The Handmaid's Tale - Kick-Off Thread - YouLookFab Forum

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The Handmaid's Tale - Kick-Off Thread

Inge

(website)

Good morning and welcome to our 7th Book Club meet-up.

This time we're chatting about Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. The book tells the chilling story of Offred, a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead - a totalitarian state where women have no rights, their every move is being watched and a strict dress code is enforced. Offred dresses in red, except for her white "wings", and her main role in life is to bear children for the couple she has been assigned to.

This is a story about a class society with no privacy, extreme censorship and oppression. Women and other "undesirables" are completely stripped of any freedom or pleasure, living a suffocating and hopeless existence. Yet it's also a story about rebellion, the resilience of human beings, and the will to survive no matter what. I thought the author very talented at drawing in the reader from page one. The claustrophobic atmosphere grabbed me by the throat, and the distrust and fear were tangible. I'm sure this isn't a book for everyone, but I do love a good "sci-fi" (if you can call it that) novel that only slowly reveals the history and circumstances of the characters.

I have to say that when I read the book for the first time at age 16, I didn't pay all that much attention to the symbolism of the dress code (cleverly used to dinstinguish between the different societal classes). So engrossed and appalled was I by the bleak world Mrs. Atwood had created. I'm quite curious to hear if you've ever had that happen too, i.e. missing a significant detail or part of a plot line.

This is a multi-layered book that has relevance to present day political, religious and social discussions. But these topics can also be very divisive, so we will keep the discussion to the context of the story in the book and the world Margaret Atwood created. We would like to stay away from any specific parallels to current events and discuss Atwood's ideas in the abstract.

Over to you. Did you enjoy the book? How did you interpret the ending? And what are your thoughts on the epilogue (the chapter called "Historical Notes")?

Book Club

16 replies

Latest reply was from JAileen

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

I did not manage to read the book Inge, but I am looking forward to the discussion. An intriguing topic for sure.

Mochi

Veteran

I understand your motivation, Inge, but to me, it would seem really difficult NOT to tie the subject matter in with current events. I will try lurking on the discussion (I read the book nearly 20 years ago, so am a bit rusty....but I can say it's VERY relevant). Anyway I hope a lot of YLF-ers here read it.

Chrizzle

The Handmaid's Tale is on my list of the best books I ever read, and I realize now that it helped form my political views. Years ago when I was in graduate school I co-taught a Women's Studies class with three other doctoral students, and we chose this book as one of the required readings. But it's been at least 10 years since I read it, and my memory of the details is very fuzzy. I'll dig out my copy and refresh my memory so that I can participate more fully. Like Mochi, I think it will be very difficult to discuss it without tying in current events, but I'll do my best!

ManidipaM

Veteran

One of my favourites, and for me, dress was what stood out first! Maybe because the edition I had showed a hooded Offred that reminded me on one hand of the precarious safety (and social and gender politics inherent in) Little Red Riding Hood and on the other because the colour red is considered very auspicious in my culture, symbolising fertility and marriage for women, as well as the preferred apparel of several goddesses --- the dichotomy and tension really pulled at my heartstrings (also scared me silly and as Mochi said, current and recent events continue to reinforce that!).

The red of Offred's 'caste uniform' also reminded me of chilling ways in which dress signifiers used to be (and though less so, still are) used in India to signal lower and higher caste status. In at least a couple of communities, a lower-caste woman crossing paths with a higher-caste man must remove her shawl or the upper part of her sari to bare her breasts in his presence, or it is to be seen as giving insult.

To me, it is especially horrifying that RED is Offred's colour --- not only is the colour of fertility (and its association is old, with menstruation and virgin blood --- see the colour coding of Tarot decks for example) being subverted in that a woman's place is restricted to her fertility function and she becomes invisible other than that; but also because red is a colour so hard to camouflage in nature. Wearing red, there is no place to hide! And as a wallflower and a painfully shy teenager, this lack of privacy and burden of attention felt quite jarring.

nancylee

Veteran

This book had a profound and chilling effect on me when I first read it (many years ago, when I was in my late 20s). The insidious and methodical way the authorities deprived women of their individual rights in the story was horrifying to me as a young woman who had just begun to enjoy all the freedoms and opportunities the women's movement had won for us. I was married but still childless and working at a job I loved that involved international travel; in fact, I read The Handmaid's Tale on a 14-hour flight to Tokyo. The combination of this disturbing novel with the disorientation of arriving jet-legged in a foreign country permanently sealed the novel in my psyche.

I see plenty of parallels between the novel and current events and, like Mochi,would find it hard to discuss the novel in depth without going there! I do think it should be required reading for all women. We need to vigilant about our rights at all times.

rachylou

Veteran

I also read this book a long time ago and found the setup stuck in my imagination, one part of which was the uniform. It struck me as nigh on religious, a habit. I bring (impose) all my cradle-Catholic understanding to that. Clothing not as adornment but role-signifier is a concept that always intrigued me. I probably lean heavier in that direction than I like to admit to myself, but there it is.

Uniforms no doubt intrigue me in part because I grew up in hippie time in the Republic of Hippie (Berkeley, CA) and did not, for example, go to Catholic school and wear a school uniform. I also ponder the whole philosophical dilemma of where the line is between one's responsibility to one's self and to others. One person's freedom can be a thing of nightmares for others (for example, I know a lot of people who were abandoned by parents rejecting society and going off to pursue their "me"). I also note, when base survival is at stake, with humans being social animals, individuality drops right off the map. The idea of marrying someone you like, and only staying married if you continue to like them, is brand spanking new and I'd be suspecting at least partially the result of not having to worry so much about the basics being available.

Anyways, interesting choice of book!

Diana

Veteran

It's been a looong time since I've read this book so I can't really discuss specifics other than the general impression that I found it extremely compelling and also extremely disturbing. I just wanted to say that I am really enjoying reading people's impressions though - especially Manidipa's really interesting parallel to Indian caste culture. It's a jarring reminder that the sort of society portrayed in the novel is not so dystopian, futuristic, or distant as we might like to think.

Rachy, it's interesting that you bring up the Catholic schoool parallel, since my copy of The Handmaid's Tale had a cover image of Offred from a distance in red with a white wimple-type headdress. I don't remember if this was specifically mentioned in the text, but the image definitely brought to mind nuns and the idea of religious or cult-like adherence to "rules' and "responsibilities".

ironkurtin

Veteran

I'll be honest and say I read this book twenty years ago, so I'm going on my recollections rather than a recent read.

I do recall that the costuming in the book struck me less than the other details, mostly because costuming is *always* used to distinguish castes and classes. In this case, men dictated what women wore because a woman's role was severely truncated and defined: a woman is about procreation, and if she can't procreate, and is of sufficient rank, another woman steps in as her womb. Sexuality is abolished in favor of sex.

The most telling detail about costumes, as I recall, was the secret club where women were dressed in "forbidden" sexy clothing - because even men had to break the costume rules they themselves had created in order to feel sexual and powerful. The other costume moment I recall was when Offred's mouth began to water looking at the polished toes of a Japanese tourist as she recalled polishing her own nails, a freedom she no longer has.

I also remember loaning this book to my mother and sister, both of whom scoffed at it and said the premise was totally unrealistic. I wonder if they would think that now.

nicoleb

(website)

Veteran

Oh! I read this book last year! I love the distopia genre and have read a lot of book on the subject.

However for me this one was only so-so. I found it interesting enough to finish it but when I did it didn't move me either way.

I do have to say I had read "Fahrenheit 451" right before this book, which I loved (even more spooky how accurate it's become since it was written in the 50s). So that could of made me pass on harder judgement to The Handmaid's Tale?

rachylou

Veteran

IK, your observations make me think of the movie *Angels & Insects* and the whole idea of an army of other women to take care of the *queen bee's* children - governesses, nursemaids, etc. (19th century-styled women who are pretty much trapped). In this light, such *surrogate motherhood* is not really much of a leap.

ETA: I should note my father had nursemaids and then was sent to boarding school.

@nicoleb - I felt the same way at the end of the book. I think the premise is a might more deep than the actual unfolding of Offred's story.

ironkurtin

Veteran

Rachylou - Wasn't the movie Angels and Insects (and the story by AS Byatt that inspired it) about incest and interclass marriage more than anything else? I don't remember it being about squadrons of servants helping the Queen Bee. Now I have to go reread it.

Mochi

Veteran

IK, it's interesting you mentioning the "sexy club." As I've said, it's been almost 20 years for me so I really don't remember details, only the overall feeling of dread and chilll I felt then, and how quickly I got through the book. But I remember reading sometime more recently an article about middle- and upper-class Irani women, how they have to wear the chador (hope that's the right word) but underneath it, they would be dressed in the height of couture--Chanel, Lagerfeld, impeccable hair and makeup, etc. At private home parties the outer garb would be removed and these chic women would be able to relax. Even more compellingly, Afghani women: who, I recall reading, would meet up in private home gatherings to defy the Taliban (at the risk of death if they were found out!) by eating ice cream.

I should go back and read HT again. I want my 23-year-old daughter and her friends to read it now.

rachylou

Veteran

Hmm, IK. With the title *Angels & Insects*, that was where my mind went. The whole manor system reminding me so much of a hive... with sterile workers and so forth.

anne

Veteran

I read HT at high school, at the suggestion of the school librarian and found it chilling.
The main point related to fashion that I recall was also the club where they wore different forbidden clothes.

I also tend to agree with IK's assessment of Angels and Insects - although I have only read the novella and not seen the film. A S Byatt is one of my favourite authors, but she does have some pretty icky stuff in some of her books.

andi

I'd love to read this book. I will check if I can find a copy in my local library here in Cape Town. From the forum posts, it sounds very interesting.....

JAileen

Veteran

I read this book just last year. It's funny, I was discussing it yesterday with some women at church., who hadn't read it. I urged them to read it. I found it to be very chilling, given the recent political developments in the U.S. To be honest, I don't really remember much about it fashion-wise.