MARGARET ATWOOD
Thirty-four years after its original publication, The Handmaid’s Tale continues to captivate readers around the world. Now, Margaret Atwood has released the long-awaited sequel to this best-selling novel, The Testaments.
A LOOK BACK AT THE HANDMAID’S TALE The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the near-future dystopian Republic of Gilead, where an extremist patriarchal religious group called the Sons of Jacob has taken control of the U.S. government and established a totalitarian theocracy. Under their rule, all women have been relegated to just a few specific roles within the new society. One such role, the Handmaids, are women who are used solely as reproductive vessels for high-ranking officers and their wives. The novel follows the story of one handmaid, June/Offred, as she struggles to survive under the new extremist government and deliberates attempting to escape to outlying rebel territories that may have not yet fallen to the Sons of Jacob. Spoiler alert The end of The Handmaid’s Tale leaves the reader trapped in ambiguity as Offred leaves the compound in a van, signalling that she has either been rescued or betrayed by her clandestine love interest, Nick Blaine. End spoiler “I would really love to know what happens but I’m not sure we’re going to find that out,” says Munro Books’ Event Coordinator Jessica Paul. “The [new] book makes no mention of June/Offred at all, so it’s hard to know if we’ll actually get her story concluded or not in the future.”
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‘TERRIFYING AND EXHILARATING’ Though it is unclear whether readers will learn what became of Offred, we do know that the sequel will not keep pace with Hulu’s hit TV show based on Atwood’s classic. The show has already surpassed Atwood’s original material and The Testaments shows that Atwood is going in a different direction. The Testaments centers on the accounts of three women still living in Gilead, 15 years after Atwood last left off in The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testaments has won the Booker Prize for 2019, and its judges were some of the only people to have laid eyes on the new novel before it was released. The Booker judges released a statement to the press saying only that the book was “terrifying and exhilarating.”
THE NEW GUY FAWKES MASK The Testaments’ release could not have come at a more relevant time. The success of the television series, along with the turbulent global political climate, has seen the handmaid’s uniform taken up by political activists and feminist organizers around the world. The red cloak and white bonnet has appeared in protests in Argentina, Ireland, the United States and elsewhere, and has quickly become a cross-cultural symbol of resistance. An op-ed in Wired has even deemed the handmaid’s uniform “the Guy Fawkes mask of 2019.” (The Guy Fawkes mask is an anti-establishment symbol that has recently become a recognizable trademark of the online hacktivist group Anonymous).
