Reviewed by Kathleen A. Cameron, Justice Studies, Social Sciences Department, Pittsburg State University. Email: kcameron [at] pittstate.edu.Imagine a society where a sign in red paint reads, We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you. Imagine a society where women are tortured and killed for disobeying this law a society where religious beliefs, the political structure, and female sexual identity are so intertwined as to justify and require the control of women s freedom, the sexual victimization of women, and the torture and murder of women who do not comply. Imagine a society where a woman is accused by religious police of being a witch and is sentenced to death by beheading.Margaret Atwood imagines this society in her futuristic, dystopian novel, THE HANDMAID S TALE. While the excerpt above is a non-fictional description of present-day Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Atwood s vision of a fictional theocratic regime that reduces the value of women to reproductive commodities is a disturbingly accurate account of the status of women in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and is in many ways reflected in political, legal, and cultural doctrines, ideologies, and practices in the U.S.Numerous reviews of this most profound and telling work by Atwood have been written since its publication in 1986. Written in a similar vein to Huxley s BRAVE NEW WORLD (1932), Orwell s 1984 (1949), and Burgess A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1962), but with the mysogynistic focus of Piercy s WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME (1976), it is one of the two most popular Atwood works for use in university classrooms (along with Atwood s SURFACING (1972)). Rich with symbolism and textured with irony, it relies on a feminist methodology of the narrative, the primary way individuals make sense of experience. As such, it provides an ideal source for generating dialogue, teaching, and learning in courses that have typically included courses in the humanities and social sciences. This review illustrates the use of this work in a course on Women, Crime and Justice, and includes a student paper excerpt in the brief summary of THE HANDMAID S TALE that follows. The student contributor to the summary below writes, I am finding The Handmaid s Tale to be a heart-breaking, yet inspiring novel & I could not stop reading. Adaptations include a film, an opera, and an unabridged audio book.The story is set in the futuristic United States of America in the fictional town of Gilead, a puritanical society in which dress codes are used as a way to subjugate women. The tale opens with the narrator, Offred (Of-Fred) remembering a time when she was held against her will in an old gymnasium, [*299] known as the Red Center. Women here are trained to become Handmaids, surrogate mothers for powerful military families, who are ordered to wear red dresses with white veils to signify their importance to the cause (having the Commanders children). Gilead is a theocracy run by Christian extremists in which women are not allowed to hold jobs, read, or use money. The chief function of women is to bear children since the decline in the birth rate. Women of lower status, the econowives wear striped dresses to signify that their husbands are not yet Commanders.Throughout the novel, Offred narrates from remembering past times to the present. She is a Handmaid who lives in a Commander s house but she remembers a time when she was married to a man named Luke and they had a child together. Offred has no idea what happened to either her child or Luke, but she recalls that her child was taken from her because she was deemed unfit. In the new world of Gilead (once the United States), the Constitution has been suspended and a Christian theocracy has replaced a democratic government. To address the declining birth rate caused by pollution and chemical poisoning, the gov
Reviews
rat
Оценка 5 из 5 звёзд от rat 06.04.2015 13:38