Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale

A television series

Story:

I am not generally a fan of visual representation of books, especially the great ones. The handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a masterpiece that will be remembered for centuries. She calls the book "speculative fiction" which means it theorizes about possible futures. In one of her interviews, she said that she did not create anything, all of it is happening around us. Thinking about our tragic future is scary enough and knowing that it is actually a present is devastating. She had written this dystopian tragedy in 1985 and it is in bits and pieces, coming true.

When you watch this television series, you know what happens when a good book falls in hands of good visual creators. Every aspect of the story is incorporated in a detailed manner. We can see the thoughts they have put into everything. Right from the color and patterns of the "uniforms" to the spectacularly detailed premises. 

We see the story through the eyes of the protagonist named Offred. We do not really know what is happening, we discover it all through her eyes and thoughts of Offred. We start rooting for her from the very first frame. If you haven't read the book, this is the series you never want to take your eyes off. if you do not know what is going to happen, you are on the edge of your mind all the time. 

The story is taking place in the world called the republic of Gilead which is in The United States. Where the fundamentalists had taken over the government and founded this new government whose main purpose id to restore the birthrate and save the world. For which women have been stripped of all the rights. Where everyone has their uniforms. A hierarchy is maintained at the cost of everything. Women are divided into distinct social classes based upon their function. We keep hearing that they are doing everything they can to protect the world but we eventually get to know, it is about some men taking control of everything especially the women. There are categories for everyone. Every human being is labeled as someone and they are supposed to fulfill their duties. It is a world where the birthrate is dropped to nothing. The environment is at its worst. They, the ruling men, have imprisoned the fertile women and made them handmaid's to whom they can rape and produce children. But these handmaid's are just for some high ranking officers. The children are taken from them and forcefully adopted by one of the officers. All women have their purpose decided by the government. The colors of their clothing distinguish them from each other. There are mainly 4 regimes in which they are categorized. handmaids, wives, aunts, and Marthas. Wives are at the highest ranks as they are wives of the officers. The shades of blue colored cloths define their status according to how high the rank of their officers has. The handmaids have a bright red costume which highlights their purpose which is God-given and has at most importance. Aunts are there to make sure sure that the handmaids are doing their job properly and teaching them what they are created for. Aunts have a pale brown uniform which neither highlights nor underlines them. They have powers to take decisions about handmaids but not above the commanding officers but they have the freedom to discipline and punish them as they feel right. And the Marthas, they are house helps in the commanding officer's houses. These are those women who are not fertile and their only purpose in life is to serve the officers. Their uniform is designed to make them invisible from the surrounding as they are the least important. 

There are no rights to women, even though they high ranking wives. Women can't read, not even the Bible. They have no say in any important issue. Their task is set and they must follow it. Women can't have money or education or property. The first thing that happened for the formation of Gilead was all the women lost their jobs. By the description of Gilead, we think it is some bizarre past but when we realize it is a possible future, the feeling is unsettling. We see glimpses of the world we are living in and how it changed. Margaret Atwood says, even though the book is set in the future, she decided she wouldn't use any event that has happened in human history. Atwood has studied the Puritans at Harvard and that reflects in the story.

The protagonist, Offred is the handmaid of the commander. It is not her real name. Before the establishment of Gilead, Offred had a loving husband and kid of her own, a good job, and quite a normal life. After the fundamentalist comes into power Offred is denied her identity and thrown down to be a child-making machine as she was a fertile woman. In her words, she was a "two-legged womb for increasing Gilead's waning population". They control everything about the women, the language, the thoughts, and the behavior. Some of the handmaids initially accept the loss of their rights in the name of the greater good. We see that Offred is a strong and opinionated woman. We hear her thoughts and sense the resistance. She is assigned to give birth to a child of a commander, her name suggests "Of Fred" as her commander's first name is Fred. Fertile women are given names as per their commander's. She is considered the first generation of Gilead who remembers the before times. Her daughter is taken from her and that is her motivation to keep fighting, getting back her daughter.

We see the hypocrisy of the hierarchy when the commander takes her to a secret pub where she is made feel free and he can have sex with her. As at home having sex is a part of a ritual where the wife is present and she is sitting at the head of the handmaid so that she can claim the preganancy hers. A scene where the commander plays scabbles with Offred and refused to play with his wife saying it's forbidden suggests that he doesn't consider his wife worth it. He wants the handmaid to feel in his debts or consider herself privileged by his generosity but if he shows the feelings towards his wife, it can mean he is giving importance to her intllect. Offred lets him feel that. She accepts all his favors and makes him feel great. many of her plans fail. She gets to know about the rebels working against the government and starts working with them and tries to free as many as she can. She is always vocally rebellious and she gets severely punished for it. The punishments given by aunt are brutal. We see many historical references in the punishments as well. Offred and all the other handmaids are repeatedly raped every month. some of them get pregnant and are assigned to the next commander. Homosexuality is s severe crime and if you are not fertile or break the rules, you are sent to the colonies where you have to clean the nuclear waste without any safety measures, so if you are assigned to colonies you are very much going to be having the worst death possible. We see many men are hanged on the walls all around for homosexuality and breaking the rules. 

Though we see everything through the eyes of Offred, it is not only about her. There are many stories and characters we start rooting for. We feel sympathy towards the wives as well. We want to see through it all and want to know where it all lead. As it is not a past but a future, can it really end? Or it already has started happening in the real world? If you simply do a Google search, you will find many events that are already happening around. Are we heading towards the dystopian end? Food for thought. Many people say if this was happening in real, we would have done something. Well, it is. And we are not doing enough. 

With the brilliant making and amazing performances, this is one of the best TV shows of the year. It makes you feel like you are reading a book.