showard995 t1_j0mvuo0 wrote
It is a masterpiece. Offred is a prisoner, how do you expect her to “explore the world around her”? We see what she sees. Of course the end is abrupt, she is suddenly taken away. Was she rescued by Mayday? Sent to the colonies? The wall? We don’t know. It’s terrifying. The “bits of backstory” explain how America failed and Giliad rose. Kinda important. And by the way, the treatment of women in The Handmaids Tale is true. Everything Atwood describes has happened to women in some culture at some point. This is a piece of very important literature, a book to which attention must be paid.
NocturnOmega t1_j0pp9bt wrote
Good points. I think the tv show, and it’s differences led people to imagine or expect something totally different. They made the main charecter a resistance fighter, girl boss in the show. Whereas, the book offers a more grounded realistic take on what it would be like for a woman to be in that horrifying, oppressive situation. I haven’t read the book, but I heard it’s very different from the show, at least after the 1st season.
amarezero t1_j0p369z wrote
To my understanding, The Handmaid’s Tale is more a story of America, misogyny, and the broad latent support for hard-right theological fascism that has long existed just below the surface than it is the story of Offred. Removing those ‘back story’ elements is kind of removing all of the sociopolitical commentary, right?
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