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Atwood’s much anticipated sequel to the increasingly popular The
Handmaid’s Tale opens up the view of Gilead with three perspectives –
Aunt Lydia, Daisy, who has grown up in Canada, and Agnes, a girl who has lived
her whole life in Gilead, and although devout does struggle with the restrictions
imposed on her. Set roughly fifteen years after the previous book, we are given
a glimpse into the fall of the regime, as well as further insight into the
early days and the hardships the founder Aunts had to suffer. Aunt Lydia, in
her former life, had been a judge and worked with women’s charities, a far cry
from the horrors she inflicts in her new role. At her own admittance she chose
her own safety over that of others. Her account is written with a future reader
in mind that she believes will judge her for the decisions she’s made. She
points out though, that they will never know what they would have done in her place. Atwood giving her the
compassionate background that she does really hits home that anybody can do
terrible things, she wasn’t inherently evil, and any one of us put in that
situation may well have chosen the same path.
Lydia shows herself to be cunning and tactical from the moment of her acceptance into
Gilead as a founder Aunt, being careful not to give away too much of herself
but carefully storing potentially useful facts about the others. This
calculated behaviour has made her almost untouchable, the Commanders fear the
secrets she knows. With time she seems to have become less willing to dole out
unnecessary physical punishments where others still delight in it, she sees
herself as quietly looking out for the handmaids. It’s also commented that the
new waves of aunts lack the hardness of the founders – they haven’t had lives
before Gilead, did not experience the brutal initiation suffered by them, and
know of the outside world only in theory.
It is interesting to hear the perspective of a Gilead daughter. Their
view highlights how much has been denied them in not teaching them to read.
They are taught subservience through ignorance, reinforcing the repeated theme
of ‘knowledge is power’. Even in their innocence they know enough to be afraid,
are taught to consider the handmaids as sluts, a painful label for women who
are repeatedly abused. There is shame of having been born of a handmaid. The
girls are taught to fear men and not to provoke them into lust, and they
internalise this, becoming overrun with anxiety when marriage is arranged for
them, many choosing suicide over life as a wife. It seems nobody is truly happy
in Gilead. Men dispose of wives leisurely but even the most powerful Commander
lives in fear, constantly on guard. Nowhere is completely private, and nobody
is safe.
For Daisy growing up in Canada, Gilead is taught in school but can never
be fully understood from the outside. She is shocked that her parents are civil
to the Pearl Girls who pass by, sent from Gilead to bring back converts. It
seems bizarre that the government allows such migration, but it is made clear
that war with Gilead has not gone well for other countries. Self-preservation
again plays a role.
A sequel that feels less subtle than The Handmaid’s Tale. The
twists are not hard to see coming and everything is laid out in plain sight.
The final sections are fast paced but the culmination of the story is over
quickly. Everything’s a little too neat and predictable and at times it feels
as though Atwood is playing to fans of the TV show. I would have preferred more
separation. Not a bad read but not as original or revolutionary as some of her
other books.
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