I'm sad to say that I haven't done as much writing as I would have liked in that time -- more work, painting walls and cleaning out boxes in prep for a move, and then finishing up the school year. But now it's June. Our house is sold and closed, and our new place is almost unpacked. I have nothing to do until August, except watch Netflix and read and relax.
I could not be happier about it.
In the midst of all that, I did read a couple of books. Most of them were dystopias -- I read and taught Fahrenheit 451 with my sophomores, and since one of my friends recommended it to me, I started 1984, though I admit I didn't get very far. It makes a great sleep aid though.
The most interesting book I covered in all this time away from my armchair was Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
I've tried to read this book before, with mixed results. It's a dry start, full of reflection and short sentences and frankly, not a lot to get me interested. This time, though, I was reading it from a different perspective. As part of their final, my students had to read an excerpt from this book and analyze it. It's a cold read, which means they've never seen it before, and they had to analyze the role of women in this society.
As I was proctoring this time, I found myself reading the excerpt over and over again. Of course, I'd read it as part of the process of writing the final with my fellow teachers, so it wasn't quite as cold to me. But each time I read it, I caught something new -- some new detail I hadn't noticed, some new color or metaphor or something to keep me interested, something to keep me coming back on my next pass around the room.
It was almost odd: This excerpt was only about 20 pages into the book, which is about 15 pages further than I'd ever gotten, and it was only about 300 words. But there was so much there! Before long, I was answering the same prompt as my students, albeit in my head instead of on the page.
I'd never really understood what this book was about. It's first person, and since I am not a young adult, I don't tend to enjoy this style of writing as much anymore. It's not that I won't read it, it's just that it's harder for me to get into it, and combine that with the dry, at times emotionless, narration style of the Handmaid that is telling the story meant that I had trouble getting into it.
As it turns out, the excerpt was exactly what I was missing to get me into this book.
The Handmaid's Tale takes place in a dystopian future of America, where women have been stripped of rights and society has been restructured under the strict hand of the Bible, specifically the Old Testament. In this future, which begins roughly around the 1960s-70s, most people are sterile as a result of toxins, nuclear exposure, genetically engineered viruses, and more, which means that people are in a desperate struggle to reproduce.
This is where the Handmaids come in. They are relatively young women who are capable of reproducing, which is established generally by having reproduced before (even if it was before the rise of the Republic of Gilead, which is this future society). The powerful men in society whose wives cannot reproduce, called the Commanders, have access to these Handmaids; once a month, during the Ceremony, they attempt to impregnate them, which I hopefully do not have to explain.
A successful pregnancy -- one that is carried to term and produces a baby without birth defects -- guarantees the Handmaid's safety for life, which cannot be said for everyone. There are others out there, the older women (the Marthas) or those who refuse to submit and accept a place in the new world, who are essentially disposed of by being sent to the Colonies, where they will clean up nuclear and toxic waste for the short remainder of their lives.
The world that's been created is complicated -- sex is forbidden without permission, but pregnancy is celebrated, even if the Handmaids have to utilize the services of others in the attempt. There are ceremonies that surround everything, and everything is based in Scripture. For example, the Handmaids' use is predicated on a verse in the Old Testament where Leah requests that her husband impregnate her maidservant since she cannot give him a baby, and then her servant will give birth literally on her lap so the baby will be born from both of them.
It's quite ingenious how Atwood took this one bizarre verse and created an entire world around it.
The Handmaid telling the story is resigned to her life in this future. This is her job, her duty, now. In her former life, she had a husband, a child, a family, but all that is gone. Instead, she sits in her room in her Commander's house awaiting the Ceremony or visits the markets to do chores for the family to earn her keep. She reflects on her former life, and gradually the reader learns about her, but just as she is limited by her world, so too are we as readers limited.
As she tells her story, as we learn about how the world became the Republic.
And I have to say: it's more than a little terrifying how many similarities our current world has to how to Republic rose to power.
It's not the rights themselves that are similar: Women in this future aren't allowed to read, or make decisions, be outside without a companion or hold a job. We, obviously, have far more rights than this in 2016 America, and thank god. Without being able to read, I couldn't write this blog, and then where would you be??
But I digress.
The attitudes prevalent in the book are pervasive in America, and to me, that's the much more concerning issue.
Take, for example, the day the Handmaid discusses as the first clue as to their future. She was on break, running next door to the gas station for cigarettes, and her debit card stopped working. She's frustrated, like any of us would be, as she knows there's money in the account, and she goes back to work. That afternoon, her boss gathers all the women in the office together and fires them all, saying that "the legislation just passed" and "it'll be on the news soon" so he's just getting it over with: It is no longer legal to employ women.
Not long after, the Handmaid finds out that she's no longer allowed to own property, that all her money and assets have transferred into her husband's name, and before long it is barely safe for women to leave the house.
Such is the Republic of Gilead.
But think of modern America -- Think of the uproar around the Stanford rape case, where media like the Washington Post focused on how destroyed the rapist's life is because of what he did, instead of how he destroyed the victim's life, on how she will need to rebuild, potentially struggle with PTSD, and all sorts of other issues. American culture is one of victim blaming, where rape is less of a crime than dealing drugs. People have said all sorts of horrific things about this poor woman, all the things she did to 'cause' someone to rape her instead of blaming the actual rapist. Women are subjected to so many rules, even if they are unspoken. Don't walk alone at night. Don't drink without friends. Don't drink too much, or wear anything too revealing, or do any of the things that might put you at 'risk.' It's only a short step from blaming women for being raped to becoming one of those cultures we claim to despise that subdue women in the name of their protection.
That's what's happened in Gilead, and that's what could happen to us.
Now, it's certainly possible that this is a little too extreme, but there are undeniable issues facing women in this country. Think instead, then, of the job that the Handmaid suddenly loses. I'm a teacher, and sure, it's unlikely that I'm going to walk in and find my job gone in August. But it's undeniable that I make less money as a teacher, a field dominated by women, than I would as an administrator, where far more jobs are held by men. This holds true for nursing, again a primarily female field, versus doctors; I know that field is rapidly being populated by women as well as men, and I'm glad for the progress, but there's no doubt that doctors make far more money than nurses.
John Oliver can explain the realities of this better than I can:
It's not exactly the same as Gilead, and I understand that. But it doesn't change that the attitudes are similar: women's jobs are less important, less valued, and thus paid less.
Then there's the abortion debate, which I won't even go into. Suffice it to say that it is punishable by death in Gilead, and with the religious right's desire to make it illegal again in this country, with Donald Trump talking about making performing an abortion a felony, we are not on a positive path. And yet again, it's a discussion that singularly impacts women.
And while no one is forcing anyone to get pregnant, nor do pregnant women have any extra rights or privileges, there is certainly an attitude that values pregnancy and reproduction in this country.
I can't help but think of how people respond to the fact that I don't want kids --oftentimes it is almost as though I slapped them. People, including those closest to me like my mother or mother-in-law, cannot fathom that I don't want children. I've been told that there is something wrong with me, that I need psychological treatment to fix me, and similar. I've been told that I should be grateful I probably could get pregnant when there are so many that can't. I've been told that I'm not doing my duty, that it's my job as a stable adult, a strong woman, to have children.
So sure, no one is forcing me to get pregnant. But it is without a doubt a part of my identity as a woman in America, a part that others, including near-strangers, don't hesitate to force on me even when I don't want it.
There's nothing so overt in American culture as there is in The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood knows this; after a rather abrupt ending to the Handmaid's story, she finishes the book with a pseudo-lecture from a college professor in 2195. He is attempting, through the lens of history, to explain how Gilead rose to power, how it evolved from the attitudes of America, and in doing so, Atwood makes a pretty convincing case for how it could have happened.
It makes me a little nervous, truth be told. No one has outlawed reading, or made pregnancy women's sole function, or anything so extreme. But the foundation is there, in how the American people respond to the plights and decisions of others, and without serious reflection and change, this dystopian future is one we could someday embody.
I'm not sure how to recommend this book. Perhaps if you're looking for something dry and bleak? Or need something to scare you even further than Donald Trump and Brexit? It's a worthwhile read, I won't deny that, but it will not be everyone's cup of tea.
