Critical Insights: The Handmaid's Tale

by J. Brooks Bouson (Editor), J. Brooks Bouson (Editor)

This volume in the Critical Insights series collects some the novel's best critics to introduce high school students and undergraduates to one of Atwood's most widely read novels. Edited and with an introduction by J. Brooks Bouson, a widely recognized Atwood scholar. The Handmaid's Tale won international acclaim when it was first published in 1985; with it, Margaret Atwood won Canada's Governor General's Award as well as the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for the Booker Prize. Written in the midst of the anti-feminist backlash and the culture wars of the 1980s, readers recognized it as a timely and chilling dystopian novel depicting a future in which the American government has been overthrown by religious fundamentalists who have, in turn, erected a patriarchal theocracy. Though Atwood had doubts about the novel when she was writing it, and though both conservative and liberal critics have found fault with it, the years following The Handmaid's Tale's publication have been rich with critical discussion. Analyzing Atwood s novel from various critical and theoretical perspectives, these essays offer fresh insights not only on the sources of the novel, its critical reception, and its dystopian and parodic elements but also on its complicated feminist politics, its narrative strategies, and its literary and linguistic complexities. Each essay is 5,000 words in length, and all essays conclude with a list of "Works Cited," along with endnotes. Additional Chronology of Margaret Atwood's Life; Works by Margaret Atwood; Bibliography; About the Editor; About The Paris Review; Contributors; Acknowledgements; and Index.

Genres: Classics, Historical Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2009

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, as always, a disclaimer: This is not an edition of The Handmaid's Tale. Salem Press's Critical Insights series combines classic and current literary criticism on some of the world's most-studied literature, with volumes that focus on themes, authors, or a single piece of literature. While this particular volume does choose Atwood's feminist dystopia as its subject, the text of the novel itself does not appear in this book. What does appear are almost twenty pieces of individual scholarship which approach the Tale from different angles.

The volume begins with a brief introduction by editor J. Brooks Bouson, which is worth reading if only because it offers capsule summaries of most of the articles in the book, which may help a time-pressed student locate precisely what they're after without having to wade through half the book. From there, it's broken into three sections: the first offers three short pieces which describe the plot of the book and the biography of the author, the second presents four pieces contextualizing the novel, and the third offers ten different critical essays. The book closes with a chronology of Atwood's life, a complete list of her works up to the time of publication of this volume, an extremely useful bibliography, and brief biographies of the contributors.

For my purposes, the essays providing context were both the most interesting and most useful, particularly Jadwin's, which offered a historical and cultural perspective of what was happening in the early 1980s that gave rise to THT. Amongst the critical readings, Neuman's piece on the feminist backlash that occurred in response to the women's movement was similarly fascinating, with Andriano's essay on the use of the game of Scrabble as a metaphor throughout the text being a close second. The remaining pieces were enlightening, if occasionally over-burdened by academese, with the only real clunker being Chinmoy Banerjee's snobby and insulting essay on why Atwood's critical success problematizes her writing, which reeked of grapes gone sour.

Overall, Critical Insights offers a solid spread of criticism on Atwood's classic, which provides both a basic context for the work and in-depth examinations from several different perspectives. It's worth noting that, unlike several other volumes of collected criticism I've looked at, the essays here are reproduced in their entirety. As with all Salem Press criticisms, this book come with an access code for online content, including online versions of the pieces included herein, which I sadly did not have time to explore. This is an excellent addition to any library's reference collection, and a great resource for students.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some articles held my interest better than others, but there was at least a little bit to glean from each one, and overall reading this has enhanced my thinking about The Handmaid's Tale.

[Missy Reyes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated everything about this book, unfortunately. It felt like an English assignment (which is sad because that was my favorite subject), like pulling nails to force myself to read it for book club. I’d rather stared at a brick wall. The information is also factually incorrect based on what the author states as fact. I also didn’t appreciate the “new” introduction added to recent prints because of the political activity in the US surrounding the time the show was released to streaming. It felt like a rip of 1984 or Brave New World or another similar genre but I’ve never felt less connected to a book, especially as a woman.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book, I listened to the audio. Loved the narrator. Interesting and creepy premise. Unusual ending.

[Christopher Cirby]

Frighteningly good.

[Smilla Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dystopia is my favorite genre.

Nolite te bastardas carborundorum.

[Kingfan30 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this book today - most of which was read in the garden over this very beautiful weekend! I enjoyed the book very much and I'm very glad I don't live in a world like this. I felt the historical notes at the end were not really needed. This was my first read by this author and look forward to reading more.

[Jarret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly written and well thought-out.