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wingedbeastI'm just starting into my reread of The Handmaid's Tale and, before I really get into it, I know this is going to be different than the other two.
BNW, as I just got through saying in that deconstruction, is more about the false image of the changing values of a changing world than it is about anything real. It's a fear of the different without a full knowledge of what's familiar.
1984 took what was going on at the time, and arguably what is the sins of all societies, and extrapolated from that. I now know why, between the two, it's 1984 that has made the more lasting impression.
The Handmaid's Tale is different. Margaret Atwood constructed both the events that changed American society and the Republic of Gilead from events that had already happened elsewhere. This just isn't as theoretical as either of the previous books.
At the same time, it is solid for its time. It proposes a timeline that diverged from ours at about the 80s. While some elements of the culture remain the same, some elements have changed. So, part of what I plan to do with The Handmaid's Tale is discuss ways in which the Republic of Gilead would look different if the events diverged from today instead.
Most of that is in the future. In the immediate, it's all about setting tone and atmosphere. And that is all about issolation.
Chapter one sets a stage and Chapter two sets a different stage.
Chapter one sets the stage in what was once a school's gym. It's been converted, with "Aunts" and guards and cots that are sufficiently distant to keep people from having vocal conversations, into a place where women are kept alone.
The narrator recounts thoughts of the games played by boys and the girls who watch and the dances and all the times, in the time before, wherein teenagers, boys and girls, tried to connect with each other. The fact that it's all a memory and an imagined scent makes that connection, even the oft-failed attempt at one, so much more distant.
At night, the lights are lowered, but not put out and the Aunts patrol with electric cattle prods. Subvocalized whispers, carried out in moments of lip-reading, have to take place when the Aunts aren't looking.
Outside, there are the guards who look outward and won't look in. All the chances at a human connection are carefully guarded and fenced off... with only the barest imperfections.
In chapter two, there's still the issolation, the loneliness. This time, she's in a house full of people who are freer to talk, to have conversations, just not with her. She's dressed in the red that others, the Marthas, don't have to wear and one declares she would sooner go to the Colonies... with all the Unwomen.
But, they don't talk to her. Nobody talks to her, except Rita, a "Martha" (which, by context, means a woman who cannot conceive and bare children), and then only to give a command with regards to shopping for groceries.
At this point, it's all before we've gotten into the "why" on any of this. It's setting the stage. There's little enough to be said, here, save that it's well done.
We all know the "why" on all of this isolation, because we live in a world that has made The Handmaid's Tale famous. But, for now, let's let the book just say what it's said before. This is how alone our main character is in this world, how alone anybody would be in her position. And, that loneliness is intended.
BNW, as I just got through saying in that deconstruction, is more about the false image of the changing values of a changing world than it is about anything real. It's a fear of the different without a full knowledge of what's familiar.
1984 took what was going on at the time, and arguably what is the sins of all societies, and extrapolated from that. I now know why, between the two, it's 1984 that has made the more lasting impression.
The Handmaid's Tale is different. Margaret Atwood constructed both the events that changed American society and the Republic of Gilead from events that had already happened elsewhere. This just isn't as theoretical as either of the previous books.
At the same time, it is solid for its time. It proposes a timeline that diverged from ours at about the 80s. While some elements of the culture remain the same, some elements have changed. So, part of what I plan to do with The Handmaid's Tale is discuss ways in which the Republic of Gilead would look different if the events diverged from today instead.
Most of that is in the future. In the immediate, it's all about setting tone and atmosphere. And that is all about issolation.
Chapter one sets a stage and Chapter two sets a different stage.
Chapter one sets the stage in what was once a school's gym. It's been converted, with "Aunts" and guards and cots that are sufficiently distant to keep people from having vocal conversations, into a place where women are kept alone.
The narrator recounts thoughts of the games played by boys and the girls who watch and the dances and all the times, in the time before, wherein teenagers, boys and girls, tried to connect with each other. The fact that it's all a memory and an imagined scent makes that connection, even the oft-failed attempt at one, so much more distant.
At night, the lights are lowered, but not put out and the Aunts patrol with electric cattle prods. Subvocalized whispers, carried out in moments of lip-reading, have to take place when the Aunts aren't looking.
Outside, there are the guards who look outward and won't look in. All the chances at a human connection are carefully guarded and fenced off... with only the barest imperfections.
In chapter two, there's still the issolation, the loneliness. This time, she's in a house full of people who are freer to talk, to have conversations, just not with her. She's dressed in the red that others, the Marthas, don't have to wear and one declares she would sooner go to the Colonies... with all the Unwomen.
But, they don't talk to her. Nobody talks to her, except Rita, a "Martha" (which, by context, means a woman who cannot conceive and bare children), and then only to give a command with regards to shopping for groceries.
At this point, it's all before we've gotten into the "why" on any of this. It's setting the stage. There's little enough to be said, here, save that it's well done.
We all know the "why" on all of this isolation, because we live in a world that has made The Handmaid's Tale famous. But, for now, let's let the book just say what it's said before. This is how alone our main character is in this world, how alone anybody would be in her position. And, that loneliness is intended.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-09 09:39 pm (UTC)Those books were written before the religious right arose as a reaction to civil rights and women’s rights. I imagined that a more modern approach would focus on homophobia - an obvious, overstated opening scene would be men in pink jumpsuits being transported in cattle cars to death camps.
But Atwood’s approach is not only richer, it gets at the heart of the ideology, which is preserving white men’s power. Fundamentalism’s shaming of female sexuality is not merely about controlling women in the generic sense, it serves to prevent women from conceiving by men other than their husbands, who I suppose are the equivalent of feudal aristocrats ensuring their succession.
I’ve seen the 1990 film adaptation with Natasha Richardson but not the Hulu series.