Eleven Reader's Club discussion

The Handmaid's Tale

Rehab Mirza
For Mr.E.Giest
(ENG3U)
March 21st, 2011
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The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
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I was recently exposed to Canadian literature, often reading any good book I could get my hands on previously. I found it to be a whole new ‘genre’ of reading and it comes with a whole new appeal. Despite little knowledge of the subject, I recognized Margaret Atwood as a familiar name when we studied the poem ‘It’s dangerous to read newspapers’ in English class. I found the writing to be exquisite containing an ocean of ideas in a very brief account.

I instantly chose Atwood to be the author of a novel I would read soon and found more options than I could choose from! I finally settled on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ for quite a few reasons.

Along with many good reviews about the book on Goodreads.com, it is also of a modest size- which is somewhat convenient for analysis. It has won the 1985 Governor General's Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987, and it was nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. It has also had several adaptations in the media, since the novel remains-to this day- an idea that is relative to the modern society. More importantly, it is a dystopian novel- and this is familiar to me from the work of Orwell in his book ‘1984’. The idea of dystopia is new to me as well, but interests me greatly since many societies have been held ‘controlled’ in the past and is therefore realistic.

This speculative fictional novel is set in the Republic of Gilead- a near future world in what previously had been the United States of America. The people are under a new theocratic military dictatorship and the society is dominated by racist and chauvinistic men. Men and women are categorized by cast, class, gender and occupation within their society, a concept not uncommon in the world today.

I hope to read this novel and enjoy it :)

It is a wickedly powerful and graphic read. Memorable.