The Handmaid's Tale

It is very rare I read a book that makes me angry. Sad, happy, suspenseful, surprised, sure. But not angry. The book takes place in the future, in what used to be the United States. But it resembles its old self in no other way than appearance of the streets. Women are reduced to nothing but baby making machines. It was even worse than in the past when women were homemakers and married men they didn’t know or love. Similarly, women are expected to be meek. But the handmaidens, they were simply assigned to wealthy men to try to have children and stripped of their identities. The only way she gets seen as somewhat of a person is when she begins meet up with the Commander in secret for small things such as playing Scrabble and they talk. 

Perhaps why it was so unnerving to me is because I or any other young woman could easily be in that situation in this book. Torn from school, work, families in order to be forced into some powerful household. Offred after all was a woman with a family, a child who she was torn from. We learn her story, but her story is the story of many women in the book. Perhaps that’s why we never learn her name because her story represents them all. She isn’t as complacent as Janine but not as much of a bad-ass as Moira. she’s in the middle of the spectrum.