The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

(Written by Margaret Atwood.) Offred is a handmaid to Serena Joy, the wife of a Commander. But this isn't biblical times, and it isn't even as far east as Europe. Following a disaster of almost apocalyptic proportions, a group of heavily armed rebels has destroyed the government of the United States. The country is now called Gilead, and it is ruled according to fear and distrust. Women are taken out of the workforce and are assigned various rigid roles in society. Some are housekeepers called "Marthas." Some are the "Wives." Still others are "Handmaids" - childbearers who are not married to the children's fathers. In a society almost bereft of fertility, the burden of producing the next generation falls to these.

This book is very puzzling. At first, it seems very anti-organized religion - particularly anti-Catholic. The way the Handmaids are required to dress seems nearly identical to the habit the Daughters of Charity used to wear. The distorted view of sexuality - for procreation only - is one often attributed to the Catholic Church. The Gileadean regime uses the Bible to put a moral price tag on what it's doing. Those are only a few examples. But deeper into the book, it's revealed that things are not quite as they seem at first glance.

Gilead seems to be more interested in using vague hints and trappings of Christianity rather than any real form of Christianity itself. For example, the Bible is used as moral backup for what the regime wants to do. But the Bible is not made available to most of the people - and many "quotes" are either distorted or borrowed from another source. In short, the regime alters the evidence (the Bible) to fit its arguments, not the other way around.

So Gilead uses a vague idea (again, the Bible) that is typically considered to have moral weight in order to justify what is being done. For the most part, the regime gets away with this because no one has the tools to argue with them. Only trustworthy people in high places even have access to the Bible. In other words, the regime's argument is built on a foundation that is unassailable only because it is simply unavailable. That sounds more like relativism than Christianity, which has the widely available Word of God as its backup.

Any relativist moral argument eventually breaks down because it cannot have real evidence on which to build its foundation. Arguing that "what's okay for me doesn't have to be okay for you" is totally illogical. Not because it's false per se, but because, by its very nature, it has nothing to back it up. Think about that for a second. To what moral authority can relativists appeal in order to back up their claim that "good" is, in truth, relative? They have none; the whole point of relativism is to do away with moral authority entirely. Unlike modern relativists, the Gileadean regime in The Handmaid's Tale understands this need of evidence. Its response is to obfuscate and mutilate a known, trusted source. However, the essentials still remain the same. Relativists have no authority on their side, and the Gileadeans have only an invented authority.

Whether Atwood intended to weave this speculation on relativism into her book or not, the parallel can certainly be drawn. She is apparently an agnostic, and might possibly be anti-organized religion. But whatever her attitudes on religion, the complexity of her invented world and the interesting way in which Atwood deals with its problems make this a worthwhile read.

My Rating: MT (sexual content and references, sex scenes (not too graphic), reference to homosexuality, violence)