The Handmaid's Tale

A topic that came up in class while discussing Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was which character has the better life: Moira or Offred? I could like to compare their lives and give my own input as to who has the better life. Let’s start with Moira. Throughout the novel we see her as being very rebellious against society and its new beliefs. She escapes the Center and is later caught. At Jezebel’s she seems content, even though she has to be a prostitute for men, which must be hard for her. You can see the difference in her character because before this she was a very strong woman and now she is broken and has given in a little to society and accepted what her life is. She says there are drugs, drinks, face crème, and that she receives better treatment —but is that really better? Eventually she will be sent to the Colonies, which some might say is worse than death. While Offred has to go through the Ceremony and her freedom is restricted, she at least has a chance, something that Moira doesn’t have. If she can produce a child then she will be looked at more highly. She also has Nick. With him she knows that he is someone that she can go to and talk to. Finally, she has hope, as we see throughout the novel. She learns that her daughter is still alive and believes that Luke is still alive, out there somewhere. Personally I believe that Moira has it worst because she doesn’t have as much time as Offred has. She doesn’t have the companionship that Offred has with Nick. Even though Moira seems content I think she has lost hope and is living out the rest of the little time that she probably has left.

My favorite quote is at the end of the novel when the van comes to get Offred:

“Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing: I have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can’t be helped. And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light” (Atwood 295).

This quote leaves it up to the reader to determine whether or not Offred escaped or if she perished. In this quote Offred, too, seems unsure of her future, yet she almost seems content with whatever happens to her. I think that she’s done with this society and that survival doesn’t really matter to her anymore. I like this quote because there is still hope in her voice. There’s a possibility of a “new beginning” and she says that she stepped “into the darkness…or else the light.” The book ends on a positive note with “light” and shows that there is still hope left. She seems to be saying that things could get better, or maybe they won’t. She’s putting her life in fate’s hands and seems content with whatever happens. I believe that she escaped through the help of Nick (What can I say? I loved happy endings… :). The Historical Notes also said that perhaps Nick helped her escape and that he was probably part of the Mayday underground.

Despite the uncomfortable and disturbing sex scenes…the book was pretty good. I liked how we could see this society through the eyes of Offred because the reader got her perspective of what was going on. Through Offred we saw flashbacks which I really liked. You could see how new the society was because the characters could still remember what life was like before this. I thought that was quite interesting because the society seemed well-established, yet it was a recent development in history. These flashbacks also show the reader how people such as feminists fought for and against certain things and the society that they wanted turned out completely different. They burned pornography and ended up with a society that went to the extreme of making sex only for producing children. I liked how the author used flashbacks because it established a contrast.
Something else that I liked was the Scrabble game. It gave Offred freedom and the power to express herself. The words that she chose, such as larynx and limp, showed how she felt—speechless and powerless.