Review by Club Member - Bhavna Joshi
रस निष्पत्ति - करुण वीभत्स , रौद्र , भयािक (in readers)
भाव निर्मिनि - शोक , भय , जुगुप्सा ( in characters)
A wafery thin maple leaf - veins strutting through it. Disillusioned these veins are, ‘coz they believe that they are holding the foliage together but they are the most fragile ones in the structure. Stream of water takes pride that no one can hold it. Place a brick and it will stagnate. How fragile is the belief?
A lovers trust, a teenager’s words, a politicians speech all dictating frailty. Imagine living in a society that is as fragile as these.
Let me break your dream-we already are living in one.
Novel aligns the society, governance of 1984 with that of 2021. Jurisdictions that were broken down in a night. Women losing their existence, children losing their parents, filial bonds lost in a span of minutes.
Handmaid’s tale is a petrifying account of the societies that are formed every few years to shatter our belief system.
A manipulative Gilead society where
A Bible was used (as the Quran is used now) to indoctrinate people, conveniently sieving the truth and seeping it with propaganda.
Women were a threat to the patriarchal system. Thus directing energies into dissolving their identities, treating them no more than a vessel for childbirth.
“She” was preposterous for demanding love or criminalized for exercising her right to say NO
Female was the cause and effect of Rape.
This is a story of Offred, who knows what her name was coz she was no more than “of fred”. A woman dressed in Red - the colour of menstruation, the colour of progeny in this Gothic world created with a deep sense of understanding by Margret Atwood. A world which was made more of unwomen than women or more of dead souls then alive. Offred, a person of great value, not because she is loved by her long lost daughter and husband Luke but because her ovaries are still viable.
“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.”
For a totalitarian monarchy in America, where reproduction rates have declined considerably, these Handmaid’s are the tools to propagate the human race. Women are medically examined regularly, made to watch depreciating pornographic material, made to perform intercourse as a ritual all in name of making sacrifices for God. Successful liberal women like the wife of commander Fred, Aunt Lydia being shunned down and made to accept and disseminate obsolete philosophies.
In this dystopian novel, you do find some tranquil moments like scrabble being played between guilt-ridden Commander and offred, unspoken love between offred-Nick and stolen moments of friendship between Moiara and Offred.
“I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable.”
Attwood’s style is introspective, lyrical and prose driven. Her detailed writing is a complete sensory experience thus creating characters, sets, plots in entirety. The author has tactfully created a world which juxtaposes the power of words such as from religious texts to the power of unspoken words of these belittled women.
This book though written in 1984 is such an apt pick for today’s time.
