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Opinions...reviews...insights...I'm studying 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood and I'm looking to see what others think of it i.e on the subjects of feminism, dystopian society, language, presentation of characters, effectiveness of the narrator, etc. Opinions on any of Atwood's books are also welcome...!
To context her Handmaid's Tale, you may want to read her Survival series of essays, and Northrop Frye's A Conclusion to A History of Canadian Literature, as those will give you a better framework of where she comes from.
In truth, I find the themes and images in her books derived from a peculiar reading of Frye's Conclusion, and early Canadian literature.
Surely her survival and suffering themes are deeply rooted in Frye, especially his conclusion.
On top of that though, the novel is rooted in the politics of its time (1985), and is a statement on, more than anything, I find, sexual freedom, and sexual liberation. The novel works as a statement for pro-sex feminism, as a response to feminist condemnation of pornography, and polygamous/promiscuous sexual relations. The novel is rooted in the so called Feminist sex wars running through the 1970s and 1980s.
I am currently reading Cats Eye, it is the first thing of Atwood's for me to read, I am finding it to be really interesting. I am a little more then half-way through it. And it is one of those books, where I started out not quite sure what to think of it, but gradually grew to enjoy it more and more. I really like the nature and tone of the book, and I think she brings a sharp realsim to her story. I enjoy some of her views within the book about art and in Cats Eye she sort of mocks feminist critics.
There is this great quote in the book:
Quote:
I called the whole seris Pressure Cooker. Becasue of when it was done and what was going on in those years, some people thought it was about the Earth Goddess, which I found hilarious in view of my mother's dislike of housework. Other people thought it was about female slavery, other that it was a sterotyping of women in negative and trivial domestic roles. But it was only my mother cooking, in the ways and places she used to cook, in the late forties.