I'm an ardent fan of Margaret Atwood. Not just that I love her poetic style of writing and the stories she tells but also I adore the elderly characters she often portrays. Intelligent, humourous, smart old women. The Handmaid's Tale doesn't have such a character in a lead role, but one such makes her appearance here and there and we could feel the power she emanates. And she plays a major role in the sequel, The Testaments.
The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments are dystopian novels. Set in a very patriarchal, theocratic society called Gilead. The democratic government of the US is ousted by a group called 'Sons of Jacob'. They have their own interpretations of scriptures and as always, women are the worst affected.
Powerful women are not tolerated. Women are stripped off rights to property, job, dress of one's choice, education, reading and even one's own body. A group of women are entrusted to train women to render them as reproductive instruments, because women can harm women better than men do.
In Gilead women are segregated into; wives in blue dresses ( wives of commanders ie the ruling class) Marthas in green ( the one who works as maids at commander's homes) econowives in stripes ( wives of less privileged men) Handmaids in red( who are birthing instruments assigned to commanders) and aunts in brown( spiritual groups to train Handmaids and wives)
The protagonist of The Handmaid's Tale 'Offred', is a handmaid. A handmaid doesn't even have right to a name of her own. She takes the name of the commander she's assigned or rather offered, Of Fred. She's assigned to someone else after giving birth or after a stipulated time period and takes the name of the new commander with the prefix 'of'.
The idea of handmaid is derived from a biblical context of Jacob and his wives, Rachel and Leah and their two Handmaids.
"And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, give me children, or else I die.
And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?
And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her."
Genesis, 30:1-3
Aunt Lydia tells the class in Redcenter (The institute to train Handmaids); it would be easier for the coming generations, as they don't have memories of pre-Gileadian lives and freedom. But Offred dwells in her past albeit in mind. And she constantly searches for opportunities.
Inspite of all the precautions and iron fist rules, Gilead was bound to decay. It's not easy to oppress people for long. In "The Testaments" we see Aunt Lydia conspires with an Insurgent group operating from Canada, and reveals the decaying innards of the Gileadian ruling class leaving documented proofs of guilts in an ingenious way for later readers.
In the end of the book as a group of academics discuss the Gileadian era after it's collapse,
one professor observes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." How true that statement is!!!
Preetha Raj
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