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Now that we gotten into it, what does everyone think?

Favorite quotations? Any opinions on the use of the Bible as a weapon and the references to it so far? Favorite part? Who loves the book? Who hates it? Anyone thinking of giving up reading it or having trouble?

What about Offred? Is there anyone who believes that The Handmaid's Tale can be use as a precautionary tale? Especially about the unbalance fertile population, in relation to China's One Child Act and the effects of the lack of marriageable women in the country.

Here's a short clip on that:



Is this a stretch for the novel? Or do we see echoes of it happening around the world already?

When Atwood wrote this in the 80s, Reagan was in power and there was some kind of backlash against feminism at the time. It's also alluded to in the narrative, about how sex shops and pornography were starting to 'take everything too far' .etc. I'm sure this was a very real conservatism at the time and Atwood wrote this partly as a social commentary.

The Bible (or Scripture in general) as a weapon is very real: some radical sect, group, town, province, country .etc. misappropriate and manipulate certain sections of their Holy Codex to make a point that caters to their radical views. Theocratic regimes exist in the world. I think everything in the novel is something that is real and has happened in history.

Late again! But my only thoughts on this section are on Offred's thoughts about escape: "It can't last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn't last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had." It's just a sad, frightening thought. Hooray for those who escape, right? But 'bad times' lasting 'all the forever they had' ?? That could mean that either they didn't escape - these people who were the casualties of 'bad times' (say a few million people in WW II), or not really being able to escape the 'bad times' in your head. Despite finding escape physically, never being able to escape mentally. The bad days sticking with you for all of your forever...

My satellite internet is too slow for your fancy YouTube videos :(

Thank you for your thoughts Ashley. I love that theory about not escaping. How do you escape a society? You cannot far away enough from the memories. Especially something like Offread's situation.

I mean, how do you cope with it? And when society expects you to produce children, of a rape, because that was the person that was assigned to you. Do you start thinking you're crazy?

No worries about the youtube videos, they're just trailers of movies that came out base on movies, interviews with the authors, and notes on the materials. You're not missing much. It's just there for people to look at if they want a more in depth look at the novels.