The Handmaid’s Tale
We have five Sundays this month so I’m starting with fiction, and my choice to kick off this month is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. So let’s do this!
Now, Hulu adapted...sort of...The Handmaid’s Tale, and it was big. It won Emmy’s. It was wildly popular and women started cosplaying Handmaid’s, especially after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. Which is fucking stupid to freak out over, since this decision only made abortion illegal on a FEDERAL level...individual states can still codify abortion as legal on a state level, which most have done. Like 13 have made it functionally illegal, and even those allow exceptions for life saving remedies. So cool your ridiculous jets ladies, you’re still allowed to kill your babies.
Ok. Back to the book.
I had read The Handmaid’s Tale decades ago, in like 1990 or 1991, after the movie starring Natasha Richardson as Offred and Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy was released. And while the order of events in the movie is out of sequence from the book, the pieces were all there. Except for the very very end when in the movie Offred, who is Kate in the movie, kills the commander before being taken away, definitely pregnant by Nick, and the movie closes with her in hiding, waiting for Nick.
I think I saw like the first five episode’s of the Hulu series, which they managed to drag out for like 5 seasons, and I’m assuming, based on length of series, goes WAY off script from the book. And no doubt contributed greatly to the hysterical cosplayers running around, pretending like they are somehow sexually repressed.
So what did I pick up from the book?
Gilead is, quite obviously, the replacement nation state that takes over when congress is fully destroyed in a bombing, essentially wiping out our entire system of government overnight. It’s not quite spelled out, but is hinted at that while Islamist extremists were blamed, it was most likely Christian fundamentalists.
Although, it is also possible that Congress was destroyed by Islamist extremists and the Christian fundamentalists saw their opportunity and stepped into the void.
It is never explained why the handmaid’s are needed. Fertility rates are down, that is explained, and they kill doctors who used to perform abortions, even though the abortions were legal at the time they were performed. But they never explicitly say WHY fertility rates are down. Second marriages become illegal, which is how Offred finds her self a handmaid. She was a second wife. And in the book, she was the mistress before the second wife…one of those rare times when the husband actually does leave the wife for the mistress. And yes, they had a daughter, who is taken from Offred when she’s captured and presumably given to a family. We never actually know what happened to the daughter. Or to Offred’s husband, who is presumed dead in the capture of Offred.
Offred takes us through her time in the Red Center, where the handmaid’s are trained, and provides snippets of life in Gilead. She tells us about the ceremony, and why the ceremony is performed the way it is, with the intent being the man will impregnate the handmaid in lieu of his wife.
Handmaid’s hold this weird status in society. Definitely not free, not able to come and go as they please, but definitely a step above Econowives, but still looked down on by all. Largely because they are fucking other women’s husbands. Legally or not, society does not approve of such behavior. Reading is forbidden to women. ID is checked at every point to ensure they are authorized to go where they are going, and they are forbidden to walk anywhere alone, only allowed to walk with another handmaid. And each is expected to spy on the other. Offred’s partner is Ofglen. Handmaid’s always take the name of the male of the house to which they are assigned, term of service to be two years, unless pregnancy occurs.
ALL women are broken down into categories. The Wives...clearly the wives of the men who run things. The Marthas...they run the kitchen and clean the houses of the Wives. The Aunts...they oversee the handmaid’s training and discipline. The Handmaids...the fruitful women who are healthy and physically capable of bearing children. And the Econowives...basically the wives of the proletariat working classes who are in good standing...because if you fall out of favor or violate the laws and rules of Gilead, who are sent to The Colonies...basically out into the wilderness to clean up the wastelands. And much like the Gulag Archipelago, this is virtually a death sentence. When you’re sent to the colonies, your life span is numbered in months as starvation and disease are the province of the wastelands.
ANYONE can be sent to the wastelands. If they are not Salvaged...executed outright for some violation. Or...and this one is known to the Aunts and the men, but not to anyone else...if you’re a young and attractive woman, you may be given the choice. The wastelands...or Jezebels. And it’s interesting that the Aunts know about this. Shows the absolute complicity of women in this society that has been built.
Offred even mentions it. Several times. Women are complicit. Hell, EVERYONE is complicit. This society is so horrifyingly akin to communism...YES Communism, not Fascism. I know there’s a state of righteous hate on for Hitler, but not enough hatred is given to the communists, so let me highlight what I saw in the book that smacked of communism.
Well, the wastelands...that’s obviously a parallel to the Gulag Archipelago. Struggle sessions. When the handmaid’s are at the Red Center for training, struggle sessions are part of their training. Sit in the center and tell everyone what you did wrong so they can publicly shame you for it. This is cult training 101 and communist China was infamous for it. Party loyalty was how you moved up the chain and could get you benefits...like a wife. And better housing. Communists controlled all the housing. The Aunts, when they’re training the Handmaid’s, even include this very famous Marxist quote “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” In the book, it’s attributed to the bible, and to be fair, a version of this IS in the Bible….but only in regards to VOLUNTARY efforts...See Acts 11:29. This is also found in Richest Man In Babylon. But Marx corrupted it and made it famous, a point which no woman would be able to refute, since they’ve made women’s literacy illegal.
But the real gem from the book, which was not in the movie and I have no idea if it was in the Hulu series, was the epilogue, titled Historical Notes. Because the historical notes adds a whole ton of context that you can’t get from a first person historical tale. First person limits it, literally, to what the narrator knows. Which is why we don’t know if her husband lived or died when they were caught. We don’t know what happened to her daughter. This not knowing is what leaves your mind spinning at the end and does make for really good storytelling, overall. But it does beg the question: In a land where women’s literacy is illegal, how do we come to possess this journal of events that was clearly authored by a woman? And clearly ends incompletely, with the author being taken away ostensibly to prison, but she does notify us that it’s really a rescue mission by the rebels?
The historical notes are dated June 25, 2195...so roughly 200 years after the events in the Handmaid’s Tale. And it’s basically a university lecture exploring the history of Gilead through the Handmaid’s tale. And we find out that the tale itself is a transcript of tape recordings, found in a box after the fall of Gilead. That Offred was one of the first handmaid’s, because they manage to trace Fred to one of two possibilities, both of whom were involved in the creation of Gilead.
And one of the speakers at this University even wrote a paper called “Iran and Gilead: Two Late Twentieth Century Monotheocracies, as Seen Through Diaries.”
This is particularly interesting to me, because it shows Atwood was well aware of the Khomeini’s brutality in Iran, and likely based some of the theocratic rules in Gilead off of what was happening in Iran. Pay attention people: You are all so freaked out by Roe v. Wade, that you’re embracing the true tragedy of Islam, which WILL destroy the very freedoms you’re enjoying with your self-proclaimed melodramas.
But if you want to know just how bad a theocracy can get, look at what’s happening in Afghanistan. Ask Iranians in diaspora why Iran is fighting so hard to throw off the Ayatollah’s control and return to a Zoroastrian state religion.
And now for why I believe Gilead would never happen in the United States. Texas. One of the funniest lines in the entire book, also comes from the Historical Notes. When they’re getting ready for the keynote speaker at the Twelth Symposium of the Gileadan Research Association, one of the professors references a presentation the following day by “Professor Sieglinda van Buren from the Department of Military History at the University of San Antonio, Republic of Texas.”
And I laughed and laughed because Texas saying “Fuck that noise.” was about the most Texas, AND the most likely thing to happen, in the event someone managed to actually destroy congress in one fell swoop. But more over, consider this: Congressional approval rating is at a mere 32%...and that’s up from a low of FOURTEEN PERCENT in November of 2025. I think more regions would follow Texas’s example and start their own countries. There is ZERO chance that a fundamentalist christian sect would be able to take over and control what would be the former United States of America.
They might...MAYBE...at a stretch...be able to take over a small section. I’m going with the northeast. And not because that’s where the book is set. But because the northeast is super eager to give up their gun rights, making such a takeover actually possible. The rest of the country would fully balkanize, most likely into 12 or 13 different regions, each with their own governments and varying degrees of freedoms for their citizens. But outside of some bizarre metro areas that are dead set on suicidal empathy and the belief that Islam is the “religion of peace,” the rest of America would reject whole cloth the concept of a theocracy.
Although, the hallmark of good fiction isn’t necessarily “How plausible is this?” It’s does this make you think? What would you do in a similar situation? This book made me think that Offred is...thoroughly unrelatable to me. And not just because I wouldn’t sleep with a married man to begin with. But because I don’t know how NOT to fight back. I wouldn’t drive up the road to a check point, counting on forged documents to see me safe. I’d cross country trek it, yes with child in tow, firearms at the ready because hey...better them than me. I would NOT kill my damn cat. No joke. When she and her husband decide to make a run for the border, they realize they can’t take their cat with them...fair point. Wrangling a kid will be challenging enough, cat is probably a little too challenging. But rather than putting the cat out and letting her fend for herself, they decide to kill the cat. Because cat meowing at the door will alert the neighbors they’re gone. Bitch...if you’re not coming back, why the fuck do you care? At least give the poor thing a fighting chance.
But the most interesting twist I found is that I felt SORRY for the Commander Fred. I mean, I get that he’s meant to be the Bad Guy in this story. But overall I got this sense that all he wanted was a human connection, which was denied him by his bitch wife, who was focused on what she COULD NOT provide for herself. Namely a child. Because while the commander did invite Offred to his study to play scrabble and other board games, and he wanted her to “kiss him like she meant it” he didn’t make a play for off-ceremony sex until he took her to Jezebels. Mostly, he just wanted to connect with another human being, without all the political bullshit.
This book was eh, for me. And probably part of that is the overblown reactions of the feminists, who, having probably only watched the show or maybe skimmed the book, most likely missed this line from the book “”Mother”, I think, “Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.””
Feminists LOVE a feminist retelling of classics like 1984 or the Arthurian legends or Greek Myth, I would love to see a masculine retelling of The Handmaid’s Tale from a mans perspective...specifically the tragedy that this system created for itself of loveless marriages designed only for continuance of heritage. Because while Robert Duvall delivers an amazing villain in the Movie and Joseph Fiennes is always a powerhouse no matter what he does, in the book, Offred says many times she found the Commander quite likeable. Which means that like her, he is in a hell of his own making. And yes...she made this hell through her own compliance. The road to hell isn’t only paved through good intentions. It can also be paved through compliance to unjust laws. As the saying goes, when tyranny becomes law, resistance becomes duty.
