Final thoughts
What lessons did your draw from the novel?
Freedom and life as we know it isn’t a garantee
Offred lived in the world we know today, or something similar to it in the beginnings of the book, she lived like us until the problems started and then everything was different. It shows us how quickly life can change, how it can turn completely around very fast.
If you stay quiet you lose your voice
Many handmaids aren’t like Offred, they stay in line, they listen closely to the rules, these are the women who lose their ability to defy, they can’t fight anymore because they have given up on themselves.
What element(s) was most significant for you personally?
In Gilead, everyone looses
Offred is a victim, this much is clear, but the wives suffer too, they have to stand by and watch their husbands have intercourse with the handmaids, and they can’t say anything about it. The commanders are also victims of the system, moderately forced to rape women on a regular basis to insure procreation.
Mothers separated from their children soon after birth.
Everyone shares a special bond with their parents, even if you don’t know it, it’s there. Without being parents ourselves it’s hard to understand how a parent feels when their child is taken away, but even just imagining it is painful.
What was the main message of the novel in your opinion?
If you don’t fight for your rights and you stay silent, things will never go your way and will never move forward.
Do you see any links between elements in your novel and something in your world, more personally or as a society
On page 82 of the book, we learn about a girl who got raped at fourteen and had to get an abortion, all the handmaids point at her, at the instruction of their superior and tell her it was her fault. This reminds us a lot of today and how women are told that if they dress or act a certain way, they are ‘asking for it’, as if getting raped is a choice.
Defiance is hard
It’s clear that many residents of Gilead want to rebel, they aren’t okay with how things are going, but it’s hard to speak your mind when your life is on the line. In Gilead, if you don’t fold before authorities, you are banished, or worse. On a much smaller scale the same thing is happening today. Our lives are dictated with rules that we don’t question because they’ve always been there, some are good but some aren’t working. People are moving forward and society needs to start moving along with them.
So I noticed your book was about a dystopic world and I wanted to now what strucked you the most about the concept of a dystopia?
ReplyDeleteGood point, Gilead is very much represented as a dystopia. The thing that actually scared me is that I realized that our world is not so different from theirs. Of course, it's on a much smaller scale, but Atwood actually draws from real life events for every event in her book, so almost everything has actually happened in the past.
DeleteThank you for your question, it was a good one! :)
I like the concept of the book, we take our liberty for granted, and society simply agreed to the rules of our freedom. We don't realise that those rules could be ignored at any point, and make our life much different.
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
DeleteHi! Before everything I just wanna say you did a really good job! So when you said that if you stay silent, things will never changes, it made me think about the women victim of sexual abuses in our current society, like if they never speak up nothing will ever change. Do you think a similar message about feminism and such could be hidden in this book?
ReplyDeleteHi, thank you so much for your question! Yes, we definitely think that there could be a similar message about feminism in the book. Most of the book talks about how women were not listened to and when they were raped it was their fault.
DeleteIf there was one thing you could change about the book, what would it be and why?
ReplyDeleteHello!
DeleteWe would propably change the non-existent action in the novel. In fact, Offred was mostly describing what was going on around her but there was not a lot of action sadly. It would have been more interesting, we think!
What didn't you like about the book?
ReplyDeleteHi :)
DeleteWe did not really like the fact that the novel was not in chronological order. It was a little be difficult to follow the story while reading!
If the commanders are at the top of the hierarchy, but they still are losers, why are they not trying to change something about the way their society work?
ReplyDeleteThey are also oppressed in the society they have created. They can't escape what they have created because the laws are made to punish those who would try to change them. They need to force themselves to fuck the handmaids to procreate, instead of an environnement of love and harmony. Their mental and emotional health are also being deteriorated. Hope you enjoyed our blog :)
DeleteHow do you think the situation of your novel translates into the modern society we're living in ?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThere are multiple connections that we can link between the book and the world we are living in, but I think that purity is a great similarity between the two.
DeleteThere are multiples countries, like Lebanon or Somalia, which invalidates women and remove their right. Such as prohibiting women to own a house or drive a car. Muslims prohibiting women to show skin and even their hair is a great example.
We can see that both in the book and in Lebanon, woman's purity is related to religious belief, they need to stay pure and modest while in public.
Thank you for the comment :)