The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
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Web ID: 15623618Classic
It is a classic for a reason
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A Book Everyone Should Read
In our current world, this story should terrify everyone.
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AMAZING
loved the story of Offred it really made me think about society and it felt so real and was very captivating
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A Modern Classic
This is the book that made me fall deeply in love with Margaret Atwood and all her writing. This dystopian tale is clearly quite timely but will remain timeless, much like "Brave New World" and "The Giver".
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A trendy tale
“The Handmaid’s Tale” is Margaret Atwood’s feminist vision of a future America as a theocratic and sexist tyranny. It is strange how admired this novel is, given the lack of originality. Robert Heinlein wrote this story in 1940, about 45 years before Atwood tried it. It was an original concept back then, under the title “If This Goes On.” In the 1960s and 1970s, Thomas M. Disch and other writers produced several visions of a dystopian rightwing future America. Feminism became trendy in the 1970s and has been ever since, so Atwood in the early 1980s followed the trend and turned out a smoothly written vision of a theocratic America oppressing women. Now teachers assign this novel as student reading, assuring ongoing commercial success.
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Thought provoking
I watched the first season of The Handmaid's Tale recently and just had to read the book. I do like the show better than the book. The book is dry but I find it appropriate. It's a dark tale after all. The show has more feeling and followed the book great. I'm not sure if I would like the book if I hadn't watch the show first. The whole concept and storyline just blows my mind. It's scary to think if this ever happens.
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Wanted to love this book!
I was glued to my television while I watched Handmaids Tale Seasons 1 through 3! I believe that is what ruined this book, should have read it first!
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Love the meaning
Everyone, or at least those of us affected by misogyny, remembers the first interactions with misogyny we’ve had, and the impact they’ve had on our lives. Perhaps one in particular sticks out in your mind… one that deeply affected you, like assault, or a common interaction between men and women, like catcalling, that could have happened at an oddly young age. We remember these experiences, and they form our lives and behavior, through fear. And when we see our government attempting to take our freedoms away, freedoms that we had only earned a few decades ago, the fear grows. That is what this novel, Margaret Atwood’s, “The Handmaid’s Tale” conveys in a breathtaking, ominous, and heartbreakingly familiar kind of way. Atwood recounts the story of a woman living in a dystopian society, Gilead, in which after fertility rates start to decrease, fertile women, Handmaids, are taken away from their lives and forced to have children for infertile families. Set in the backdrop of the war-torn used-to-be-US, we follow Offred, a handmaid who recently came to a new family. Her only friends and family are nowhere to be found, so Offred is in a state of grief only topped by the anxiety of having to follow serious restrictions about what to wear, how to speak, and what to do in downtime. These handmaids do not even have their old names from the time before, in an effort to dehumanize them. One storytelling device I thought was unique was the way Atwood incorporated flashbacks of the time before Gilead into the novel. It gave depth to Offred and made the tragedy of the novel deeper. By giving Offred an old life, with a husband and kids, we can see the reason she even keeps going in this horrible world. And it makes the story more hopeless that even this society, which exists to create more children, would separate an innocent family from each other. There are some uncomfortable moments in this book, however, I do think most add to the story. One example of a scene I think was actually necessary for the book is when the Handmaids are governmentally allowed to kick the alleged r-pist. It is tragically ironic, as I believe that what the government was enforcing on the Handmaids was r-pe. I think this scene was powerful because you could see just how angry these women were at the man. It showed how badly everything Gilead inflicted on them hurt them, but they couldn’t show it. Although I believe that this book is ultimately a great social commentary, I do think it can be a little bit hard to get through sometimes, especially in the beginning, and the only thing getting me through some of it was the possibility of finding out more about this society. I also think the book could have looked at how this society affected WOC, lower-class women, and gay women more because it inevitably would. Overall, this book was an entertaining, if ominous read that should serve as a warning for all reading. Although it could be at times boring or unsettling, I think the book is an important piece of literature and I recommend reading it.
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