"Maybe the life I think I’m living is a paranoid delusion…Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes."
Impossible. That is what one would say if all of a sudden the world as we know it comes crashing down until it is virtually unrecognizable. Human beings pride themselves on being the superior species with the power of rational thinking. Yet, rational thought, or in other words, common sense is the first to be thrown out of the window when bigotry and prejudice begin to rule with an iron fist. Dystopian literature lays its foundation on this truth. When initially read, this genre appears to be fantastical, yet with the rising atrocities against minorities, can we truly say that our society is miles away from turning into a Gilead or a Panem?
Published in 1985 by Margaret Atwood, “The Handmaid’s Tale” describes a time where ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ takes on a whole new meaning. Dripping with extremist Judeo-Christian beliefs, Gilead no longer offers the American dream but instead creates a new reality – women are glorified slaves who are finally relegated to their true position in society; class hierarchy is unquestionable and dissent is met with death. The handmaids, on the other hand, are treated with a little more respect than the rest of the female species, probably because they aren’t seen as women, but rotating wombs, thus infinitely increasing the irony of the position of women in Gilead. The protagonist, Offred, whose name symbolizes her ownership by the Commander Fred Waterford narrates not just her story specifically, but that of the transformation of America into Gilead, a tale so eerily similar to the reality that we live in currently.
The writing style employed by Atwood is one that is devoid of major punctuation marks. This forces the reader to focus solely on the book, and by extension, the maxim upon which the book rests: no event is allowed into it that does not have a precedent in human history. Here is where the true terror of the novel lies – if it has happened once, it can happen again. With lucid and imagistic language that paints a picture with every page, “The Handmaid’s Tale” is definitely not a page-turner. Instead, it reveals its beauty, horror and truth much like the darkness that inches towards the fading sun.