Dust jacket for the first American edition of The Handmaid’s Tale by …
Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., Merchantville, N.J.
Last week I watched the last episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale” which plays on Hulu in the States. I know it aired in Canada as well but I’m not certain what company aired it since Hulu is not offered there. After starting to watch first episode of the mini series (as I like to call it) I decided to read the book before continuing. This is something that I like to do with shows and movies. There are some movies that I have seen without reading, only because I didn’t care to read them. lol
I loved reading the book, written by Margaret Atwood. Im pretty certain I read it in the matter of days! I just couldn’t put the thing down. When I was looking into buying the book I never realised when this book was written; I found out it was in 1985, but takes place some time in the new future. Even though it was written more than 30 years ago it is something that can be plausible in the future; right now many citizens are fighting to improve equality for everyone. After completing the book, I continued on with watching the show. As many people know the show/movie is always different from the books. But I guess they have to do that for entertainment purposes right?
So a tidbit about it!
The storyline takes place in a dystopian setting where Christian fundamentalists created a movement called “Sons of Jacob”, wanting to take away the U.S Constitution and reinforce “old Christian values”. Since there was a downturn in birth due to infertility the “handmaids”, one of many groups that are controlled by the elite for reproduction, were forced to bear children. The women were the ones who were either fruitful or barren. This new government was legally allowed to blame the women for being infertile, even though men are capable of being infertile too.
I had read online about Atwood’s thought process about writing the book. She mentioned that all of what she wrote is something that has happened at one time or another. It’s just hard to realize things sometimes because we just don’t want to believe it to be true.
I’m saddened that the book and show had to end, but all good things do come to an end.
❤️