Tag Archive for: Margaret Atwood

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood (sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale)

If you haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale and plan to, then stop reading here unless you enjoy spoilers. This book is the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testaments is definitely not a stand alone. You must read The Handmaid’s Tale first.

The Handmaid’s Tale left us hanging for thirty-four years wondering what ever happened to Offred after she was thrown into that infamous black van. Was she taken to prison or brought to freedom? What ever happened to the baby she carried? We were left to draw our own conclusions. We now have closure.

The Testaments take place fifteen years after The Handmaid’s Tale, and is structured differently. The Testaments is based on the accounts of three different characters: Aunt Lydia, Agnes, and Daisy. Unlike The Handmaid’s Tale, this sequel provides detailed points of view and witness testimonies from each of them.

Aunt Lydia, the abusive oppressor we met in the first novel, now takes center stage. She is portrayed in a whole new light, with many more details. When Gilead was becoming established, Aunt Lydia was one of many women rounded up and taken to prison. While there, she lived in deplorable conditions, suffered unthinkable abuse, and witnessed atrocities. After being broken down, these women were given a choice: either be killed or join the regime. As we well know, Lydia chose the latter, rose to power and inflicted the same brutalities on Handmaids under her supervision. It is that very power, however, that she now uses to help overthrow Gilead.

Agnes is the teenaged daughter of wealthy and powerful Commander Kyle in Gilead. She is loved and cherished by her mother, Tabitha. When Tabitha dies, Commander Kyle remarries Paula – a cruel, selfish woman with no maternal feelings for Agnes. As is the tradition in Gilead, Agnes is being groomed to become the young wife of a commander. Paula, wanting Agnes out of her home as soon as possible, takes center stage in the arranged marriage process with no regard for her step-daughter’s happiness or well-being. As Agnes reluctantly prepares for her new life, a vague early childhood memory of running through a wooded area while holding a woman’s hand resurfaces. As other events begin to unfold, Agnes puts the pieces of her life together and discovers the truth about her history and family. She learns that she was adopted and renamed after being taken away from her biological mother – a Handmaid who has since gone missing.

Daisy is a rebellious teenage girl unknowingly living under a protective secret identity in Canada. Against her parents’ wishes, she sneaks off to an anti-Gilead human rights rally one day; a decision that would change her life forever. Shortly thereafter, her parents are murdered and everything Daisy thought she knew about her life begins to unravel. Her real name isn’t Daisy. Her parents were not really her parents. Her real mother is a Handmaid who escaped Gilead years ago. She later discovers she has a half-sister in Gilead. As Daisy processes her true identity, she is faced with a monumental decision: either remain safely in Canada or risk everything in the fight to bring down Gilead.

The Testaments show us the powerful force of women, once silenced, daring to rise up and fight back. Their stories of life in Gilead are chronicled in detailed, historical testimonies, which are widely studied and analyzed years later (this was an awesome detail!). Most of these women were victims who had their families ripped apart, loved ones killed, and then risked their lives to escape and help others do the same. The accounts of familiar characters from the first novel are poignant, heartbreaking, and an ever-present reminder of a society gone horribly awry at the hands of corrupt and evil people. 

Aunt Lydia’s character development was much more in depth than it had been in The Handmaids Tale. I didn’t like this character, but I did enjoy Atwood’s description of her redemption – despite the fact that I was constantly grappling with whether or not to trust her. We cannot erase the pain and suffering she caused in The Handmaid’s Tale in order to save herself, so it is difficult to see her as a total victim or as a hero. Yet, when corruption in Gilead escalated, we did see her evolve to the point of being a paramount participant in the resistance movement. Aunt Lydia’s power in Gilead was used to aid the very people who were once her victims, so her transformation is forever colored by her earlier choices and actions. 

Margaret Atwood has done a brilliant job of expanding on The Handmaid’s Tale. The development of three central, yet very different, characters was extremely detailed and well-done. Atwood expertly demonstrated the downfall of a democracy, the injustices of a society ripped to shreds at the hands of the corrupt and powerful, and the ensuing fight for human preservation. This book is poignant, well organized and extremely well-written. If you enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale, then The Testaments is an absolute must read for adults.

“A woman is like a tea bag. You can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water” – Eleanor Roosevelt

**Purchase this amazing novel at Amazon here. This is an affiliate link, which only means that when you click and purchase the book through this link, I receive a tiny commission at no additional cost to you. My opinions remain my own.

 

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

Imagine the horrific aftermath of a nuclear war. Imagine the United States government being overthrown and replaced with a dystopian society, known as Gilead. Imagine, on American soil, families are separated. Children are ripped away from their parents and placed with powerful couples. Imagine losing the right own property or have a bank account. Imagine being tortured for reading or writing. The Handmaid’s Tale is about all of these things, and so much more.

Margaret Atwood introduces us to the Republic of Gilead, where the roles of people, especially women, are clearly defined and brutally enforced. Due to the nuclear effects on reproductive health, birth rates are down. Young women who have remained fertile (Handmaids) are forced to produce babies for prominent families. They are made to participate in mandatory monthly impregnation rituals with their commanders, and later ordered to hand their baby over to them and their wives. Handmaids are trained and disciplined by the “aunts”. Aunts are women higher up in the hierarchy, authorized to administer torturous punishments to disobedient handmaids. Additionally, handmaids unable to produce a baby, or any woman deemed useless or rebellious, can be shipped to radioactive, contaminated wastelands and used as slave labor. Public executions are also common and take place for a variety of senseless reasons.

June is a happily married woman, with a daughter and a successful career in the Boston area. Frightened by the unfolding changes in society, she and her family attempt to flee to Canada. In the process, June and her daughter are captured and separated. June is sent to be trained as a Handmaid under the tyrannical Aunt Lydia, and later ordered to live with Commander Fred and his wife, Serena Joy. No longer June, “Offred” is desperate to get her daughter back and escape the Republic of Gilead. Despite being under the constant supervision of “The Eyes” (Gilead’s secret police), she joins a secret resistance group called “Mayday” and risks everything to save her daughter and take back their freedom.

The Handmaid’s Tale gripped me right from the beginning and refused to let go. I am shook to the core. Every page had me in Gilead and I remained there long after the last page was read. One cannot help but imagine the horrors of a real-life Gilead right here in America. The treatment of women in particular was one of the central themes in this novel, and I found myself envisioning my own loved ones being stripped of their freedom and placed in the role of baby breeding machines for prominent families. I thought of older, professional women reduced to a life of servitude, and watching their husbands being executed for refusing to join a murderous regime. Of course, such thoughts brought my mind to similar real life atrocities – the legalized abuse of women in other countries, public executions for holding certain religious beliefs, the Holocaust, and so on. There is simply no denying the parallels between the events of this novel and the world in which we live.

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood, is poignant and extremely thought provoking. Through this book, we consider the effects of power on the human capacity for ruthlessness, and vice-versa. That is, when the wrong people are in positions of power and unable to handle such power, the damage to a society can be devastating. Additionally, the character development is extraordinary, well-paced, and well-presented. Over time, we see ordinary people doing the unimaginable in order to survive, and then finding the strength to fight back in the name of freedom, risking everything to do so. We are reminded of the great lengths to which a mother will go in order to protect her child (all moms will relate!). Atwood expertly presents the strength and fragility of the human spirit, and the breakdown thereof, in a totalitarian society. This book is not for the faint of heart, but an excellent, engaging, extremely well-written work. I highly recommend The Handmaid’s Tale for adult readers. 

The sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale is The Testaments. See that review here.

**Purchase The Handmaid’s Tale at Amazon here. This is an affiliate link, which only means that when you click and purchase the book through this link, I receive a tiny commission at no additional cost to you. My opinions remain my own.

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of oppression, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”  – Harry S. Truman