It must be pretty rotten thinking about all the things that can go wrong with human beings, so writers can turn these apocalyptic forecasts into ‘Brave New Worlds’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty Fours’. But perhaps writing about all the good things humans get up to (the invention of the cronut, 3 day weekends, planking, Mika) might not form such a dramatic read.
The Handmaid’s Tale didn’t really drag me down though; it just made me go all thoughtful and day-dreamy in between chapters.
The plot summary sounds like one of those questions that someone might throw into the mix during a post lash drinking sesh, when the conversation is starting to lag:
What would happen if a series of chemical plant meltdowns and an AIDS epidemic sent the human race spiraling uncontrollably into a catastrophic age of sterility, thus placing the continuation of the species into dire threat?
Well OK, if someone ad come out with that during a post-lash they’d be swiftly served a time-out and probably a shot of something nasty for using the word ‘thus’. But you know what I mean. Maybe Margaret was nine sheets when she was deciding how a wave of infertility might manifest in future-planet-Earth.
Well what she came up with is a totalitarian regime where gender inequality has hit the roof, and a law has passed which removes all human rights from unmarried women or women in a second marriage. Amidst the infertility crisis all women have been turned into:
a) Wives
b) Incubators (Handmaids)
c) Guardians of Incubators (Aunts)
Anyone who kicks up a fuss about the regime (including men) is promptly taken away in a black van, executed and strung up on a big wall. The narrator is a Handmaid, essentially a slave passed between childless couples in an attempt to re-populate the world. This thought becomes even more sickening as the narrator reveals that Handmaids are relatively high status in this awful society, and other women suffer a far worse fate (usually being declared an Unwoman and being banished to some ominous sounding Colonies).
The reason I liked this book is that the narrator remembers what life was like before the regime, and reminisces about hotel towels and wearing make up before her bank account was frozen and her daughter was taken away from her. Before ‘she’ became ‘it’. Those fleeting memories of normality are little beacons of hope, that she might escape the regime and return to a life she previously took for granted. It’s really messed up. Don’t read it on holiday. But maybe read it and then watch a documentary like Miss Representation. It certainly makes you think about the word ‘object’ in ‘objectification’. I think Margaret was making a point.
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