Product Description

The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #886 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
The time is the not-so-distant future, when the US's spiraling social freedoms have finally called down a reaction, an Iranian-style repressive "monotheocracy" calling itself the Republic of Gilead - a Bible-thumping, racist, capital-punishing, and misogynistic rule that would do away with pleasure altogether were it not for one thing: that the Gileadan women, pure and true (as opposed to all the nonbelieving women, those who've ever been adulterous or married more than once), are found rarely fertile. Thus are drafted a whole class of "handmaids," whose function is to bear the children of the elite, to be fecund or else (else being certain death, sent out to be toxic-waste removers on outlying islands). The narrative frame for Atwood's dystopian vision is the hopeless private testimony of one of these surrogate mothers, Offred ("of" plus the name of her male protector). Lying cradled by the body of the barren wife, being meanwhile serviced by the husband, Offred's "ceremony" must be successful - if she does not want to join the ranks of the other disappeared (which include her mother, her husband - dead - and small daughter, all taken away during the years of revolt). One Of her only human conduits is a gradually developing affair with her master's chauffeur - something that's balanced more than offset, though, by the master's hypocritically un-Puritan use of her as a kind of B-girl at private parties held by the ruling men in a spirit of nostalgia and lust. This latter relationship, edging into real need (the master's), is very effectively done; it highlights the handmaid's (read Everywoman's) eternal exploitation, profane or sacred ("We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices"). Atwood, to her credit, creates a chillingly specific, imaginable night-mare. The book is short on characterization - this is Atwood, never a warm writer, at her steeliest - and long on cynicism - it's got none of the human credibility of a work such as Walker Percy's Love In The Ruins. But the scariness is visceral, a world that's like a dangerous and even fatal grid, an electrified fence. Tinny perhaps, but still a minutely rendered and impressively steady feminist vision of apocalypse. (Kirkus Reviews)

From the Publisher
'Compulsively readable' Daily Telegraph

About the Author
Margaret Atwood is Canada's most eminent novelist, poet and critic. Her books include The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady Oracle, Alias Grace, Cat's Eye, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize and The Handmaid's Tale, which won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction and the Governor-General's Award, was short-listed for the Booker Prize and made into a major film. She lives in Toronto with the writer Graeme Gibson and their daughter.

Customer Reviews

Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale (1985)
The post-revolutionary theocratic society of Gilead is a unique and difficult society unlike any and has a set of new and unconventional rules based around the new problem of infertility in the world, its approach slots each member of society into a specific and manipulated role; one that is controlled and more often, devastatingly alone.

The tale follows Offred, who takes the role of a Handmaid, as a fertile woman living in Gilead she faces the challenges of being removed from her family and forced into an anti-feminist and lonely society as she is assigned to her "commander" with whom she must help to perform the "ceremony" in order that the human race might survive. Set in the imminent future the story focuses the relationships she finds and makes, with both men and women, despite relationships being a thing of the past. Atwood's vision emphasises the uses of women, most particularly for their bodies and in this sense, their use as a "walking womb". The possession and value of human life is carefully examined through the use of a stilted narrative; not necessarily always projecting a character that the reader wants to like but always one who battles with social controls. Whilst Offred finds emotional releases in sometimes unsightly places the aim of everyone in the society seems to be to break the rules in some form or other and barren has simply become a way of life as opposed to simple vocabulary.

Atwood's book is cold, and often impersonal but the narrative leaves enough emotion to challenge the reader in a short and sometimes all too direct with a distinct lack of characterisation. But ultimately, like many of her novels, leaves the reader with a bitter ethical aftertaste.

Shockingly good
I have never written a review online of anything before, but having just finished The Handmaid's Tale I felt compelled to do so at once.
Being an avid reader of all genres, I had heard of this book from numerous sources but I am sorry to say that I have only just now come to read it.
From the very first chapter I was hooked - the story draws you in so that from the beginning my mind was already brimming with unanswered questions - What is the Republic of Gilead? How did this happen? - and of course, the fate of our heroine, Offred, who is the narrator of the story, was always on my mind. I admit that I found some scenes particularly disturbing, though not graphic in a violent way, and would lie awake some nights dwelling on them. However, they, along with the personal plight of our heroine, are what makes the story so powerful. Add to that the chilling thought that this is a future not entirely impossible, and you have a story that stays with you long after you have closed it.

Compelling and thought provoking story
An incredible story that is difficult to describe in a short few sentences. It was certainly a very thought provoking book and I really wanted to discuss it with someone else (excellent choice for a book club!). I was unsure about the ending but on reflection it fits well with the rest of the book and allows for the reader to ponder the story well after finishing reading. Dystopian fiction is not for everyone but if you are at all interested in this genre then this is a brilliant example. Once I'd finished this book I went straight out and bought "Oryx and Crake" - another dystopian story by Atwood.