> Pardon my ignorance, but what is "The Handmaid's Tale" about?
Haven't read it, either, but if you do a Google search on
"the handmaid's tale" you get lots of sites with discussions,
review questions, and plot summaries. Impressive for a book
not even two decades old.
http://www.sparknotes.com/guides/handmaid/
Hard to summarize the plot summary. It's something to do with
Offred, who lives in Gilead where she's handmaiden (which is a
euphemism for "sexual playtoy and breeding stock") and at the
beck and call of powerful men called commanders. Somewhat
reminiscent of the scene set by Heinlein in "If This Goes On",
one of his "The Past Through Tomorrow" novellas, with a dash
of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" thrown in. Hm. Sheri Tepper's
"The Singer from the Sea" rings changes on that theme, as well.
(Does all feminist lit, and is this why some folks thought
Heinlein was a feminist?)
Try
http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/atwood.handmaid.shtml
for an ironic plot summary.
Well, I liked it. Now I know two names from the story.
As far as yanking a teacher on the carpet for teaching the story
is concerned, was she teaching preschoolers or something? It's
pretty obviously considered essential in feminist lit, at least
for now. But then around here they didn't want Allende's "House
of the Spirits" taught to highschool students in accelerated
English courses. Suspicious souls might consider the fact that
both of these books are part of the "feminist canon" a thread
that ties these objections together, though it's probably not a
useful observation.
---
Helge Moulding
mailto:[log in to unmask] Just another guy
http://hmoulding.cjb.net/ with a weird name
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