A review by ayla_derammelaere
Het verhaal van de dienstmaagd by Margaret Atwood

dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0



This book pictures a dystopian future in America, renamed as 'Gilead'. Due to polution, toxines in the air and water and food, chemicals and nucleair waste, .. humans became more and more barren. The church has taken control and has thrown the constitution aside and created his own laws : women lost all of their rights, including the right to marry who they choose, the right to become pregnant when they want, the right to education, the right to read and write, the right to..

There are now a few catogories a woman can be part of : she can be a wife (wearing blue), she could become a handmaiden when proven she can still have children (wearing red), she can be an aunt, teaching the handmaidens how life works (wearing brown), she can be a Martha, working in the households (wearing green), she could be a saviour, punishing the women who misbehave (wearing black), she could be an econowoman, not having any skills or money (wearing stripes) or become a nonwoman, working on the fields or cleaning up the toxic wastes (wearing grey).
Young girls wear white until they get married.

The story is written by Vanfred (she doesn't tell us her real name). She tries to believe that the world will make sense again and therefor it is important to believe that someone, one day, will read her story.
Vanfred has had a daughter and was married. Her husband had been married before and therefor, when the new regime started, their marriage wasn't seen as legal so they tried to run. It didn't work. She doesn't know what happened to her husband and her daughter was taken away from her as she is deemed unfit to raise a child..
However, she became a handmaiden since she had proven being able to become pregnant and therefor given to a wealthy man and his wife, as an incubator.

The story is written in a clinical way, stripped from emotions, as it must has felt for the one trying to survive. Memories and feelings could make you incapable of surviving such a horrible change in reality.
Women were reduced to their ability of becoming a mother and men had no blame in anything. 
It makes be think about what is happening new in America : laws to protect women en children are changed, reducing women to incubators : we are no longer aloud to stop a pregnancy, not for any reason at all (not for rape, not because of age, not for health, not for..). It's not difficult to see the resemblance to what the author is writting : 'laws' written by the church, no longer ment to be forced upon people, are now forced upon women and there is no protest. I think it makes the world a very scary place and it makes this book suddenly a lot more plausible..

At the end of the book, we are a lot further in the future and looking back on the time of Gilead : investigators making fun of what people in those days must have known and thought, analysing in a cold way all of the horror that has happened, wondering why Vanfred didn't do more, be more like a spy and not realizing how easy it is to say you would have done it differenty if you were never in that position..

The author never ment for this book to be a glance at the future but sadly, some parts of it are happening (luckily not (yet) in every country). Let us hope, for this time, we try to learn from mistakes (even if they are only fictional) and don't do them (again).