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A review by lily1304
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
dark
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
4.0
Rereading made me wonder if Atwood studied totalitarian regimes before writing this, or not. I like to think that there would be more solidarity between women than what's portrayed, but I'm not sure.
It's interesting that the narrator seems to downplay the racist aspects of Gilead - we learn more about that from the epilogue than the narrator. I only saw a few episodes of the Amazon TV series, but half the reason I watched it was for Samira Wiley as Moira. I guess there's a trade-off - if Amazon wanted a racially diverse cast, they had to ignore the way that racism and sexism are intertwined, & would have to be intertwined in an American regime like Gilead. But Amazon didn't seem to care that much about fidelity to the novel anyway.
I also noticed more the way the narrator's mother is sort of complicit with the coup leading to Gilead. Her mother is a feminist but shares some of the same broad goals as Gilead - pornography is evil, women shouldn't be sexualized, every child should be a wanted child, women should be free from sexual harassment. The scene wherethe narrator's mother takes her to burn books and pornography with a protest crowd struck me in particular.
It's interesting that the narrator seems to downplay the racist aspects of Gilead - we learn more about that from the epilogue than the narrator. I only saw a few episodes of the Amazon TV series, but half the reason I watched it was for Samira Wiley as Moira. I guess there's a trade-off - if Amazon wanted a racially diverse cast, they had to ignore the way that racism and sexism are intertwined, & would have to be intertwined in an American regime like Gilead. But Amazon didn't seem to care that much about fidelity to the novel anyway.
I also noticed more the way the narrator's mother is sort of complicit with the coup leading to Gilead. Her mother is a feminist but shares some of the same broad goals as Gilead - pornography is evil, women shouldn't be sexualized, every child should be a wanted child, women should be free from sexual harassment. The scene where
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Hate crime, Infertility, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Violence
Moderate: Antisemitism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Torture
Minor: Abortion, Alcohol, Animal death, Miscarriage, and War