources to have a child, and believed in equality. In a training wherein handmaids are taught how to behave, Offred sees a video of her mother among other activists, “smiling, laughing...raising their fists in the air” (138). There was empowerment and now there is nothing. Offred’s life is empty and dull with her one purpose: reproduction.

With the blatant change in Offred’s society, there is also resistance. While the goal is to breed a new generation in hopes of that generation of children not knowing of a different (perhaps, better) time, the older generations, including Offred, are hesitant. While living in the early twenty-first century, a progressive period in history, there is a similar resistance from a conservative group, mostly consisting of older individuals, who are noncompliant to hand the reigns over to the more liberal, younger generation. Similar to the handmaids, progressives currently “[yearn] for the future” (1), where things are believed, or at least hoped to be better.

Where there is resistance, there is corruption. Having lived in a world where cigarettes were legal and smoking was a social activity, there is still a necessity for it. However, “like liquor and coffee, they are forbidden” (13). Among illegal possessions are risque items -- pornography and lingerie, both that have either been kept from before they were banned or purchased from the black market. There is the illegal insemination of a handmaid; sexual activity for pleasure between those who are to remain celibate. Criminality and wrongdoing litter Atwood’s novel -- whether it be out of what is morally unjust, or that of which breaks the law.

Overall, The Handmaid’s Tale explores a world that, for many currently living in the United States, is seen as a part of the past. It’s a novel recommended for any dystopian lover, or readers looking to explore a new genre without diving in head first.