The phrase “Context is all” is repeated throughout Margaret Atwood’s celebrated 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Perspectives and behaviours change with the times; the “new normal” evolves. More than 30 years since she wrote it, Atwood’s dystopian novel is these days being read in an entirely new context: sales soared during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, with Atwood’s dissection of puritanism and misogyny freshly relevant.
Now, a new audiobook version written by Atwood for Audible has a new ending, teasing a future for the characters beyond their original limit. In the book, Professor Pieixoto delivers a lecture on American history that is peppered with details about what happened to Atwood’s heroine Offred; in the new audio version we learn that a May Day rebellion was led to stop the Gileadean empire, and hints that Offred might have played a part in the resistance.
Could it be that Atwood is writing a sequel? And as a new generation of readers discovers The Handmaid’s Tale, prompted by its parallels to the current political climate and particularly the place of women within it, is the time ripe for one?
Political change can be fast, Atwood warns in the novel; rights can be stripped overnight. She has drawn comparisons between The Handmaid’s Tale and the present day herself, supporting writing by women pushing back, promoting projects like Nasty Women and keeping a sharp tally of the “bubbling up” of puritan values and misogyny from Trump’s administration: the constant attacks on planned parenthood services, Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” remarks, vice president Pence revealing that he refuses to dine alone with women who are not his wife.
“Maybe none of this is about control. […] Maybe it’s about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it,” says Offred at one point in Atwood’s novel. She’s considering the new dynamic with her boyfriend Luke, just after women have been told they can no longer work or own property. Some women in the novel use what scant power they have left – what they have over each other – to retain some control, at the cost of solidarity. “At least we have each other,” Luke says, placatingly; meanwhile Offred is left to consider that, in a social order where women have restricted rights, “we” means she is dependent on his protection.
The sharpness of Atwood’s depiction of structural oppression lies not only in the decrees in place to limit women’s freedom, but in psychological pressure. Hope is erased wherever possible, from the means of escape such as books – women aren’t allowed to read – and in more insidious ways, such as obscuring words with positive connotations on shop signs. Offred realises that when her generation – old enough to remember a different time – makes way for the next, there will be no frame of reference for those women to pin their resistance to.
If Atwood does indeed write a second volume, I’d love to see how she develops these themes 30 years on, since women’s liberation has both advanced and been pushed back in new ways. And while The Handmaid’s Tale is distinguished by its iconic, blunt ending, its central premise of inequality and oppression has never felt so pressing. As a fan, it feels like the right time to read on. Context is all.
