Margaret Atwood ’s 1985 novelThe Handmaid ’s Taleis fix in a discomfortingly familiar future , where a new installed theocracy has instituted a wholesale series of misogynous law and practices . Because so few women in the Republic of Gilead are fertile , “ handmaids ” are enlist to bear the children of the rule stratum . The novel follows one such handmaid , Offred , as she struggles to acclimatise to ( and , perhaps , to resist ) her raw reality . Even if you ’ve binge - watchedthe Emmy Award - acquire telly adaptation ofThe Handmaid ’s Tale , there ’s still much to be learned from , and about , thebook .
1.The Handmaid’s Talewas partially inspired by Cold War Germany.
formally , The Handmaid ’s Taleis determine at some point in the not - too - remote future ( from whenever you ’re reading it ) . The book ’s tyrannous subject were partly inspired by the fact that Atwood commence writing it while she was living in Germany in 1984 , at the height of the Cold War . “ I was be in West Berlin , which was still encircled by the Berlin Wall , ” Atwoodwrote inThe New York Times . It was during this time , and through her visits to several other Iron Curtain land , that the Republic of Gilead began to take physique . “ I experienced the chariness , the intuitive feeling of being spied on , the silences , the changes of issue , the oblique ways in which multitude might convey selective information , and these had an influence on what I was indite , ” Atwood recalled .
2. Margaret Atwood wrote the book longhand.
In 1984 , the same year Atwood began writingThe Handmaid ’s Tale , Apple released its first Macintosh computer . But the author contract an old - school day approach to compose her novel : She drop a line the entire book out in cursive on yellow sound pads . It was only once she had completed the book that she transcribe it onto a ( rented ) typewriter .
3.The Handmaid’sTale is dedicated to alleged witch Mary Webster, a.k.a. “Half-Hanged Mary.”
Atwood ’s aunty once told her the narrative of Mary Webster , a house physician of the Puritan townspeople of Hadley , Massachusetts — and the generator ’s supposed ascendant . In 1683 , Webster was put on trial for suspicion of witchery but at last found not shamed . The undermentioned year , a prominent local named Philip Smith position conk and tell that he thought “ himself under an evil hand , ” and decided Webster was to find fault .
“ The townspeople did n’t care her , so they strung her up,”Atwood said . “But it was before the age of drop cloth advert , and she did n’t give way . She dangled there all night , and in the break of the day , when they came to cut the body down , she was still animated . ” ( According to eighteenth 100 politician and historian Thomas Hutchinson , thing perish down a small differently : The rabble cut Mary , who was near death , down , then inhume her in Baron Snow of Leicester — but she survived . ) The incident earned Webster the nickname of Half - Hanged Mary , andThe Handmaid ’s Taleis dedicate to her memory .
4. Atwood doesn’t consider the book science fiction, though it’s often classified that way.
While many of Atwood ’s book , includingThe Handmaid ’s Tale , have been described as “ scientific discipline fabrication , ” the writer rejects that genre label : She has repeatedly said thatThe Handmaid ’s Taleisn’t sci - fi because she ascertain that the elements already be in some conformation . Atwood has always contended that something like Gilead could happen under the right status . “ I ’m not a prophet,”she toldThe Guardian . But when it comes to this fussy novel , she is “ sorry to have been so correct . ”
5. The novel has been adapted into a number of media.
While Hulu’sThe Handmaid ’s Taleis the best - do it adjustment of Atwood ’s book , it ’s scarcely the only — or even the first — retelling . A phase version of the Word of God debut at Tufts University in Medford , Massachusetts , in 1989 , just a few twelvemonth after the book was publish . It returned to the stage in Boston again in 2018 . There has also been an opera house , a concert dance , a wireless play , and a 1990 picture show starring Natasha Richardson and Faye Dunaway , with a screenplay by Harold Pinter .
6.The Handmaid’s Talehas a sequel.
In 2019 , Atwood publishedThe Testaments , a sequel toThe Handmaid ’s Talethat take up station approximately 15 years after the events of the original novel and helps to fill in the equivocalness of the ending ofThe Handmaid ’s Taleand what became of Offred . The book also gave Atwood the chance to in person address the prevision of the first book with her readers , writing : “ Everything you ’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its intimate working is the stirring for this book . Well , almost everything ! The other inspiration is the world we ’ve been living in . ”
7. A fireproof version ofThe Handmaid’s Talewas sold at auction.
In 2022 , to dissent increase banning ( and even fire ) of books , Atwood team up with Penguin Random House tocreate a fireproof version ofThe Handmaid ’s Tale(itself an oft - ostracise book ) . The one - of - a - kind tome — which has pages made of Cinefoil — betray for $ 130,000.According to a press release , all proceeds went to PEN America “ to bear [ its ] work in support of free manifestation . ”
Atwood necessitate a flamethrower to the script to demonstrate that it was n’t flammable . “ I never retrieve I ’d be stress to burn one of my own books … and bomb , ” the author said . “ The Handmaid ’s Talehas been banned many prison term — sometimes by whole countries , such as Portugal and Spain in the days of Salazar and the Francoists , sometimes by schoolhouse board , sometimes by libraries . Let ’s desire we do n’t strive the stage of wholesale book burnings , as inFahrenheit 451 . But if we do , have ’s desire some Scripture will prove unburnable — that they will locomote underground , as proscribe books did in the Soviet Union . ”
8.The Handmaid’s Taleis probably Atwood’s best-known book.
And while Atwood herself might be intimately bonk as the source ofThe Handmaid ’s Tale , she has written far more than just bare satire . Since releasingDouble Persephone , her first book of poetry ( and first issue work ) in 1961 , Atwood has publish more than 50 full treatment in a variety of genre : In addition to 17 novel ( includingAlias Grace ) , the two - time Booker Prize succeeder has garner just as much acclaim for her books of poesy , nonfictional prose titles , short story collection , tiddler ’s book , and graphic novel — and racked up a number of awards in the process .
Related Tags
