![]() It’s unclear which of these Atwood considers the greater wound. They have no right to read and no right to pleasure. They have no right to work, earn, talk back, walk alone. The Wives, Handmaids and domestic Marthas of Gilead are helpmeets, vessels and servants. Both women, fertile chattel and barren wife, are debased both suffer a peculiar humiliation. “Which of us is it worse for, her or me?” wonders Offred. How India’s ancient myths are being re-written Why the Handmaid’s Tale is so relevant today Nothing else in the book – not the hangings, the scapegoatings, the slut-shamings, the unbabies – had the power of that menacing ménage a trois. ![]() ![]() ![]() If someone had said “The Handmaid’s Tale” at any time in the 18 years since I first read Margaret Atwood’s dystopia, one scene would have come to mind: the Ceremony, the ritualised rape of the Handmaid Offred by the Commander, while Offred rests her head in the lap of his wife. Strange the things that stay with you, what you remember and what you forget. ![]()
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