r/books discussion

The biggest question at the end of the novel is always what happened to Offred?

She lived on long enough to record her story as noted by the scholars. But was this after she was rescued or was this in her old age when Gilead was no longer under power?

Does anyone find the ending unbelievable? Fitting? Or annoyed when authors do not offer a solid ending? It is the author's responsibility to provide a less ambiguous ending?

What about the overall novel itself? An argument comes up again and again about whether this should be taught in high school or not.

The graphic nature of this novel is a reason why parents often challenge or try to restrict the teaching of it. Any thoughts on that?

I believe novels like this should be taught to make people more aware of what has happened in past societies and what can happen in the future when a group comes to power that does not hold the best interests for everyone.

This concludes our novel for February, I hope enjoyed reading the Handmaid's Tale, whether it was your first time picking up the novel, or revisiting it.

Just a few quick thoughts.

I would teach this in a classroom. There's so much you could talk about w/r/t power, freedom, family, environment .etc. But I think I would particularly focus on ideas of identity, memory and history.

From the historical notes:

“As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come, and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearest light of our own day”

The addition of the historical notes highlights that Offred's narrative isn't a confessional, but a historical document. The 'diary' isn't in its original form, which means it's no longer a document of subjective memory, but of collective memory. I think this makes Offred's necessity to 'reconstruct' extra significant - memory and history are both interpretive and acts of creation.

And this ties into identity as well: in the Night chapters Offred is away from the gaze of authority and she tries desperately to hold onto herself by holding onto the past (this is her rebellion, her resistance to the imposed order), but except for a few small fragments, she has mostly been lost and erased (we still don't know who she is, what happened to her). I remember the doctor focusing on the identity of the commander and other details about time/place/the railroad .etc. so I think the historical notes can be read as another erasure of her identity.

I also found it interesting that reading is a forbidden activity in Gilead, which I think underscores the vital importance for Offred to tell her story, no matter what the cost.

You could easily draw parallels to oppressive middle eastern regimes and the Iranian revolution which was contemporary at the time of release.