Margaret Atwood and what does this novel mean to her

In the American newspaper New York Times, there is an article by Margaret Atwood. There she discussed the meaning of her work "The Handmaid's Tale". 

The setting of the novel is Gilead that was influenced by Puritan society of the 17th-century. Also, it becomes a foundation of now-day America.

Atwood discussed the feminist topic in this article and answered the main reader's questions. The most typical question that Atwood was asked was if she considered her novel feminist. The answer that she gave in the article is that women as all human beings have different characters and behaviors so we can find female protagonists as angels and on the other hand as victimized. Female protagonists play an important role in "The Handmaid's Tale". They are central characters.

"Why interesting and important? Because women are interesting and important in real life. They are not an afterthought of nature, they are not secondary players in human destiny, and every society has always known that. Without women capable of giving birth, human populations would die out. That is why the mass rape and murder of women, girls, and children have long been a feature of genocidal wars, and of other campaigns meant to subdue and exploit a population. Kill their babies and replace their babies with yours, as cats do; make women have babies they can’t afford to raise, or babies you will then remove from them for your own purposes, steal babies — it’s been a widespread, age-old motif. The control of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet. Napoleon and his “cannon fodder,” slavery and its ever-renewed human merchandise — they both fit in here. Of those promoting enforced childbirth, it should be asked: Cui bono? Who profits by it? Sometimes this sector, sometimes that. Never no one."  said Atwood for The New York Times.

Also, Atwood said that the novel could be seen from a religious point of view. Men seize control and recreate an extreme version of the patriarchal society where women are 19th-century slaves. They are forbidden to read, control money, and have jobs. 

If you want to know about this topic, we create the Presentation for you: Is The Handmaid's Tale Feminist?

Margaret Atwood mentioned that her novel is for people who are looking at reality because "The Handmaid's Tale" is reality. She didn't put anything that has not happened in the world. She was collecting and seeing what was happening and is happening right now. 

Different women and men who consider themselves feminists will read the novel from a different point of view. Every feminist has his or her own definition of the word "feminism". So it could be seen from a negative, positive point of view or maybe in the broad and specific sense. 

This video is a conversation with Margaret Atwood. The topics that she discussed with the interview are the dystopian world that she created and feminism. 

To see what is a dystopian society you can check our presentation on The Handmaid's Tale

To conclude, Atwood mentioned three things that inspired her to write this novel. The first thing is the right-wing people who talked about women and their willingness to make women go back home. Their idea was to make America a totalitarian county. The second inspiration was the history of America in the 17th century. In Massachusetts and Harvard was established theocracy (the theological ideology where the Puritans excluded everybody who didn't follow the same idea). The last inspiration was fiction. Atwood wanted to try this kind of form and write the fiction where the narrator will be a woman. The majority of fiction and science fiction of the 30s and 50s were written by men. Also, the protagonists were men.  

Written by Kira Kotova