The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada) in 1939. She studied at the University of Toronto and then went on to do graduate studies at Radcliffe College in Massachusetts. After that, she taught at a variety of colleges and universities both in Canada and the US.

Atwood has written novels, screenplays, poems and books for children. Her first published work was a collection of poetry "Double Persephone" (1961). Her first novel The Edible Woman came out in 1969. After that, she never stopped writing Surfacing was published in 1973, Lady Oracle in 1976, Life Before Man in 1980, The Handmaid's Tale in 1986. She won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2000 for The Blind Assassin. 

Some of her books have been adapted into films. A television series based on her novel Alias Grace (published in 1996) was broadcast in 2017.

The Handmaid's Tale is probably her best known work. Since it was published, it has been translated in over 40 languages and adapted for the screen and the stage. It was first adapted for the cinema by the writer Harold Pinter. The film directed by Volker Schloendorf was released in 1990. This novel was also adapted as an opera by Poul Ruders in April 2003.

More recently it became a very popular television series, starring Elisabeth Moss in the lead role. The New York Times described the series as "spectacular" and according to The Guardian : " Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel gets the chilling and brilliant TV adaptation it deserves, including a standout performance from Elisabeth Moss". Margaret Atwood herself wrote that "The television series has respected one of the axioms of the novel : no event is allowed into it that does not have a precedent in human history."

The sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments was published in 2019. Just before this novel came out, Atwood addressed her readers and said : “Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.” The Testaments won The 2019 Booker Prize and Irish writer, Anne Enright, in The Guardian describes Margaret Atwood's writing as "adroit, direct, and beautifully turned." 

VOCABULARY

graduate studies : études de 2ème cycle universitaire
The Booker Prize : prix littéraire britannique
to broadcast : diffuser
screen : écran
stage : scène
to be released : sortir (dans les salles de cinéma)
chilling : glaçant
to deserve : mériter
standout : remarquable
inner workings : fonctionnement intérieur

Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale is often described as a dystopia, that is to say a very negative vision of the future. The author herself calls it "speculative fiction", because according to her it deals with possible futures. In other words it serves as a warning about how things can easily and quickly go wrong. In any case, she declared in an interview that she wanted to present a dystopia from a female point of view : "The majority of dystopias – Orwell's included – have been written by men and the point of view has been male."

The story is narrated by a woman named Offred, who is the main character. It is set in the future, in the Republic of Gilead, formerly Cambridge Massachusetts in what once was the US. The US government has been overthrown by a coup and replaced by a theocratic dictatorship. M. Atwood herself explains that "The Republic of Gilead is built on a foundation of the 17th-century Puritan roots that have always lain beneath the modern-day America we thought we knew". Under this new regime, women are no longer allowed to work for pay, to have bank accounts, vote or make their own decisions. They are assigned to different categories : the wives, married to commanders, Marthas who are servants and handmaids. Because the environment has been poisoned the population is shrinking so women who can have children are forced to become "handmaids" and produce babies. They do not get to keep these babies who are raised by the wives. Offred, before the revolution, had had an affair with a married man, Luke, whom she eventually married. They were caught trying to escape Gilead.  They were arrested and Offred was sent to a re-education center to become a handmaid for one of the commanders. She is called Offred because the Commander she belongs to is called Fred (so she is "of Fred", she is his property). In order to become pregnant, she is required to participate in a monthly ceremony, which she describes as "the Commander […] fucking the lower part of my body. […] This is serious business. The Commander, too, is doing his duty." Offred gets into trouble by disobeying the strict rules of Gilead and in the end is taken away. In the epilogue, which is supposed to be a transcript of a symposium on Gileadean Studies years later, a professor explains that Offred's tale has survived. However, no one knows what happened to Offred : "Did our narrator reach the outside world safely and build a new life for herself ? Or was she discovered […] arrested, sent to the Colonies or to Jezebel's, or even executed ?"

Quotations about The Handmaid's Tale 

Literary critic, Naomi R Mercer, about The Handmaid's Tale :

"Atwood is a master story-teller"

"It's resistance, the actions of people who dare to break the political, intellectual and sexual rules that drives the plot of The Handmaid's Tale."

"The novel's exploration of … how power can be wielded unfairly makes Atwood's chilling vision of a dystopian regime ever relevant."

The American novelist E.L. Doctorow wrote about The Handmaid's Tale:

"This visionary novel, in which God and Government are joined, and America is run as a Puritanical Theocracy, can be read as a companion volume to Orwell's 1984. […] it evokes the same kind of horror…"

Margaret Atwood, when she was asked if The Handmaid's Tale is a feminist novel, replied :
"If you mean an ideological tract in which all women are angels and/or so victimized they are incapable of moral choice, no. If you mean a novel in which women are human beings — with all the variety of character and behavior that implies — and are also interesting and important, and what happens to them is crucial to the theme, structure and plot of the book, then yes."

She adds : "But there’s a literary form I haven’t mentioned yet : the literature of witness. Offred records her story as best she can; then she hides it, trusting that it may be discovered later, by someone who is free to understand it and share it. This is an act of hope."
"In the wake of the recent American election, fears and anxieties proliferate. In this divisive climate, […] many, I would guess — are writing down what is happening as they themselves are experiencing it."

VOCABULARY

to go wrong : mal tourner
formerly : anciennement
to overthrow : renverser
to lie, lay, lain : se trouver 
beneath : en dessous
to shrink : rétrécir
to raise : élever
affair : liaison
to belong : appartenir
pregnant : enceinte
to be required to : être obligé de
duty : devoir (moral ou civique)
to dare : oser
to wield : exercer
relevant : pertinent
behavior : comportement
witness : témoin
to share : partager
hope : espoir
in the wake of : à la suite de