The novel was adapted for the award-wining television series of the same name that premiered in 2017.Īs an English teacher who has taught this book for somewhere around 14 years, I can tell you that this book has a profound impact on students and succeeds in teaching students many literary skills and helps them to connect literary fiction with relevant, real-world current and historical events. The most violent scene in the novel involves a public ceremony where women are whipped into a frenzy and then allowed to beat an accused person to death.
There is mention of handmaids who have committed suicide by hanging. The corpses of dissidents are hung in public as grim reminders of the cost of rebellion. It features strong language, emotional and physical violence, and a couple of graphic sex scenes. Parents need to know that The Handmaid's Tale is a powerful, potentially disturbing dystopian satire set in a future America where women have been stripped of all their civil rights. Scenes late in the novel are set in a brothel where drinking and smoking occur.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. Offred eventually learns, however, that alcohol and tobacco are available to the most powerful men. July's Bookclub Choice : Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (2009).Drinking, recreational drugs, and smoking are all prohibited in Gilead. Margaret Atwood, who is one of the most celebrated novelists writing in English today, meets an invited audience of Radio 4 listeners, including sixth-formers and university students, to discuss the Handmaid's Tale. The Handmaids - most prominently a woman called Offred, the narrator of the novel, are the few fertile women, who are assigned to the homes of married male rulers, and compelled to endure rape at their hands in the name of procreation.
The book has now found a new readership amongst a younger generation.
It followed the book closely, telling the tale of a society in which women are subjugated and not allowed to work or read, and valued only for their fecundity. In 2017 The Handmaid's Tale became a television series, going on to win eight Emmies. Thirty three years ago, Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid's Tale, a novel about a futuristic America, which following a major ecological disaster, is ruled by a brutal, misogynistic Christian theocracy called Gilead. This edition celebrates Bookclub's 20th anniversary and includes contributions from former alumni of Bookclub such as Ali Smith, Eimear McBride and Evie Wyld as well as the reading group made up of Radio 4 listeners. Margaret Atwood discusses her dystopian masterpiece The Handmaid's Tale with James Naughtie and a group of readers.
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