When I was at university, and having a tricky time, a friend gave me a Christmas card, and had written nolite te bastardes carborundum at the bottom. I was baffled by this coded message, and it was then that I had to admit, to my coursemate’s horror, that I had never read The Handmaid’s Tale. This was particularly shocking as I was studying English Literature, with a specialism in feminist perspectives. Needless to say, this was quickly remedied. This time, with the follow-up, The Testaments, I was determined not to be late to the party. I always used to tell my students that dystopia is never really about the future, it is a warning to the present generation, and The Testaments, like its predecessor, is a tale for our times, albeit one that gives us an inkling of hope.
The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985, and was seen as a commentary on the dangers posed by the return of ultra right-wing policies to US politics. Ironically, nearly twenty-five years later, it has become more, not less relevant. The Testaments picks up fifteen years after Offred was bounded up into a mysterious vehicle either heading for freedom or her death. Gilead is still under the control of the Commanders, Aunts and Eyes, but this control is starting to visibly weaken, and the novel charts the eventual undoing of the regime.
Whilst The Handmaid’s Tale is an incredibly claustrophobic reading experience, where we never leave the perspective of Offred, and only get occasional glimpses of life outside the Waterford House, The Testaments takes us to a wider range of settings and crucially gives us three key narrative voices. One of our narrators has grown up in Canada, only learning about Gilead through a text book. The other young narrator has grown up inside Gilead, and never known a life outside of it, despite her vague but significant memories of running through a forest holding her mother’s hand.
Whilst The Handmaid’s Tale focuses heavily on memories and painful longing for the past, this time around, two of the narrators are unaware of the part they have played in Gilead’s history. They do not have to reproach themselves for their complicity in the system. Arguably the absence of this inner conflict makes their narrative less psychologically compelling than Offred’s. Both novels are page-turners, but The Testaments does not match The Handmaid’s Tale for the sheer amount of pain involved in each turn of that page. Aunt Lydia explains to the handmaids in the first novel that it will be much easier for the next generation in Gilead, because they will not remember what came before, but it is Offred’s pain and guilt that make her narrative so haunting, and make her words unforgettable. Atwood’s choice of two young and reasonably innocent narrators diminishes this power a little.
The third narrator is initially the most surprising, after having read The Handmaid’s Tale and watched the TV series. In these stories, Aunt Lydia is at best, painfully misguided by her own beliefs, and at worst, a brutal sadist. Now, we see her as a pragmatic, calculating survivor, a victim who turned herself into a collaborator, and then an avenger. Atwood forces the reader to ask uncomfortable questions about how he/she would respond if called on to make the same choices. Although she has carried out terrible acts, she has also shown how women can take back control within the system, and it is hard not to have some degree of admiration for her.
The ending of The Testaments does veer into cliche, as the race to bring down Gilead intensifies, and it feels as if subtlety is sacrificed in a drive towards a happy, and crucially neat, ending. As already mentioned, the ending of The Handmaid’s Tale is deliberately ambiguous. Not only do we not know where Offred is heading, the Epilogue casts doubt on the authenticity of everything we have previously read, by informing us that the transcripts were put together by a male from recordings of Offred’s voice.The Testaments reverses this by affirming that the narratives are genuine, and in that sense reinstates the validity of women’s voices and their ability to tell their own stories. In a regime that has taken away women’s ability to read and write, this is highly significant, and in our own present, it is more important than ever that women’s voices are united and strengthened.
The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985, and was seen as a commentary on the dangers posed by the return of ultra right-wing policies to US politics. Ironically, nearly twenty-five years later, it has become more, not less relevant. The Testaments picks up fifteen years after Offred was bounded up into a mysterious vehicle either heading for freedom or her death. Gilead is still under the control of the Commanders, Aunts and Eyes, but this control is starting to visibly weaken, and the novel charts the eventual undoing of the regime.
Whilst The Handmaid’s Tale is an incredibly claustrophobic reading experience, where we never leave the perspective of Offred, and only get occasional glimpses of life outside the Waterford House, The Testaments takes us to a wider range of settings and crucially gives us three key narrative voices. One of our narrators has grown up in Canada, only learning about Gilead through a text book. The other young narrator has grown up inside Gilead, and never known a life outside of it, despite her vague but significant memories of running through a forest holding her mother’s hand.
Whilst The Handmaid’s Tale focuses heavily on memories and painful longing for the past, this time around, two of the narrators are unaware of the part they have played in Gilead’s history. They do not have to reproach themselves for their complicity in the system. Arguably the absence of this inner conflict makes their narrative less psychologically compelling than Offred’s. Both novels are page-turners, but The Testaments does not match The Handmaid’s Tale for the sheer amount of pain involved in each turn of that page. Aunt Lydia explains to the handmaids in the first novel that it will be much easier for the next generation in Gilead, because they will not remember what came before, but it is Offred’s pain and guilt that make her narrative so haunting, and make her words unforgettable. Atwood’s choice of two young and reasonably innocent narrators diminishes this power a little.
The third narrator is initially the most surprising, after having read The Handmaid’s Tale and watched the TV series. In these stories, Aunt Lydia is at best, painfully misguided by her own beliefs, and at worst, a brutal sadist. Now, we see her as a pragmatic, calculating survivor, a victim who turned herself into a collaborator, and then an avenger. Atwood forces the reader to ask uncomfortable questions about how he/she would respond if called on to make the same choices. Although she has carried out terrible acts, she has also shown how women can take back control within the system, and it is hard not to have some degree of admiration for her.
The ending of The Testaments does veer into cliche, as the race to bring down Gilead intensifies, and it feels as if subtlety is sacrificed in a drive towards a happy, and crucially neat, ending. As already mentioned, the ending of The Handmaid’s Tale is deliberately ambiguous. Not only do we not know where Offred is heading, the Epilogue casts doubt on the authenticity of everything we have previously read, by informing us that the transcripts were put together by a male from recordings of Offred’s voice.The Testaments reverses this by affirming that the narratives are genuine, and in that sense reinstates the validity of women’s voices and their ability to tell their own stories. In a regime that has taken away women’s ability to read and write, this is highly significant, and in our own present, it is more important than ever that women’s voices are united and strengthened.
Comments
Post a Comment