Too Realistic for It's Own Good?

My first exposure to the story of The HandMaid’s Tale was from the acclaimed TV show on Hulu, starring Elizabeth Moss. I was very excited to watch this show and eagerly sat attentive to the screen, ready to soak up all the dystopian woman-hate. However, after about two seasons I realized that this show was very… boring. Don’t get me wrong there are many great things about it and I don’t doubt the creative team achieved what they set out to make, but the show is very slow moving. So when I saw The Handmaid’s Tale on the list of book to read this week I was pretty jazzed to give it a second chance. Hopefully, the book would give me a little more, right? Well, the short answer is no, but am I even right to ask for more?

                Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a story about a society in political unrest. The new form of government promotes a puritan ideology that places huge restrictions on women that prevent them from reading, watching TV, and being alone. Our main character, Offred takes the role of a Handmaid in this society, meaning her primary purpose is to bare children for a wealthy political couple. She does not hold any power outside of her ability to carry a child and this is basically all that protects her from being sent to Colonies. Throughout the story, she encounters characters attempting to break out of their restrictions, but she herself does very little. Her master forces her to break the rules by going to see him at night and play Scrabble, Ofglen asks her to gain information for the resistance, Serena set Offred up to sleep with Nick. People either force Offred to do things or things happen to her. She doesn’t do much at all. She displays very little agency in her own story. Which is what originally made it boring to watch and boring to read. HOWEVER, in a story where woman have no agency, no power, no choices they can make for themselves… is it right of me to expect the lead female character to contradict the entire theme Atwood has established? If anything, Offred’s lack of action enforces just how powerless she is. She CAN’T do anything. Even as the protagonist of the story, a role which is usually reserved for our Katnisses and Harry Potters and even Ted from Harllan Ellison’s ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’, all characters who upset the status quo, Offred doesn’t even have to opportunity to be a typical protagonist. So why should I want so much from her?

                I found this story upsetting to read, as I‘m sure it was intended to be. Atwood has stated that every aspect of the puritan society has happened in real life at some point in some culture. This provides a haunting base for her fictional dystopian future. It’s not a huge stretch to compare Gilead’s culture to our own, especially with some of the extreme laws surrounding abortions in some states and the restrictions of women getting their tubes tied. Many people tend to make comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale when the new proposed bill comes out and it says something like “doctors are required to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy”, a procedure which is impossible. The general spread of misinformation, lack of woman voices in law making, and religious beliefs invading a government that claims the “separation of church and state”, all seem very at home in Atwoods story.

                I admire Atwood for her world building and her attention to detail. Her future puts our present in a humbling context. However, I think I admire her most for writing from the perspective of someone who is not the hero. She is not the person who is going to overthrow the government or right the wrongs of an unchecked power structure. She is an average person who is stuck in an extremely restrictive society. She is what 99.9% of us would be in this situation. Not all of us can be Katniss. Not all of us will be Katniss. Offred is emotional and scared and powerless. She is what makes this one of the most realistic dystopian novels I’ve ever read. She is also what makes it so hard to enjoy. But there is nothing enjoyable about this dystopia. And that seems to be the point.