The Handmaid's Tale
May 9, 2025 — Margaret Atwood
Review
There are some books that are forever changed by the passage of time. They become outdated, the references stale, the issues dissolved by time’s arrow. Wish that this were one of them. And yet, there are events that have impacted how we read this book today, in 2025, in ways we may not even ten years ago. One may take issue with the rapid deterioration of a State, the sudden and stark transition of liberal democracy into the most wretched despotism, as one such review I read does. They would be forgetting the evening of the Wiemar Republic, and how it woke to Hitler’s Germany. They would be forgetting the revolution in Iran. They, ten years ago, lived in a world in which domestic terrorists beat and stomped law enforcement in order to invade the Capital of the United States. A world before sad, lonely, men embraced hate and dawned masks and zipcuffs and entered that building with the goal of taking hostages of elected representatives. A world where gallows had not yet been erected on the National Mall.
We live in that world. We live in a world in which, four years later, the man and men who orchestrated that insurrection have been placed again into national power. Published in 1985, Atwood almost certainly saw Ronald Reagan’s 1984 political campaign ad featuring the words, “it’s morning again, in America.” A political nonsense then, it is no political nonsense now to wonder if we are in America’s twilight. Atwood’s incredible book will not give you feelings of pleasant nostalgia or a gladness of safe fiction.
—
An element that Atwood captures so well is how difficult it is to intervene in events that seem so far removed from your personhood. In memories and reconstructions, Atwood shows the rise of radicalism and the simmering pressure felt by character’s like Offred’s mother and her friend, Moira. We feel her memories and uncertainties, wondering how her husband felt about all of it. It is easy to explain away anything and everything as an outlier, an unusually zealous person or group. You get used to their zealotry. And then, in the passage of weeks, the world is different.
So much of speculative fiction focuses on the after of great social upheaval, of apocalypse. I’ve always wondered if it is because the after is simply more interesting. Maybe the truth of the matter is that the inflection is simply banal. As Atwood says, you can get used to anything.
Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now.
(p56)
Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.(p271)
Though, ‘banal’ is probably a stupid way to put it. There is not much banality in machine-gunning governments and rounding up of women and sinners. But then, perhaps those things are after the inflection. Perhaps what facilitates the inflection is the banality of evil.
Readers must ask themselves, when is the time to do something?
I’ve been wasting my time. I should have taken things into my own hands while I had the chance. I should have stolen a knife from the kitchen, found some way to the sewing scissors. There were the garden shears, the knitting needles; the world is full of weapons if you’re looking for them. I should have paid attention.
(p293.)
Atwood puts these thoughts into Offred’s head in the closing pages, and yet, it is impossible not to read these and think of today. I read these words over my lunch break. I was sitting in the lobby of a Federal building, where I work. Every screen in the lobby features the President, talking at the screen. This is not normal. What is the cost of getting used to it?
The two others have purple placards hung around their necks: Gender Treachery. Their bodies still wear the Guardian uniforms. Caught together, they must have been, but where?
(p43)
Will this be a cost? How far is the gap between an action like Trump’s day-one Executive Order ‘defending women’ against “gender ideology” from executing people for gender treachery?
—
This is a rather dark book to read right now. Which, of course, means it is the perfect time to read it. I had a lot of other thoughts, such as the Commander’s clear insecurity and loneliness, which he has turned into bludgeons with which to punish the world. His, standing in for all men in power in the book’s world, clear lust for the power of a being like a “scientist” (“You might say I’m a sort of scientist,” having revealed his before-times job in market research). The powerful depictions of a core need for authoritarian rule: an outlet, and a target to point it at, in chapter 43 (but also, notably, earlier in the indoctrination center).
I wonder if there is any better target than someone who has betrayed values or norms, including but maybe even especially those that are values of the oppressor being stomped into the oppressed. A rational person, free of the excitement and adrenaline, may think, “Oh, I could see how they would do something like that.” Here, there is the whipping up into frenzy via a lie, which inflames the group even further. Add the very nature of group dynamics and you’ve got a nice little piece of meat to throw the masses. Hate is easy.
To say I “enjoyed” this book would be wrong. I couldn’t put it down. I read it on the metro, I read it at 2am when I couldn’t sleep. I read it on my lunch break. A few of the closing pages I read, placing the book under my monitor, at my desk when I should have been working. I found it very powerful, and very scary.
Notes
The two others have purple placards hung around their necks: Gender Treachery. Their bodies still wear the Guardian uniforms. Caught together, they must have been, but where? (p43. TB: see March 2025 EO on ‘gender ideology.’)
Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now. (p56)
The things I believe can’t all be true, though one of them must be. But I believe in all of them, all three versions of Luke, at one and the same time. This contradictory way of believing seems to me, right now, the only way I can believe anything. Whatever the truth is, I will be ready for it. (p106. TB: Chapter 18 features the best fictional depiction of ambiguous loss (see Pauline Boss, 2006) I’ve read. Diffraction. Multiple realities. Fantasy as coping but also as self-harm.)
- Chapter 19 provides a lot of exposition as to how this started. Population decline, nuclear disasters, disease, etc. I found particular interest in the word “replacement” on page 113, possibly for its cousin in replacement conspiracy today.
And Janine, up in her room, what does she do? Sits with the taste of sugar still in her mouth, licking her lips. Stares out the window. Breathes in and out. Thinks of nothing. (p115. TB: the depiction of oppressors fostering resentment and hatred among the oppressed is fantastic. Ensures there can be no lasting or successful resistance.)
He draws away, looks down at me.. There’s the smile again, the sheepish one. Such candor. “Not like that,” he says. “As if you meant it.” (p140. TB: Multilayered and open to interpretation. One could read this as the Commander being, ultimately, a lonely man desperate for affection. Among a group of lonely men who have forgone affection and seized contact via power, rape, and subjection. Or, one could say that this man is being yet more manipulative, attempting to charm or offer the illusion of power. I think more of the former, in this case. That is what these movements tend to be made of, I think. Sad, lonely, and hateful men.)
It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. (p174. TB: There is a review of this book on goodreads from 10 years ago, as of my writing, taking issue with such a drastic turn of societies from liberal to illiberal, as if it has not happened before. 10 years ago is 2015, the evening of the Obama years. The evening of the Wiemar Republic awoke on Hitler’s Germany. Societal change need not be slow and measured, especially when reverting to a place of emotional turmoil, when our better angels have left us to the urges of hatred and suspicion. The execution of truth is where these things take root. I wonder how different this book was to read in 2010. Before we had a global pandemic. Before domestic terrorists rioted in the Capital. Before organized militias inserted themselves amongst poor and poorly educated religious radicals attacking the Capital of the United States, clothed in masks and equipped with zipcuffs. Before gallows were erected on the Capital grounds.)
“You might say I’m a sort of scientist,” he says. “Within limits, of course.” (p185. TB: this is shortly after the Commander shares his history in market research. This interesting grasp by non-scientists to try and appropriate the practice of science, the signal of insecurity and jealousy. They feel threatened by scientists, but also want the prestige they, themselves, grant it. They want the power they see in it, but not the rigor or practice.)
“The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore.” … “I mean there was nothing for them to do with women.” … I’m not talking about sex, he says. That was part of it, the sex was too easy. Anyone could just buy it. There was nothing to work for, nothing to fight for. We have the stats from that time. You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even. They were turning off on marriage. (p210. TB: Such a common refrain, even now, in 2025. As if there has to be something for men, as if there is not already so much everything. Why improve when you can oppress?)
- p261, but elsewhere and throughout. Statements from the protagonist like, “I made that up,” or, “this is a reconstruction.” I like the ambiguity and shadow these introduce. It’s a nice creative touch. It lends credibility by casting doubt. Quite good.
Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. (p271, pair with p56. A core theme.)
- Chapter 43. The Salvaging and the Particicution. Powerful depictions of a core need for authoritarian rule: an outlet, and a target to point it at. I wonder if there is any better target than someone who has betrayed values or norms, including but maybe even especially those that are values of the oppressor being stomped into the oppressed. A rational person, free of the excitement and adrenaline, may think, “Oh, I could see how they would do something like that.” Here, there is the whipping up into frenzy via a lie, which inflames the group even further. Add the very nature of group dynamics and you’ve got a nice little piece of meat to throw the masses. Hate is easy.
I’ve been wasting my time. I should have taken things into my own hands while I had the chance. I should have stolen a knife from the kitchen, found some way to the sewing scissors. There were the garden shears, the knitting needles; the world is full of weapons if you’re looking for them. I should have paid attention. (p293. TB: Metacommentary on the reluctance for individuals to take individual action, especially in times of upheaval.)