What I liked about this novel

I really enjoyed this novel. It had suspense all through, and I liked especially the narrative technique at the end where we were told how the main charcter survived.




I also liked how the author emphasized language in a society where people were not allowed to talk to each other or read. Although the regime tried to control their citizens, they could not control their thoughts or dreams.




This is also a book of current interest, and the themes it conveys are very interesting to me. Totallitarian regimes put our society in a new light, and it reminds us of the the importance of fighting for a free, democratic state where human rights are essential.

What I disliked about this novel

I enjoyed reading the novel, but there were some aspects of it that I didn't like so much. I found it very unpleasant to read about the hardship the main character had to go through in Gilead. The hopelessness of her situation was also tough to read about. I wish that the story could have some more hope, and I was surprised to read that so few of the characters were able to change their situation.

Comments on our society

In this science fiction novel there are several comments on our society. Atwood introduces us to a future society that has been formed as a reaction to what some people thought was wrong about our present society. An example of this is the need for women to reproduce in order to keep the population in the USA high enough. Birth control and abortion are seen as threats to the population growth, and therefore this is no longer allowed. There are people today who also share these believes about birth control and abortion, and in the US many people are willing to go far to stop doctors to carry out abortions.


Another way of controlling child birth is having a whole class of women (handmaids) to be resposible for child production for couples who cannot have their own children. A parallell to this is the surrogate industry where women voluntarily decide to be surragate mothers. This is a big industry in today's society.


A third tendency in society that this novel comments on is how it is to live in a religious totalitarian society. In "A Handmaid's Tale" it is a Christian society based on the old Testament. In today's society we read in the news about islamic totallitarian societies both in Nigeria and in Syria.

Narrative technique in The Handmaid's tale

The main story in The handmaid's tale is written in present tense. This story is an exciting story to follow because we gradually are given information about the main character's life in a totalitarian society. At the same time as the present story takes place we are given information about her past in a normal society. These glimpses of her past are not told in chronological order, but are stories she remembers when she has little to do, or they come as dreams. Her past and present lives are very different and in contrast to each other. When she feels alone in her present lift she can look back in retrospect to her former life with a husband and a child.


In the last chapter of the novel, we are taken forward to the year 2195 which is about two hundres years after the main story told in the novel. Now we are told that the story we have just read is actually a story transcripted from an audiotape some histrocans have found. We now know that the main character must have escaped and survived, and has been able to leave her story to the future generations.

Language in The Handmaid's Tale

The language in the novel is very desciptive. The main character of the novel is trapped in a society where she is not allowed to speak freely. Therefore, most of the information we get is through the character's mind and thoughts about what she senses around her. There are many adjectives to describe what she sees, feels and smells. An example is when she escapes her room in the night and enters a room she is not allowed to be in: "The room smells of lemon oil, heavy cloth, fading daffodils..."(p 90). When the author decides to describe the senses in such detail, it makes the reader feel the same as the main charcter

 Colours are also often emphasised in this story. The main character has to wear red clothes and shoes, and other classes of women wear other colours. By repatedly emphasising these colours, the author wants us to be aware of the different roles these women have. Red can symbolise fear or passion, while blue can symbolise power and coldness.

In this society where the handmaids are not allowed to communicate, their language only consist of polite phrases such as " Praise be" and "May the Lord open". These phrases creates a distance between them.

New novel

I have now started reading a new novel: "The Handmade's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. It is a science fiction novel first published in 1985. It describes a future society where women's only role is to become pregnant and produce children.The rest of this blog will be about this novel.