Margaret Atwood

Oh I like to believe that people are sincere. Just I think people don't like seeing that in fiction - they can't shake the feeling that there is something lurking underneath. And that disbelief makes people uncomfortable, because they want to believe that there are sincere people, but in fiction there seems to be underlying motives for everything ;)

I am one of those who does a "from every angle" and try not to make judgements and in fact get told off for doing that! If someone nicks a parking space well maybe they didn't see me, or maybe they are in a massive rush, or maybe they are an idiot and are rude, maybe they have something on their mind that is stopping them from connecting to the whole societal conventions at that moment in time. I like to think that people are sincere and I see a lot of sincere love, care and devotion with my freelance work with horses/ponies/riders/owners. I know a lot of people that give up so much to give them something unnecessary, because they want to.

I think sincerity as a cover has been used in fiction for such a long time that it is very hard for readers to see it without being suspicious.
 
I agree that many people have a tendency to be suspicious of sincerity, but I also think sincerity itself frightens people. A cruel person is more easily palatable if we believe they are not truly cruel, but instead just selfish, greedy, or perhaps insane. But to believe that they are sincerely that rotten to the core is a frightening prospect for many. This is why you hear famous dictators or criminals often spoken of in rushed terms of 'he was a maniac' or 'I wonder what caused him to lose it.' It is difficult to imagine someone can do terrible things with sincerity. And I think that also applies to more average acts of cruelty or mean-spiritedness.
 
This brings us full circle to "The Handmaid's Tale." Offred's greatest fear was for the "true believers" (we might say sincere believers) who might rat her out. The underlying feel of the story, not the story so much, reminded me so much of 1984. It might resonate even more today, because there is so much opportunity of "spying" on what other people do, and doesn't take too much imagination to think of someone using that power ruthlessly as a "thought police."
 
Definitely. I've always thought of it as "1984 for feminists", the way I think of Farenheit 451 as "1984 for readers".

The sense is the same, I agree: not just of being spied upon, but of being trapped in a society that actively wants you to be miserable. To my mind, a lot of the zealotry (political or religious) that I mentioned earlier comes from a semi-conscious wish to make other people unhappy: hence, in both The Handmaid's Tale and 1984, the removal of freedom, the lack of trustworthy friends, the frugality of the surroundings and the obsession with making sex and marriage as bleak as possible, and so on.
 
The Judge said:
Re: Margeret Atwood

As for the lecture at the end, I thought that was brilliant, and also frightening. We don't find out what happened to Offred, we don't get full resolution, much less a happy ending to her story, not least because things aren't resolved, and there weren't any really happy endings. Here are my thoughts from my book non-blog earlier in the year:

I've finished The Handmaid's Tale which had as a coda fourteen pages of "Historical Notes", not, as one might think, on Atwood's research into genuine theocracies and the societal incarceration of women through the ages, but a further example of her brilliance, since it's a lecture given 200 years after the events forming the bulk of the novel on the once-secret now-transcribed tapes which relate those events. Not only is it a clever way of giving more non-POV detail about the fundamentalist order, with a sly dig at symposia and their academics, it's also a worrying hint that at bottom nothing has changed, that moral relativism refuses to condemn blatant discrimination and horrific injustice from other cultures, and that a few pages from a man's computer are thought to be more important than the terrible lived experience of women.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I was thinking about this recently, and now have some real sense of understanding of what Atwood was aiming for here. It was very clever, all the more so for being so obvious yet subtle.

I have to admit to feeling a little embarrassed now to have missed it when I read it a few years ago, yet perhaps it's a good thing that my social biases have changed and developed enough to recognise something of that.

Either way, I'll be a little more careful and less dismissive of Margaret Atwood in future.
 
I agree: I think the ending is a definite jab at moral relativism and "understanding their culture", especially given how worthless Gilead clearly is as a society. It's clever that Atwood didn't just write a coda, as Orwell did in 1984, but wrote it in character and was able to include hints at the society that came after Gilead. I always assumed the professors were Latin and Native American, for instance. It's quite subtle world-building.
 
Just found this thread. Margaret Attwood is one of my favourite writers and I have read all of her books(I think).Her work is difficult to define as each tale is so different.
As she writes about the future (mostly) I would class her writing loosely as sci/fi.
All of her stories are bleak,but the writing is extraordinary. My favourite is,The Blind Assassin,which is a love story of sorts.Her books stay in my conscious memory they have affected me so much.
 
Parson said:
Sigh! One of the reasons I love S.F. is that it can have a positive view of the future.
Click to expand...

I agree with you totally,Parson.I like tales of heroism when the good fight the evil and win.Sadly, life is more complex and human nature doesn't seem to change for the better. Seeing the word "dystopian" on a book cover puts me completely off it.
 
#44
Definitely. I've always thought of it as "1984 for feminists"
How very patronising of you,Toby. I expect you're a nice guy,who didn't even think before writing that.
Sexism is so ingrained,we don't notice it. And ,just before I duck for the incoming deluge, I don't think men and women are the same. Some jobs are much better suited to women and some jobs more suited to men.
I think we should complement each other,not try to be the same. That doesn't mean women are less valuable in any way.
 
@althea - not a deluge but a light drizzle - feminists can be male as well as female. You too are making sexist assumptions.

And on a sideways note - I was reminded of "Après moi le déluge" possibly said by either Madam de Pompadour or the King - with folks now a little uncertain of which one said it and what exactly they meant. It was adopted as a motto by 617 Squadron after the Dam Busters Raid.
 
That's a fair point,Montero.Well said. I'm not a militant anything,but at the time of reading,Toby's post did seem patronising to females.
 
althea said:
That's a fair point,Montero.Well said. I'm not a militant anything,but at the time of reading,Toby's post did seem patronising to females.
Click to expand...

I think it's simply that The Handmaid's Tale builds on experiences that a lot of women can relate to, but men struggle to understand because it is beyond their own - hence why my own posts in this same thread changed over time.
 
What I mean is that the world of 1984 is extremely grim for everyone - it seems that the inner Party definitely accepts people of any race and possibly women, without discrimination, provided they are unpleasant enough to be considered fit to join. No specific group is singled out for persecution - or rather anybody can be singled out as a thought-criminal if it amuses a member of the Inner Party to do so.

In The Handmaid's Tale and Farenheit 451, particular groups are selected for persecution: women - especially fertile ones (for slavery as Handmaids) and those of a more feminist persuasion (for killing) in THT and people who read (and own books) in 451. Life as a man in Gilead or a non-reader in the 451 world would be miserable but just about tolerable. But for those groups actively targeted by the state, it is 1984 all the time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Michael Colton Where To Start With Margaret Atwood? Book Discussion 12
S Margaret Atwood’s, Year of the Flood Book Discussion 0
L The year of the flood - Margaret Atwood Book Discussion 0
Fried Egg Margaret Atwood Book Discussion 5
Omphalos The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood Book Discussion 1

Similar threads


Back
Top