This analysis masterfully bridges the gap between speculative fiction and historical recurrence, revealing Gilead as a logical extreme of our current social fragility. It serves as a sobering reminder that the most chilling dystopias are those constructed entirely from the documented realities of our past.
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how REAL is The Handmaid's Tale?? (Margaret Atwood)Added:
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Talk about your thoughts about this book. Have you read it?
>> Penis.
>> Thank you. You saved me. You saved me.
>> Subliminal messaging from William. What does he want you to think about while you listen to this discussion about the themes of a literary classic?
>> It's actually funny is he's devolved.
>> And look at him getting more red.
>> It's not actual red. I don't know why it does that.
>> I'm not shelfish like that.
Hey guys, and welcome back to Unresolved Textual Tension. I'm doing the intro today because the book we're doing is The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
And so I thought it would be best that I, the one man among the three of us, kind of led and kind of, you know, took the lead um in this matter. So I will allow my co-host to speak if it's appropriate.
Uh this is Ellen and the lovely >> Maria. Hi guys, welcome back. How are you doing on this fine day? Whenever this comes out for you, who knows? It might be a month from now. Uh how are we doing? Are you ready?
>> Yes, this is a uh a book club pick.
>> This is a book club uh pick. Uh so it was done by our Patreon book club. So join if you want to support independent journalism. Uh I think most people have heard of this book. Obviously there's a TV show about it. I have not watched the TV show. I'd say the book is also very apppropo current events.
>> Whoa. Yeah, we'll get into that.
Christofascism. Yeah. Uh somewhat relevant at the moment. Uh they even mentioned incels in this book, which is hilarious. Hilarious.
>> Um but yeah, the this book is also if you took like lit courses in college, you might have been asked to read this book. Um uh it was one of two Atwood books I had to read in college. Um and so it is it is a book known of the like like culturally known but I don't know how many people have actually read it.
>> What is happening?
>> I don't know.
>> Sorry guys. I'm trying to mine that this was not a book club pick. It's actually an US pick.
>> Oh [ __ ] Oh, it's the mid. It's I was going to say earlier I was like I could have sworn this was a mid month and this is one whale picked for selferving reasons.
>> Oh, that's so funny. I mean that's very apppropo of this book that I decided to make in decision.
>> Wow, Commander.
>> Wow. This is one of those love. Thanks.
>> [ __ ] hell.
Okay, so Atwood and and Ursula Ka are are part of those authors that we have been forever saying we should do a book by and it's never seemed like a good time and now we found a perfect excuse for doing this one. So like, okay, let's go.
>> I I would also just like to state uh that this is very important. I'm not as red as I look in the camera right now in real life. I don't know why I look like a berry. Um it's really bad. I don't know what's going on with it, but just for you at home.
>> No, I'm a brown man, not a red man.
>> It looks like you got a little sunburn like like you were out.
>> I look like a lobster.
>> Um, okay. Uh, so the reason I had >> I know a quadril you can do.
>> Please say yes. I know I'm shellfish.
>> Okay. So, um, the reason I had actually picked this book is not cuz it's a great uh work of literature, though I had heard that it was. The reason I picked it is because um a little bit ago me and Maria had read Alchemist which is a published Germany fanfic which also um which actually was directly inspired by the television series um of the Handmaid's Tale where um the author of the fanfic had seen the TV show and was like, "Oh, but what if they were in love during a moment of non-consensuality or like one of what if one of them was a spy or something stupid like that?" And so we had read that and it was terrible and offensive and I was like, "Okay, I'd like to kind of look at how the original actually deals with the issues of we're going to be saying Rword a lot or just assault, but it's very clearly what the R word refers to in this book." And so that's why one of the reasons we're reading it now, me and Maria may be thinking about doing a video essay on it at some point. I don't know if we're actually going to get there. Maria keeps saying she's going to do a lot of academic reading and then I get all these things about her garden beds. So, we'll see if it happens.
>> Yikes.
>> Priorities phrase over here. My poor garden beds. But Will's not wrong.
>> I mean, I also have not gotten a chance to do it. So, we'll see if we actually do it. We also had an idea from a patron recently to do um like uh videos where we compare like action scenes in two different books, one who does it well and one who does it poorly. And I think like this is almost a perfect example of how does one book handle this thematic subject well and how does one handle it unwell. Um and like that we'll see maybe that'll be our next baby step on the way to a video essay. But yes, uh that is why we picked it. But I am actually really glad to have finally read it. Uh I had read one Margaret Atwood book in college called The Year of the Flood and it was pretty terrible. Um, and I'll talk more about how that relates back to this one a little bit in terms of style, but I was pleasantly surprised. This is a depressing book, but I think it's quite good.
>> I would agree. Um, it is for me it wasn't so much depressing as uh like striking too close to home in a way that like I imagine what baby Maria felt reading it back in college when all of and and I mean like during my bachelors so like be before like the first Trump presidency back when you know >> the vice president wasn't a Chris Joe fascist.
>> Yeah. And like things were just, you know, mildly more normal and chiller and like what that reading experience was like versus reading this now. And this is much more chilling for me. So not so much depressing but like chilling like this like uh almost anxiety inducing as I read it this time where I think the first time it was like oo what an interesting study of these you know like kind of in that way where you look at historical events and you're like gh >> that would never happen to us we're so you know and and it it's and the thing is it's kind of chilling in also in the way when if you ever look at a cult and you think how people end up in that place and in those dynamics and and in those weird rigid structures. Uh, and so it's almost like >> taking like multiple terrifying things and just smashing it together and then like providing it to you as a story. And I think uh one of the coolest things that it does that I I wonder because I haven't seen the TV show. Those of you who have if you want to comment the there's a really interesting thing this book does at the end where instead of asking you to look at it in a novel at the very very end it asks you to look at it as a historical document. Um, and you know, how much do you trust it? Where can it be placed? And like how you would look at it within a historical setting, which I find fascinating as someone who has read actual historical women's diaries and tried to analyze it for, you know, the thing that I was uh the lens by which I was reading them. Um, and it's I wonder if that makes it into the TV. I can't imagine it would. Also, the TV show is six seasons and this is one book. I don't I don't know how >> watching the TV show and in episode one already they had done so many uh creative interpretations that I just couldn't go on. I would be very surprised if they went that way.
>> What did you think of the novel over?
I I think this novel really um brought to the forefront this concept of how fragile the illusion of safety is but how very important it is for our well-being as humans.
Um because the first time I read this book as well, it was very much a thought experiment but also kind of like a almost like a a second world parallel to what could have been if our modern society didn't take the path it took.
Sort of. Uh, it felt very much like a a cautionary tale, but not something that was of any risk of being real at any time. And this the second time reading this book where the illusion of safety has started showing cracks like things I didn't think I would see in my lifetime, I am now seeing.
And the book just hit so much closer to home that way.
Um, for me it was quite depressing, especially a certain uh pet scene.
>> I know.
>> Well, all of a sudden you start thinking maybe the commander has the right idea, >> but it also makes you question that. It kind of makes you not want to be on the side of the main character and maybe think this is karmic justice a little for what they did. But anyway, keep going. There there's a third dimension to that as well because it made me think about what people did with their pets when uh the war in Ukraine broke out because we would see all these new stories of people like carrying nothing but the clothes on their backs and their pets in crates trying to outrun the Russian soldiers and people just letting their horses run off into the wilderness. Uh, and it just it hit uncomfortably close to home because I I actually asked myself what would I do?
What would be the best thing to do? And just it was a bit too personal at that point. Um, so we took a little break in the book right then.
>> Yeah, it was a bit much. It is interesting to compare to real life. Um because there's also ways in which there are things that have happened, you know, in the last 8 years that I never thought would happen, but also the reactions to them have not been the same. Like who would have thought that in the presidential election following the repeal of Row versus Wade, the conservative of would win. You would think women would come out in droves to vote against him, and that just didn't happen. And I find those aspects a little bit missing from the novel in terms of its realism. Now, I'm going to say that I don't think the novel is really trying for realism. It's much more of kind of a parable fairy tale feel to it and it's also a very subjective feeling of what does it feel like to be this woman telling this story to herself essentially. And so like I don't think that's a problem. I think one of the problems with Year of the Flood is that Margaret Atwood did try to do more like world building and explaining specifics and she's bad at it and so that book is kind of stupid. But like it really works here. But there are ways that like I think again there there the the build the one of the weaker parts to the book to me are the flashbacks of how they got to this point because I'm like that just doesn't make a ton of sense.
And like I think you you you you are weakening the story as a whole almost by trying to explain it without explaining it super well.
>> Yeah. And I I would agree with that.
Really quick though, I do just want to acknowledge like this really big elephant in the room, which is that every almost everything we see here happening to our main character, Offred, uh, unknown real name, uh, is stuff that women of color have been subjected to, uh, in this.
>> Yeah. Well, it is. You had a lot of like slave owners.
>> I'm going to argue about this a bit, but go ahead. The thing is it's it's the the idea that the I one of the things is that sometimes the the stories parallel and it's not exactly but like the position of you know the woman who gets taken to bed that the wife knows about and >> I find people who say this I I find it to be a somewhat dismissive form of analysis almost though it's almost a way of going like oh the book is like talk like the book is like ah we don't quite have to listen to it as much. Um and I I think that does a disservice to the book and I also think it's sort of a fundamental misunderstanding of how dystopia as a genre works. Um and so I'll I'll not so much that these things didn't happen to women of color. They did, but like all bundled together in a narrative where there's also absolutely no sense of community and there is this overriding pre like I like to say that like I don't know. I find that that I'll get into it more, but I find that argument to be a little bit dismissive of what the book is actually doing.
>> I mean, you can use that as a divisive argument, but you can also use it as an acknowledgement that two things can be true at the same time. And that's how I view it as the it it putting in the uh the horrors of this book kind of connecting and and you know forcing those conversations and having those conversations about that and and so I very much see it as two things can be true at the same time that this book can be good valid and and doing things that are important and work really well from a thematic and literary aspect but also is depicting things that you know uh women of color have been through and people of color have been through and that it it one of the things that this book does is by having it where we see these uh and we're a lot of dystopian.
We see a lot of like the you know white characters, you know, going through this and struggling through this and putting it in a a realm that kind of causes like the larger panic. But I just I just think it's something that should be acknowledged. I'm not saying it lessens the book. I really enjoyed this book more so this time than I did the first time I read it. The first time I read it, I read it as a college student who had to read it because she was in a course and we had to talk about it. And I found this time I was much more excited to talk about it. So I take nothing away from the book by bringing that up, but you know, it is something that, you know, you do kind of have to acknowledge.
>> Well, I'll I'll get into it more later.
I I would actually even argue that the the way the the novel wraps up is a very conscious effort from the author to draw rather visible parallels even for the person who isn't very socially conscious about these things should at that point kind of stop and go, "Oh, this kind of mirrors something that did happen in the past very closely." Uh, it's just that it didn't happen to maybe me, it happened to other people.
>> I did find that end the note at the past going back to a little bit or the note at the end about it really changes kind of how I feel about the book because it makes it feel so much more historical.
like there are themes throughout the book that that are already there but then that his sense of hysterosity that it gives the the novel and the framing of it really change how I feel about the story in a lot of ways so I think it was a very interesting decision before we go further though we should just most people know what this book is about but for those who don't >> so the premise of this book is uh a world in which that feels very similar ilar to like our world say in the '9s uh that where a like kind of cristofascist regime has taken over and we're kind of in the after times of that takeover where uh there are now very regimented roles for women and men and you have women broken down into several categories of wife. Uh and so you have like all the people who kind of like were part of the takeover get to be part of the upper echelon. Um and basically what this group was fighting against was you know a lot of stuff women's sexual freedom abortion uh incels it was caused by incelss explicitly that's the only reason given in the novel is that men were incelss >> and um and they kind of create a society where uh and the other thing that is happening is infertility uh due to uh nuclear accidents chemical waste and a bunch of stuff. It has caused a lot of infertility. Uh population numbers have crashed and what they're trying to do is rebuild the population within the like very strict society they've created. And the society is basically this. On top you have like the people in power, the commanders, they're all the people that helped bring this about and the commanders get to have wives. The wives dress in blue. But a lot of these guys, they're kind of old and their wives kind of old. And also a lot of infertility had been happening for a while now. So each of these guys get provided a handmaidaiden. A handmaid a handmaidaiden is a woman who had who previously had a child but was not allowed to stay in her previous marriage and or keep her previous child because it was either a second marriage. She hadn't been actually married when she had a kid, but she had been shown to be have a fruitful womb, if you will. And so they take these women who have shown the ability to have babytoes and they pair them with a commander and a commander's wife in their household in an attempt to get pregnant and then create bibitoes. Uh and you have like a certain amount of time with a certain family before they move you on to another one. And you don't get a name if you're a handmaiden in this society. You are referred to as of and whatever the guy's name is. So a Fred, of Warren, of Glenn. um uh like such and then you have like the servant class which are women called Marthas who wear green and are kind of coded to be people of color.
This is also a very rustist society.
Everyone in power is white. Um and >> I think specifically they ship away the blacks and Jews if I'm I'm remembering correctly in the text.
>> I know the Jews specifically and some of them just got >> children of ham are black people. Oh, >> they mentioned that. I just I'd read this years and years ago, but yeah, in in the novel when they say Children of Ham and the Recolonization Act or whatever, that's black people.
>> Oh, okay.
>> Though it is you are correct. There is one of the Marthas who the way she was speaking like the specific dialect. I was like, this is like an African-American vernacular almost.
That's weird.
>> Well, and also just the way it was coded and I I might be wrong on that.
>> That's interesting cuz to me they were just coded as like auntie like like older women like kind of thing. I might be wrong about that. Don't don't quote me on that.
>> Yeah, don't not Maria 2025.
Uh >> I got the impression that they were all white, but I don't know.
>> Yeah, I I mean I now that you're saying that, well, I definitely could be wrong.
Uh >> well, St. Jen says the same thing. Seem to be mammy coated. They are mammy coated, I think. I just don't think they actually I don't know. I didn't get even that coding necessarily. I think that since this is this Gilead is a product of the romantic fantasies of a white supremacist Christian upper class, that is why I tend to assume that even the the servants are >> Yeah.
>> white.
>> Yeah. I mean, and listen, honestly, that makes a lot of sense given how >> it's also just not explicitly mentioned.
I don't think outside of the >> couple it would it would kind of because in sexism we have this uh this way of making nonsexually attractive women into mommy types traditionally uh that aren't like the the motherly types, the cooks, the the housekeepers, the carers.
>> So I took it as a parallel to that but I don't know.
>> Yeah. And the thing is I definitely think that is happening whether they are people of color or you know just white there is definitely like that happening.
Um and then uh and so the marthas are the servants, the cooks, the housekeepers, and then you have like the people on the more fringes who are like you have guys doing normal work and then they're icono wives who kind of perform all of the duties and it is a very like strictly controlled uh society where women are not allowed to read. One of the great mistakes apparently was giving women the ability to read. Um, and so the only women that are supposed to be able to read are the aunt. So there's also the aunts. Uh, and the aunties are the women that they created to subjugate other women. And they're the ones kind of in charge of like the handmade program and training the women who used to be normal ass women into being handmaids. Um, and so you have all of these different like kind of classes. And our story specifically just focuses on a specific handmmaid. um we get cuts back to her previous life and kind of as Will mentioned what led up to this as well as her entering a new household uh where her now her name is now Alfred and she and her kind of like dynamic in that up until the end of the book and how those things so it's it's very much as much as it has this large world and like these political things that have happened around it the story is very much focused on what's mainly happening in this house as much as the main character wants to know more and the end of the book kind of gives you much more of that like historical context that we were talking about. But I would say that that is the premise you have been premised.
>> Boom. Um yeah, I found so the first thing I found was that Atwood's writing style is really nice. She's not the best pros like like some of her descriptions are a little bit like they're not bad.
They're just not inspired. But the overall way she puts together scenes and her pros, I think is really nice. You can feel it early on that there is a kind of amorpher amorph amorphism amorphousness to um the the feeling you get from Offred of what's going on around her of like the women. There's a sense that like you don't quite know what's going on at any time, which is really interesting. Um, and I I felt like that was one of the things that immediately kind of tells you what the story is going to be like and that what the story is trying to achieve again to kind of um contrast it with Alchemist which I found to be just written in a mode of like you know romantic essentially and so like that does not really give you lend itself to the same weight to events later.
>> I completely agree. The other thing I find about the actual writing of this is that the first person feels very intentional in where it is very grounded in what this character can remember or not remember and also her mistrust of her own retellings of these events.
There's a point about I want to say a third in or maybe halfway through where she talks to you as the reader and says she's writing to you because that's a better way to think of it and then later she like is clinging to the idea of somebody listening or hearing or ingesting this story later and she has to believe somebody is and it very much I find it a very good use of first person because the characters sentences and some of the the the pros is used very effectively I find to give a so like someone who is pulling the story and then she'll like repeat something three times and each time she says it it is meaning something else and how it's where and you can tell like it's somebody thinking through and then finding their way to the joke or to the the horror of it cuz there are some times where she like says a thing and at the end it ends up funny and there are other times where at the end it ends up it starts kind of funnier and then it ends up horrifying as she's processing saying and that I would say is one of the biggest strengths for me uh of the book is I feel the character processing.
I feel the character kind of uh through the narration. It is first person done very well. uh it feels specific to this character and it the way it is written feeds into that kind of amorphous like terror of not knowing and and also again like I mentioned the what do you remember correctly and also losing memory and all of that stuff which is just absolutely fascinating and it it really brings you into the novel very quickly. Yeah, in certain ways the form of the narrative itself characterizes Offred in terms of what she chooses, how she chooses to remember certain events and how she gets to remembering those.
Like you said, like she'll do it like three times and be like, "This is also not what happened." And it's one of the ways that again going back to Alchemist, it makes her feel like a much more active character than um the Hermione in that one did. Even though she actually doesn't do much on screen off for like the first half of this book just doesn't really do much. She mostly is looking at the world and perceiving it um because she can't really do much of anything but in telling it she is very much an active part um to you. She's a very act not a very she's a somewhat active part of part somewhat active to you the reader.
I mean I I should say some people have complained about the book being kind of slow and hard to get into because of the characters and stuff like that and I do get that like there there I was never really gripped to keep reading. I was just uh appreciative of the art while I was reading it, you know.
>> I I would completely Oh, wait. Were you going to say something, Yelen?
>> I heard I heard an intake of breath.
>> Yes. Um, yeah, I was thinking about how this is a very clear example of first person being used to uh really highlight a character voice because every single every single witism is very much much Offred's witisms. It's not that the situation is any in any way fun and she has what was I going to say? I kind of I kind of lost my training.
>> You're right. Well, in terms of like it is very much the her story as told by her and you get a sense of who she is through how she tells it.
>> I know that was not what I wanted to say. I I >> So, what I was going to kind of say that kind of piggybacks off of that, but also connects back to what Will was saying about, you know, the you're kind of disconnected. And part of the problem is we don't get to know many of the characters because this is told so singularly through Offred's point of view, her recollection, her experiences of these other characters. And she doesn't she doesn't get to know many people. There's even someone she gets intimate with, and we still don't know [ __ ] [ __ ] about him. was like what was his deal, bro? And so the other characters very much are just kind of forced into the archetypes of what Gilead the society. So like they they now live in Gilead, that's the name of the country. They are very much kind of forced into the archetypes of Gilead because that's how they have to perform and how they have to act. And there's a couple of moments as you kind of get into things where like the characters open up a bit as she gets to see a bit more of them, but it's never deep. We never get a deep understanding for any of the characters. The commander, I would say, is the character outside of Offred, we get the most understanding of. And still at the end of it, you're like, "What the [ __ ] is that guy's deal?" Like, "Why are you just a weird old white guy, my dude? Like, how did we end up here?" and and uh and so I do I completely understand like especially if you need like characters to really feel attached to. Um it this can be a hard uh thing to get into. And I've also heard a lot of people don't like the ending and like as much as I love the historical like suddenly like getting to the end of a novel and then being told to look at it historically, I freaking love that.
You know, >> you know, I I started when the epilog started I was like, "Oh, this is annoying." And then I very quickly was like, "Oh, this really makes me feel differently about the story." First off, [ __ ] you, Professor Guy laughing at her pain. Um, but there are moments where it's like, >> I mean, I guess we should just say for those >> the break is very annoying because you're so much before that in in off situation and like you're wondering what's going to come next. And right at that moment, the narrator just lifts you out and puts you somewhere else and and forces you to acknowledge that this is a history. And often the fates of the people that were in history, they never got a comprehensively written down, narrated story from start to finish. We don't know what happened to them. Maybe nothing happened to them. Like maybe she was taken to a room and she was found there a day later. And it's so unsatisfactory. But that is also al also the the nature of >> well it's also the point of the of the book.
>> Yeah. And and I find that that it's also it's the the thing that like we are all going to be reduced to history by history are suffering what it was to live in a time like that. And so many people have lived in times. I think at one point she says nothing lasts forever but sometimes it will last for all of your forever cuz yeah you just live in where you are now. Uh there's, you know, one of the more brutal parts about the ending is they talk about this being the early Gilead period and then they talk about a mid- period and then an later period and you're like, so this isn't even really fully revved up.
>> How in the mid period they learned from the mistakes of the early period. So they they learned that it was a very bad idea to let women be able to read. So that was one of the things they stripped away for the later periods.
>> Mhm. And and again it's you know all of our pains will not be remembered in history though it's funny because the professor >> abstract concepts to the the successors >> time and distance just dehumanizes you and that's so sad in a lot of uh ways but it's also very natural but there's a lot of really funny parts because it's like in the end where the professor is like okay guys >> he like makes puns a lot and like you can see how that would be totally inapprop if you were listening to selection She'd be like, "Oh, he's funny. That's good." But it's like you just came out of this heart-wrenching moment with her. You are still there.
You care and he's slightly making fun of her and you're like, "Fuck you." But at the same time, that is how we all ingest history. And that is all how we have to ingest history.
>> History. Um >> um Chris M says, "Uh the end worked for me because it showed how history doesn't care about individuals just like Gilead didn't care about Offred. Um, we've actually had some great comments coming in on the side. Uh, Chris M once again earlier when we were talking about like the uh how the story is told. I felt like that was part of the story being told. They're isolated, but they're also selfisolating for protection. You can't really trust anyone, so you don't share deep things about yourself as far as like the characters connecting with each other.
>> Um, >> C Primo said, "Uh, the pros was pretty simple but clever. I love how uncertain and fearful everything feels which kind of >> I thought that was one of the things that early on I felt was so powerful and what made the books feel so dark is Alfred is really cut from connection with everyone else. She no one in that in among the handmaids can she really trust though there's some flashbacks later and stuff we'll talk about that but initially there's like nobody trusts anybody else nobody can talk about anything from the before time nobody can really talk about anything and that basic lack of connection is so dehumanizing and one of the things that I really think makes the work dystopian and one of the things we'll talk about more is that like this is a society that's not working for anybody nobody in this society even at the top is having fun >> and that's the nature of a of a regime like that.
>> Yeah. If you have read modern feminist discourse about um toxic masculinity, for example, uh one of the things these theories talk about is how toxic masculinity is sold to you as something that is good for men, but it's not actually good for the men that are in it. And this book very clearly parallels that in that even like everyone is allotted their very narrow little room of who they are allowed to be. And no one not not any a single person we see in this book is able to be all that they are in this little narrow slot that has been made for them >> or that they have made for themselves in the case of his wife. I mean, the commander probably didn't know exactly what was going to happen or where they were going to end up because that's how people work. We don't actually know what the end result is going to be.
>> So, and one of the things I loved about the historical bit at the end is they the guy that they think was the commander, he thought he was above >> Uhhuh.
>> everything. And that's what happens a lot of times within these systems. the and and specifically I'm going to talk about cults because I find this very cult adjacent cuz uh St. Jen makes the point I still find the rigid segmentation of the society feels odd after just a few years that seems like it would take generations to establish and honestly cults man cults are able to do crazy ass [ __ ] in short periods of time that create different structures and uh like social roles that people will fall into. Now granted, those are specific uh >> vulnerable people.
>> I'm on two minds of this story because I would in general agree with was it Jen who said it?
>> Yes, same Jen.
>> Uh that these things tend to take about three or four generations to establish.
But at the same time, we we do see it in cults. I think the diff the major difference between these uh cults and actual social change is the scale >> because the cult is often controlled by one person at the center and this person can usually only control so many people many people.
>> So but that is why we get the the spiderweb uh structure of the cults as well that they appoint people who can collectively keep even more people in line and such.
I I think the problem is that the book could open in a way where it seems like all of society is like this and then it could move on to understand that maybe no not actually this is the imperial core. This is the very >> like you know almost like a North Korea thing where it's like the center of the city is like this but not everywhere else.
>> Yeah, call me crazy. I don't think Gilead is very big. I think they're just very destructive, very able to like conquer and subdue people around them.
But I think it's still a pretty small state.
>> Yeah. And and there's that point where she talks about the center of the city being the most regiment regimented. Once you get out to the outskirts, it starts looking different. And so I very much got that vibe that there is like this is the political stronghold where things are the most regimented and kind of outside that it's kind of changed. And the idea I also got is they there was a lot of and again I do think it happens a little fast like like it goes from 0 to 60 very fast and you kind of just have to put your the hat on. The book does try in the flashbacks to be like and this is how the the domino started falling. But really quick I just want to make the point that talking about like how putting people into very rigid boxes of what they're supposed to be and how they're supposed to act. All toxic masculinity and how it's harmful for men. That discussion is [ __ ] hysterical. after learning about Christy Gnome's husband and hisitation.
>> Fetish.
>> Oh, I read about that. I I read about >> I mean, here's the thing. Even with the commander, there are in in those is something I thought a lot about. But it's like you know even people who are in control or in positions of power in a structure like patriarchy for example they do not actually control it in a meaningful sense. You know Peter the incredibly powerful guy he can't just snap his fingers and turn off homophobia. You know as a gay man that is a thing he just has to deal with. Not that Peter Theo is a good guy. He's an awful guy but whatever. But I'm just saying that like even at the top of society, you don't actually have that much agency over changing things like that. So the commander has certain basic human needs that are not being met in this society. And so he is in a way both the perpetrator and victim of it. And I thought that was a really interesting look at it and that yeah again this is not working for him. The reason he wants to play Scrabble is because he just wants some kind of the way I took it was that he just wanted some kind of connection with someone.
>> Yeah. Like so as someone who was part of making this society, he thought that he was far enough above it that he could bend the rules >> for his gratification and then learned in the end that that was >> Yeah, that was a mistake.
>> Yeah. He thought there was like a a gentleman's agreement and there wasn't in the end. it ends up that but because there is there's sort of an interplay where the elites get to bend the rules in a society more even though they're the ones who set the rules but at the same time they are still subject to them and so I thought that was kind of like an interesting >> comment on how the center of power can shift almost in in perceptibly.
So like at that time the the center of power had shifted away from this core group of old men and the now the system was now >> partly just reenacting itself and had put other players in these positions of decision that they felt they had to enforce that you know no dude you you are very much still part of this.
>> Yep.
>> And the world can't just be exactly what you want it to be. And also the power of optics that and the idea that like a bunch of these men do the same things, but if you get caught doing it, they have to condemn you. You have to be punished. Even though everyone gentleman agreement style was doing it the minute it comes out, you have to. And it it kind of reminds me of like the wives um you know being like I need to get this [ __ ] pregnant and letting you know them get >> impregated by people. Yeah. Who?
>> Yeah. Or their husband.
>> For example, the Epstein scandal.
>> Yeah.
>> Yep.
>> Optics, man.
>> I mean, >> yeah. That the problem in their mind was that they got caught because so many people were involved in this that they thought it was fine until, you know, it became visible and suddenly it's a problem.
>> I also thought kind of shifting a little bit an interesting thing. Well, no, I'll go into that later actually. No, it we're it's switching on to a different track about a different part of it. So, I don't want to derail the conversation.
I'll just put a little pin in it.
>> Um, >> do we really >> I was going to say, do we really want to go through the plot or do we want to just talk about it cuz there there isn't a ton of plot and I think most people kind of know it.
>> Yeah, I was just going to go over it in like 2 minutes cuz like I think the the basic arc of it is I No, no, no. For real this time. Um, >> uh, but you say that and then it's like 45 minutes.
>> Uh, St. Jen does say uh honestly looking at this like a cult does make that seem more believable to be honest. And the thing is I think that's kind of cuz like Will made it made the point before that this book isn't trying to be like uber realistic like as far it does have that kind of like cautionary fairy tale feel within also being very historical. And part of what makes it feel very historical is there we have seen atrocity like we have seen fascist regimes that do weird [ __ ] like this and you're like everybody just went along with it bro like and and you're like I wouldn't have gone along with it which kind of connects to the whole thing and I think cults are a perfect example of that and you know as well as you know the larger historical settings but super simple society falls Gilead rises a girl who we don't know the name of is trained to be a handmmaid. She gets placed in a house.
Things don't go well there. She doesn't have a baby. She gets put in a new house with this guy, the commander, his wife, Serena Joy, who's a [ __ ] But also, I kind of love Serena Joy. There's I I don't know. There's something about her.
She's sassy. Also, can I just say >> it's interesting.
>> I'm sorry. Go ahead.
>> No, no, no. Fit.
>> You're a woman. I don't want I don't want to prove this.
>> I don't know why it takes 25 minutes.
>> I'll allow it.
>> Well, she was going off topic. Um, it's hilarious that she is canonically an old, frail woman and in the TV show they were like, you know who should play her?
Hot blonde lady. Like her being old is a really actually important part of her character.
>> The first mistakes the TV show made.
It's like we can't have these people be old and crusty. No, they got to be young and hot too because this is television.
And I was like, you completely missed that.
Yeah, it's kind of important the plot >> and also the the fact that like these old men who are probably infertile are being given handmaidaidens and then everybody's like, "Oh, this isn't working. I guess we'll have other people sleep with them."
>> Uh because >> Oh, the handmaids are [ __ ] up.
>> Yeah. Um so, uh >> that was the official line, but everyone did not even buy it.
>> Yes. Offred is placed in this house. Uh she at first, you know, she plays everything by the rule. very much get the idea that for the most part Alfred has kind of survived by just kind of putting her head down and vibing through things. Uh and she has her new walk-in partner that she goes and she gets groceries with. She would like to be friends with the Marthas, but they don't want anything to do with her. But then one day uh the the car guy uh he's he's considered like a guardian and he also drives the commander around is like the commander wants to see you but also he like kisses her and he's like mwah baby I I've been so into you this whole time and she's like hot damn me too. And cuz like our girl is dying for affection.
She's she's not been touched outside of the weird way they do attempted inseminations in this which we'll get into. Um and she's she's dying to feel anything outside of the shitty fabric.
And it's actually quite nice fabric cuz they're trying to go like they're trying to do that thing like the pipeline from like uh being like a traditional wife getting offrid to like uber conservatism is wild. Um, you got to be careful when you're looking at those like uh, you know, how to make your own wool and make your own cheese and live off the land and then all of a sudden you're in weird places. Uh, but anyway, uh, and she she kind of like has flirty eyes uh, for the guy, but she also feels guilty because she had a husband. His name is Luke. She also had a daughter and they took her daughter and placed her with another family who was considered deserving. Um, and Luke basically says, "The commander wants to see you." And so she starts going and meeting the commander by herself every once in a while. And this is a big no no. They're not supposed to do this. She gets allowed into his library, which has a lot of words. She's not even supposed to look at words. They play Scrabble. She's confused. You're confused. Why is the commander playing Scrabble with her? But he kind of likes it. And then he starts like he starts peeling back the intimacy layers kind of one by one where like, you know, maybe he'll have a drink on occasion. And then he wants her to be kind of like, you know, he wants her to give a little sass. At first, she's very closed off cuz she doesn't know if she's going to get in trouble, but as she sees that he wants whatever is happening. Um, and he asks her, they end every night with a kiss and it has to be like a real kiss.
It can't just be like a peck on the cheek. But as she's kind of like exploring like whatever is happening with the commander and she wants to learn stuff, Serena Joy is also like there. So, a baby is born to another family and Serena Joy is like, I want that baby. I want my own baby to get pregnant. Offred. Uh, and it's actually an incredible scene. We can talk about it later. But anyway, she basically says, "Uh, I'd like you to get pregnant.
You'd like to get pregnant. Why don't we try somebody else?" Which is something that was pitched to our girl offered earlier by a weird doctor. Very uncomfortable scene. Um, but in this case, she's like, "Who would it be?" And the lady's like, "What about Nick?" And she's like, "I'd be okay with that." Um, and so the Serena Joy is like, "Bet.
I'll arrange everything. Don't worry about it. We'll put a baby in you yet."
And uh, right before that happens, the commander is like, "Hey, Offred, I'd like to take you to a party." And he takes her to this thing that shouldn't exist, which is this old hotel, one that we know Offred in her former life has been to, where there's a bunch of women who are basically prostitutes. And this is like state sanctioned cuz like as far as we know in this world there's no prostitution. There is no women only exist in the very strict hierarchies and uh roles we've seen. But here for the men there's this whole other role and he has disguised her as one of these like pleasure girls >> sexy ladies.
>> Yeah. Put her in a sequenced little outfit and like makeup and sent her in here. Uh, and she sees that like the part of one of the hypocrisies of fascist regimes where there are these rules but they don't count for the people on top that they get to engage with all this stuff because like men have needs. The commander tells her like of course this had to happen but like it's sanctioned. They like they'd rather be here. You know, these girls are all here willingly cuz it's like this or the colonies which is like terrible. Uh you you clean up bow-waste and die quickly.
Um, and there she sees a friend of hers who she knew from the before times, uh, who she thought had run off, who is now, uh, working in this pleasure hotel, if we will, and it's it's this odd scene.
And then the commander wants to have sex with her, and she's like, I don't want this. And she doesn't know how to engage with him as anything other than the inert form that lays there during the state sanctioned coupling that they're supposed to do to make babies. And it's a very crazy uncomfortable scene. And then she literally has to go home, get all of the makeup off, and then Serena Joyy's like, "It's time time for you to go see Nick." Nick knows all of this has happened. Um, and they they do the thing. And this is one of the scenes where the character tells you three versions of what happened because none of them feel accurate. And also none of them are like it it's you almost feel like is she hiding it out of shame? Is she hiding it out of wanting to pro protect the vision? Is she hiding it out of just, you know, the faulty things of memory? And you're never really sure.
Um, but then her and Nick start an illicit uh affair on the side where she'll go up outside of Serena Joy knowing. Uh, and this goes on for a while. There's also the lady she goes to the uh grocery store with who's her like uh they they pair the handmaids up to keep them in line so that the one will tattle. this other lady of Glenn, she is part of the resistance. Um, and uh, Offred learns about it and at first is very interested, but as things kind of get good with Nick and she's like, I've made a life for myself. I'm I I want to stay with him. I want like all of this stuff. Uh, she pulls away from OffG Glenn and stops kind of engaging. Uh, and then, uh, Serena Joy finds out about the trrist to the Pleasure Hotel, and Serena Joy is pissed and she's going to punish her. And as she's waiting, uh, Offred's waiting in her room for the punishment to happen, >> the black vans of the really shitty, like, if you did something wrong, a black rock Yeah. that rocks up to the house and takes you away and then you're never heard of again or if you get bought brought back, it's with like problems.
So, a black van rocks up and she's like, "Oh [ __ ] Serena Joy reported me. I didn't think that was it." No, Serena Joy did not report her. And Nick comes in and goes, "Don't worry. I'm part of Mayday. They're going to take you out of here." And he's she's like, "What if he was an eye? The eyes are the spies that they implant everywhere to learn things." And she was like, "He's telling me I can trust him and go with him, but he also could just be an eye." And she gets into this van and they drive off and you have no idea as the reader. Is she actually getting taken by the Inquisitors or is she actually getting taken to freedom? And it just ends there. So you are heightened the tension of that scene scene. Serena Joy finding out >> the black van rocking up, Nick coming in, not knowing if we can trust him or not. Has he been a spy this whole time?
And then it cuts and we get this lecture, a recording of a lecture at a university like a hundred years in the future, maybe 150 years in the future, talking about this discovered document that was found as a bunch of recordings from a a basically the equivalent of I think it was Maine and they've put it together as a manuscript and they study it as a historical text and discussing like how do you approach it trying to figure out who the commander was because that's the thing we have the most information of from a historical lens to try to place him discussing you know what that would mean and then like acknowledge and like Will said it's written in this kind of like haha academic lecture like you can tell this is like an academic uh conference and like they're like don't want to miss lunch like yesterday guys right am I like >> this isn't >> and don't miss the hike >> yeah and like Gilead isn't even there.
Gilead is it's a Gilead Gilead and Iran which is kind of funny to say nowadays.
Um you know Iran yes okay uh you know two 20th century fundamentalist states or whatever. So like Gilead isn't even really considered unique in that respect too whereas for you know for um off it was such an all-consuming thing. the at one point the lecture is like they lived in a society with its own morals so we can't even really judge you know the thing people do about books which is sort of true but also not and you were just there um and so like yeah it really does have that academic distanced tone >> it is interesting when you think about it that not that many years had elapsed since the Iranian revolution >> and a major regression >> when it was written >> when this was written yeah >> when this was written Um yeah, and so and that's kind of where the book ends. There's also some stuff with like a friend of hers called Moira who's like a badass lesbian.
>> Um which I think is interesting cuz throughout the book she's positioned as like rebellious and like she's going to kind of if anyone's going to get out of this situation, she's going to get out of it. She makes some attempts and then what we find is at the pleasure house that like that's where Moira ended up when she tried to escape. And she's actually just kind of like there now and that's just that's it. she's done trying to run and like that's one of the ways the book is very trying very much to be unherooic and unfictiony is that like you know uh Offred says to herself like she would have liked to prefer to think that Moira had kept fighting but in the end she just didn't cuz sometimes people don't and even Offred's kind of arc of like well I'm in love with Nick now I'm not really going to think about my problems anymore feels a very flawed human thing to do in this situation. Um, and and that's the thing is that the way people this book did have some really good insights into the ways that we take for granted oppression and discomfort in a society as like, well, we just kind of do what we do. You know, when we see bad things happening, we don't actually want to risk our lives to change them. We're just like, well, within these little cubes, we'll do what we can, but we're not going to fundamentally shift things around. And yeah, life sucks, but what are you going to do?
>> Yeah. And the book is very interested in in talking about this phenomenon where human beings are able to adapt to situations that would conceptually seem impossible.
But what the organism of a human is wants is to survive. It wants to perform its basil needs. eat, sleep, procreate, and uh as a means of survival, like you can adapt to almost anything. And unlike in fiction where a hero has to have its its satisfactory sort of arc, real people can just find a baseline of I can survive this and they can stay there. Mhm.
>> And it's it's very it's disappointing. It's unherooic. It's very unglamorous. But I really appreciated that the book >> wanted to acknowledge this. It was not it's not a um what is it an idealized version of >> yes >> what how women should react when put in this situation. It's not fingerpointing in that sense. It's it's acknowledging that, oh, everyone's just, you know, trying to do the best.
>> Yeah. And it it kind of helps you look at history and be like, okay, that's kind of people kind of just got along.
There's >> that's why not everyone openly uh demonstrated against the Nazis because some people did and they were taken to camps, they were executed, they were charged as traitors and beheaded.
thought it happened.
>> Trevor Noah has this one joke uh who is a South African comedian um who's not black. He's whatever the specific thing they have between black and white is.
Anyway, he's he he he has a book called uh >> yeah, but I don't really want to say >> oh >> mto is a different thing. Um but I think that's in anyway he's whatever that specific thing is which is illegal in that time period for his for him to have been born at all. And so he like legally can't be yeah like the child of of of white and of his father and mother. But anyway, he talks about how he's living under a part tide and his biggest problem as a teen was that he had really awful acne. Like it was so bad and it bothered him every day. And I always remember that as like oh yeah people even in like really bad circumstances have very normal kind of >> they always have their one life.
>> Yeah. Exactly. and like and and in a certain way you get used to the box. And I think that's kind of the failure of Gilead as a society is that it's actually not really very good at getting people to fit inside their box. Like I I expected >> well and the other thing is I I think it hadn't quite worked out its system of incentives so far cuz what you would expect honestly is for Offred to keep thinking about like oh okay after I'm done with this duty I get to go be I don't know whatever job they have whatever after job care they have for um uh handmaidaids would be the thing she was looking she would be looking forward to like oh I get to go live a stable with a pension because I have this many children or something like That's how those systems tend to stabilize.
>> Well, actually, it's Isn't it imply that that kind of is what happens? Because if you manage to have a child, you don't get declared as unwoman and get sent to the colonies. So, there's an >> something better.
>> The question for me is, do you continue just being a handmaiden forever once you have a kid? Like, you have one and then you get sent to another house or another house or do you get to be a wife at some point? It's especially I think it's it's it's mentioned at one point especially by offer that they don't really know what happens afterwards. One of them goes missing and she's like yeah and they went to wherever they don't talk about us going and like you can almost see that as a commentary and that the early Gilead period hadn't worked out this crink and then maybe the middle Gilead period has a way of because that's actually again how people in societies even that's how you we think under like an oppressive system like latestage capitalism. You know what I mean? You think like it's really awful, but I can't change the system and I'll have my pension or >> maybe they were sold a lie. Maybe they didn't get a better fate if they were handmade and and conceived of a child because it is mentioned that the child will be nurtured by them for a short amount of time and then taken away. So it's not like it's not like your round ends if you have a baby.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. So >> maybe that tantalizing promise of something else was enough >> or even like it could have been something like, you know, you get to be a Martha afterwards or something like that, you know, like and so that's one of the ways that like >> exit the the the loop or maybe you get to become a wife for someone who wants to have kids but is younger.
>> Conno wife Connor wife. Um and and so there were little things like that I mean to complain that like again I think the novel does really well in certain ways but in other ways it feels a little bit off um in terms of just it does kind of like you know systems like that they are really awful but they generally have to stabilize to a certain level of understandable terribleness that like people can mostly function under the kind of extreme um social uh isolation that she feels as a handmmaid is really just not tolerable for long periods of time which is kind of shown in the book in that they keep killing themselves or running away or like whatever. So it's not tolerable. Um >> and it makes you wonder I wonder what middle Gilead looked like like you were saying did they fix that? Like did they have like handmade bingo and you know like and >> Yeah. Like it's still a terrible system but there's more of a okay we can kind of keep trudging forward.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Or maybe they figured out that you actually have to show them the carrot a bit more. Like you have to show them a vision of what what's going to happen after. So it's not just an endless trek to a sort of unknown destination.
>> Uhhuh.
>> Yep.
>> Yeah. And I think that's something that like I don't know cuz again the book is not really the book is dystopia. It's not supposed to be realistic. You know what I mean? That's the thing about a dystopia is like, and this is, I think, one of the reasons I find it a little annoying when people bring up like, well, you know, dystopia is when things that have happened to people of color and minorities happen to white people.
It's like dystopia is actually a little bit more. It is as a literary form about the exaggeration of those things, about the feelings of total defeat and isolation. It's not like this will happen for a while and then it'll stop. It's like, you know, the world government versus like one government.
And this in certain ways plays and doesn't play with that because it is very much about the historicity. It's so funny. I can see you winding up to talk and I'm trying to say my point really quickly.
>> So it it is kind of in ways playing with that in that it does feel total from the point of view of Alfred, but it is historically just a moment in time for everyone else. And I I think the book kind of plays with that a bit. And I think it's a little bit of a distur disservice to just say that it it is fully I don't know I slightly ran out of steam. You kind of is what you were going to say.
>> It's kind of on the topic of this because uh the the talk of like how white feminism tends to focus on oh now things that have already happened to per persons of color are now happening to white women. and how that is often lobbied as a criticism of white feminism exclusively. But time and time again also we see we see examples of people trying to tell stories that isn't theirs to tell and kind of mucking it up in the process.
>> Yes. Um, so at at Margaret Atwood told a story that was hers to tell as as a white woman in this time that she was living and experiencing when she wrote this book because it was a different time for what it is today.
Like things have happened today that they couldn't have conceived of back then. You can kind of tell when she talks about how data was was uh compressed from from VHS tech discs, then you're like, "Okay."
>> Yeah. And clearly the internet never happened in this in this version of the world and so on. Um so I I think at one point we have to kind of ask ourselves what do we want?
Do we want people to tell the stories that are theirs to tell with awareness or should we criticize everything because it isn't all comprehensive of every experience that ever was? I don't know.
>> I mean, I think partly people would answer, oh, you should read you should listen to voices of color or whatever, which I do think is is a valid response to an extent. Like I am actually very interested in reading Beloved by Tony Morrison after this because I do remember parts of that book are very kind of hopeless in this same way >> and one of the major problems is that these stories don't get te told because capitalism >> keeps them from being told like that capitalism favors white authors and that isn't >> Yeah. I mean the system but you know the the story can still be >> I think the other thing is like if this was a thinly veiled >> retelling of something that I don't know had happened to like Kenyon just Okay, I'm not going to say a specific one cuz that's disrespectful. But if this had mirrored a very specific uh group of people in a time place and their suffering, but told it to white people in the future, I could see how that would be very um uh offensive. But this is dealing with more general kind of uh um things that women face in a Christian society. Not so much one there. There isn't a onetoone correlation here. um it is very much more so a grabag of things and I don't even think she was necessarily well I can't speak to that.
I was going to say I don't know how much she was she was inspired by that but I think she has spoken about >> I didn't feel like she one to one piece step by step by step stole the story and put white women's faces on it >> which would be something worthy of >> prison and I think that's why I find it to be something of a dismissive argument cuz it's a bit like okay boomer what first world problems >> see for me it's more about just acknowledging that like we look at this and we're like oh my god how could this happen and so it's less of what you're talking about for me when I say that and more that this this has happened just not to us yet. Like that for me is the point is that it has we look at it and like I I think about the young Maria reading it in college when a lot of this stuff was significantly less scary and less anxietyinducing and stuff like that and being like, "Oh, how could that happen?" But it has happened like the the the you know and and not in this exact setting, but the you're part of a system where you're in a very specific role. There was, you know, like and to use American slavery, there was the house slaves uh and the field slaves and then the benefits that you got by making yourself useful to the masters and you know like the aunts as an example of taking portions of the uh um population that you need to keep underfoot and using some of them as the tool of oppression feels very apppropo. a the a lot of and so there's >> middle managers are are fundamental to fascism and empires.
>> Exactly. And so it's it's not that >> in Sweden too we had white slavery.
>> Yeah. And for me it's just that it's that it has happened and whether you know just to people of color or in other countries you know uh to whatever group that they subjugated it it's the just acknowledging that and not just being like wow this crazy thing. How could this happen? And just saying in whatever form to however it did happen, it did.
It has happened something and not form of Gilead.
>> But I think the thing that people find surprising about it is in the modern day like in the modern day, how could a society like ours descend into that?
>> Well, we are seeing a regression as we speak. Well, I know, but I think that's why what I meant is like that's why people have that feeling about it of like, oh, that's shocking is is not we know in the past barbaric things have been done and we increasingly know that and we know that there were societies that were socially regressive and we understand the dark side of societies that thought they were progressive but weren't.
>> I I just hope that is a kind of arrogance that people are slowly being stripped of now.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. And Yeah.
And I think that's the important thing about reading this in this time is that it does begin to strip you of that that arrogance. But I would say, you know, like young Maria definitely read that with the arrogance of how that couldn't happen now, you know, like that that's that that wouldn't, you know, we'd see that like when >> I I yes and no. I mean, certain parts of it are are a little silly. again getting into the details of it >> of course >> but like and >> I mean the point isn't that something exactly like this could happen >> it's it's more of a a thought experiment >> yes >> that draws of fundamental theories that people living then and right now have like I'm sure that this is describing some people's idea of a perfect world for them >> it is it is disturbing how much the commander sounds like Andrew Tate with his It's the exact same rhetoric. It's so weird. That that part to me was really weird with like, oh, these ideas have not changed. And I remember if id heard these ideas as a kid, I would have been like, that's oh, that's an interesting thought of how somebody like that would think, but nobody actually thinks like that. And it's like, no, we're back at that.
>> Mhm. And just the the whole part where the commander is like, you know, men didn't really have a connection to women anymore. Like women were like doing so much stuff and we didn't really like we'd lost and we had to like get back and now now instead of just having one woman who like embodied we've just separate and now you have multiple like and it's just it's this weird and you're listening to it and you're like okay Incel like okay okay literally >> and he's talking about biological realities all the time and like the stuff like that that like is just >> I felt so cheated because up until that point I at least had been trying so very hard to kind of like see humanity in him and sort of empathize with him and I felt so betrayed. Well, because the book is doing that on purpose. The the the and and part of that is there's this thing that happens sometimes and especially where like you'll be in a story and it's very easy to hate the women that are presented in positions of power because of how we structure society, how we uh dogmatize or uh uh demonize women in power and stuff like that. So, you come into this like expecting to hate Serena Joy and then like the commander like smiles nicely once and you're like he's one of the good ones and it's just like and the book's like no smack sack smack smack smack. No.
>> Well, I mean that that is a that that is that's not a bug that's a feature of the middle managers of empire in that you dislike the person who is actually you actually interact with which is the middle manager. Well, you're not actually interacting with the upper crust who is actually causing your suffering because they're not as immediate. And so the Marthas are much cruer even though the commander is the one who is much more in power in that society. Um and and he also kind of likes to play like he doesn't really know what's going on at times, which I thought was was interesting. There's a lot of subjectivity in the story of like how much does he know what's going on versus not cuz like at other times it does seem like he knows more. So I thought that was interesting. And then at the end when they they do the historical thing and they're like actually he designed a lot of this because there's two men they present that could be this guy. And both of them were like elbows deep in the creation of some of the shittiest aspects of this and you're like oh [ __ ] that guy. And also like I I I'd just like to say I really like Serena Joy is not great but I I really >> as a character to watch and like read I loved the scenes with her. I found some I found her like infinitely readable.
There's also um Banana Mess says Maria Elbow reveal.
>> Maria Elbow reveal very titilating. Um, but the uh when you discover that she was like a like like one of those like TV singers that would go around and like tour and stuff and then she ended up uh like lecturing for like a return of traditional female values and stuff like that and how like you know a woman's place was in the kitchen with her family and she realized that she wasn't doing that but she had to do this sacrifice to eventually get us there and for other women and there's this point where the book acknowledges that this isn't actually what she wanted and she's there's definitely a part of her that is suffering and regrets where things went and you see it like there's this >> and you find out that she's got like arthritis and like a lot of ways where the things that she's doing to fill her time are painful and there's this like edge to Serena Joy that I love like she's just she's terrible but she's delicious to to and she's one of the characters I find really interesting. A lot of the women you see aren't very good women, but what room did they have in the house to be the good persons they could have been in their situations? Like the book does a very compelling uh >> it is very compelling in how it shows how this hierarchy sort of pits everyone against each other. it especially it as a form of control pits women against each other by dividing them into these group that are antagonistic from from each other like as Alfred walks by the econo wives and she's like thank god I'm not one of them at least >> and they you're a sex slave >> yay you and and the and the Marthas >> do think of themselves as separate and they are more fortunate and you know they don't have much empathy for for these other women. It's very much every man for himself.
>> Yeah, they subdivide it and there's a real lack of community. And again, I think that's early on I was like, "Oh, that's why Offred keeps wanting to touch people." And then I realized, "No, Offred's just horny. This is kind of a joke." But there there was a there was early on a point where I was like, "Oh, yeah, she's just this is she has a craving for almost any kind of human connection, which has been denied to her." And that is in the novel. I mean, in terms of also why she keeps seeing the commander is because she wants just some kind of a connection with someone.
I also feel like that is something Atwood wants to talk about. How uh traditional Christian values ask you or demand that you suppress your sexual uh needs and drives as a human being and and how that does not really have a place in their societal structure. like it is something that should exist between these two people because God says so and it's not supposed to exist as something selfserving. It's supposed to exist for this specific purpose and the the the system that is formed this way, it can force people to repress these feelings. But we see everywhere how it can't make them go away, >> way >> and that is very much mirrored in how Offred is thirsty.
>> The commander also is thirsty. He can't exist in this system. You need these salacious clubs if these god-fearing men had everything they wanted.
>> Yeah. The thing is even the straightest whitest a male will not be happy under a perfect patriarchal system because the he will have needs that are not acknowledged by this system that does benefit him the most but he is still caged within it and cannot necessarily control it. Christine Gnome's husband and the the things he once done and then how a lot of uh sex workers have spoken about that a lot of the men that want like that kind of to be submissive to be in like the bimboification a lot of that stuff are coming from high power high positions of power in whatever industry or thing they're doing like and and in the perfect world that Christy Nome and her husband would say they Mr. Gnome ain't getting it the way >> or like you know that whole thing about how conservative uh conventions regularly um crash Grinder uh because too many people use it all at once.
>> Yep.
>> Or that a lot of the swinging Christian Yeah. communities.
>> A lot of heard of that.
>> A lot of the swinging community is like conservative older white couples that want and and they'll want, you know, like >> you know, >> you can't banish that shadow part of yourself. Like repression is not the same as as cleaning out that part of you. Um, so one thing, uh, Bananamos wants to know, do we think the commander had a nice set of Silicon Valleys in his closet, too? I mean, that is one thing she's like like she was like, "Does he want does he have like weird kinks or anything like that?"
>> She keeps she keeps waiting like when is it going to show up? When is this writing crop coming out? When is the and it just never does.
Going back to it a little bit, I did find it interesting that like the the way Christianity is handled in the book is like as a militant atheist, I wish she had gone for the kill a little bit more because the book is more like the book is not so much an indictment of Christianity as it is a kind of fascism with some with Christianity as its veil or not veil exactly but like it's not fully a >> like like it really is kind of using it as a veil. And you can see cuz like they also go after like >> um >> Quakers, Catholics, >> priests. It's it's much more like communist fascist in that sense of like anyone who's not the state. You're like you're supposed to be religious but not in a specific way. Yeah.
>> But that is very cultlike.
>> It is very cultlike in that >> it makes way the only way. It really feels incredibly cult like especially the you know like when you think about like the the um you know the the sect of Mormonism that is like the really really really crazy sect versus the other people who are just you know like wearing their undergarments.
>> But like I I felt like more could be done with that if she had wanted to in terms of talking about how dilletterious the the Christian um conception of humanity can be. Um, like in some of the stuff we were talking about, >> maybe I a Christian.
>> I mean, but that's the thing is I don't think she wanted to. I'm saying maybe for the time atheist I was like, let's go for it.
>> For the time period that she wrote it in, I don't even know if that was something that like she could have maybe gotten published that like as far as >> she was a woman and she was talking about feminist issues already. That's two strikes against her.
>> Well, actually, you know, the religious right used to actually be, oddly enough, even more powerful than they are now.
>> Yeah. And it's like I was thinking about with the Quakers that were helping Moira uh kind of like you know uh the female railroad like the the underground uh female railroad helping ladies escape um and uh they were Quakers and the >> this regime didn't like other sects of Christianity because there were specific like there was even a couple points where there was a like blessed are the meek. And then uh our girl is like they forgot the part where they say who inherited the earth bit like they're picking and choosing and really kind of carving away the bits of the religion that they want in a very cultlike uh manner. Uh cuz like there's like a point where there's like a Catholic priest and some other people that are are getting screwed.
>> Yeah.
>> In Yeah. I think in any true autocracy that tends to happen.
>> Yeah. Or like you know in Nazi Germany you were supposed to be religiously Christian but like priests were not cool like you know like and that's the way it is a lot of time. You you have an abstract sense >> where in the Quran does it say that women should have the kind of lives and rights as they've had in Iran for the last >> 20 30 like 40 years. So, it's one of those things where like >> my big issue with religion and I I've spoken about this with uh Christopher is when religion becomes government or like a a controlled tool. A lot of religions just functioning like on the ground like just uh but the minute you get like religious states things go down >> more problems.
>> Yeah.
>> So many more problems.
>> I don't like how they hate who we are as people.
>> Yeah. And as someone who is agnostic, I'm not the militant atheist that Will is, but someone who is agnostic and and agnostic in the way where it's like science for me is a pretty good explanation of a lot of the weird [ __ ] like the I I look at science as a you know like that's a >> but not like >> Yeah. Uh like for me a lot of religions I'm just like m there's I got too many issues on a like textual level.
But uh >> it's an unresolved on an unresolved tentional textual level.
>> The and the problem with a lot of religious governments as is with Gilead is they are picking and choosing what they want to live by quote and force >> in force excuse me. Well, see that's the thing is there are certain ways in that I think the Gilead way of life could could be much be made a much stronger make a much stronger case for that being actually quite a Christian way of life where you know there is like ideas of uh original sin and people being bad because they were born and those kinds of things I feel like could have been rolled up more into it and it just wasn't and I feel like that's a missed opportunity but you're right maybe she didn't have full editorial control.
>> Yeah. And again, it might not kind of shows in how the handmaids clearly would not be uh in line with any form of Christian sex. Like the closest thing you'd come would be Mormons. And even then, not all Mormons have multiple wives.
They have the go forth and multiply thing. Well, and also that's specifically because their founder made up some [ __ ] cuz he wanted to >> and specifically they also require wives and here we just have women.
>> Yeah. And it's it's a little different, but um I you know overall I'm really happy we read it. I I think it it is a very interesting book. Um and more than anything I think the thing that really hit me with it is is that that epilogue and how that reframes or I mean it doesn't reframe it because the book has kind of been building up to that point.
is really the capstone though of the sense that this is about a person living through a bad point in history and you're not going to get a satisfying narrative. And I think also the fact that this is a pretty short book really helps that because if this was a longer book that would be [ __ ] miserable and not make the point it wants to make as effectively.
>> Yeah, I I I read one similar to it. What was it called? The the bath house, I think.
>> I don't know. Uh it was set in like the Hellenistic period and it it was um the the point of view character was a a bath a pro a pro prostitute working in a brothel. If you know the title, please drop it in the comments. Um I'm bad with names, but that was quite miserable. I never read the second book in the trilogy because it was a bit too much for too many words.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. And I think connecting this back to Alchemized, I think one of the fundamental problems with Alchemized for me, especially after reading this, is that it very much, and as a fanfiction, this would be fine. Uh, it very much just feels like the aesthetics of The Handmaid's Tale is used in Alchemized.
And so it's and and like the point of alchemize has nothing to do with the actual like aesthetics, the her being like it it's this thing is used as the window dressing >> to enase the actual thick which is the part where we go back in time for 900 years and get the how they fell in love, how they met, the war, all of that stuff. Because the where this book is so much about like an individual and a woman's place within these rigid systems and terrible points in history and how they don't matter in the larger social setting, in the historical setting, all like all of the stuff we've discussed.
That book has no interest in any of that. It is not about exploring a woman's place in war or or like how someone who is underneath it even if we take the woman head out of it. Someone who is just under the ruling class or who is an outsider and their place in war or in the aftermaths of a fascistic regime takeover. Um it's not about that.
It is about the romance with the dressing of the these things kind of on top and it it is literally just a dark romance. And it makes me angrier than when I was the first when we first read Alchemized because of how much I hate that it took the cuz the red dresses and the um the like uh kind of gable hats that they wear to kind of keep them that she calls them her wings is so specific to the structure and all of the things in this book and how it works.
And to just take that and just pop it into >> Mhm.
>> it makes me so angry. Like and and again in a fanfiction that's absolutely fine.
>> But like we published this.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It is extreme. It really is.
It's almost like what I was saying earlier about how if this was a thinly veiled version of a thing that had happened to a real life group, that would be disrespectful. that book is almost a thinly is a thinly veiled version of what happened in this book and it feels disrespectful in that way and it it's not using it. One of the things I actually was kind of I found interesting is how little weight is given in a narrative sense to those scenes of assault with Offred um in that like we're they're barely there.
She doesn't even really think about them most of the time. it it's not the shock there isn't the like the drama and the shock value of it. It's just a very ordinary part of her oppression in a way. And I thought that was interesting to contrast it with it being this huge affair where Draco vomits afterward. You know what I mean? Like that is in a way so much more disrespectful of the idea than this kind of very mundane. It was a Tuesday and this is what happened on Tuesdays and that sucked. The last Tuesday suck. nicely addresses the kind of dissociation that you go through as a kind of coping mechanism that we all of us go through when when we have to endure something that is very upsetting or painful. We tend to dissociate and think about other things.
>> Yeah. And so like this is one of the things that like as I was talking about back at the beginning, I would love to look at first in the first part we look at the micro. How did one scene be written versus the other scene be written? Then we go out to the mid and we look at, okay, yeah, how does this inform what's going on with the characters at this point? And then we zoom out to the macro. What does it say structurally and thematically? And I think like that actually could be done really well to show that thematically it's doing certain things in in this book that it's not doing and that's in in Alchemist and that's why it's a failure. So, if you guys would like to see that kind of um a video, hit the like button. If we get to 10,000 likes, we'll make it. Um, this is a joke because we will never get that high, especially not on this video. Um, maybe I'll tell t title this is the Handmaid's Tail sexy all caps question mark exclamation point question mark. That might get us there. Um, and uh but but yeah, that is kind of something I was It's interesting to read a classic while having on the mind publish fanfic that no one will remember in two years. Like it's a weird way to ingest a classic. is, >> but but that was how it was. And in certain ways, it really gave me a lot of appreciation for it in terms of how it's done correctly. Is Handmaid's Tail woke?
>> Woke. Oh my god.
>> What would Andrew Tate think of The Handmaid's Tail?
>> I actually I remembered my my first person point of view thing that I lost earlier. Yeah, I I would like to say that I really appreciate how um you know the the language in this book is kind of sparse and for the most part it is very unflowery, but it does a very good ex it it does a good job and is a very good example of capturing that sense of how as a person life is kind of like an ongoing assault of thoughts and impressions in a somewhat unformed existence. Like reality is like a pink cloud that you're some kind of floating around in. And the book shows how your conscious is in no way completely all-encompassing of everything that goes around. And and as such, that is part of the reason why we don't know everything about Offred's world because she just she just doesn't know. She thinks about these things that are in front of her and that are going on with her and and that happened to her before and she has her own traumas to go through. And that is one thing that I feel like a lot of authors kind of miss a little on when they do firsterson narratives. They kind of they want to be too structured and they treat people as these kind of too sophisticated machines that are too uh logical and too structured in the thinking. I think that's actually really true and especially as someone who's neurospicy as they like to say the kids. It is interesting that like there is a formlessness I often feel to thoughts and experiences that is mirrored in the book. There's several points where it seems like time is collapsing. Somebody will say something that will then remind her of something somebody else said and it'll be like she says something and two different people respond at different two different times >> almost which I I really liked as a technique because it really gets you into her mindset and how amorphous it is. Mhm.
>> And again, the the point uh Elen made about the that often times first person is just used as a very like logical like let me impart information in a way where third person would have been a much better fit because the narration is not specific to the character you the personality thought process and that's the thing is we don't get so much of Offred's personality we get her thought process we are in her head in how she process processes the world and it is a fascinating and a very singular. You don't see a lot of people >> maybe the best first person we've ever read.
>> I was going to say I don't think I've ever seen first person being used in this exact way cuz you have like Novik who's very good about making her first persons sound of the character but this feels of the thoughts like of never remember this as third person. You know what I mean? in the way that some of Novik's characters, as good as she is at using first person, you sometimes are like, "Was that in first person or third person?" This is very much Offred's story she's telling you.
>> I was just actively sitting and thinking, is is um fourth wing in first person? I have a vague.
>> Yes, it is.
>> I remember thrown thing that it is. No, I I think it's in first person and it's very much doing that thing where it's using the first person where it's really struggling to find other narrative devices to info dump on the reader.
>> Yes.
>> Whereas Offred is just, you know, going through her memories and and and living what becomes a narrative.
>> It also makes a lot more sense as they say at the end that this was from a series of tapes. So, she wasn't even writing this. She was just kind of talking aloud. It actually does have more of that rambling quality to it.
>> Yeah, cuz you you've often like I mean you guys hear the way I speak a lot and and the funny thing is I text almost exactly the same way I speak >> even in the sense that my texts are rapid fire like as fast as my thoughts are coming out. I don't I don't send blocks. I'm one of I'm one of those uh I don't send like a block and finish my thought. I'm giving you sentence by sentence and editing as I go. Um, but if you read something I've written as far as like a paper I've written, completely different voice. And so there is something very organic that feels like somebody just speaking and processing the story and editing as they're speaking because you can't go back and delete it. You just have to be like, "Nope, that's not how it happened." And it works >> so well.
Like the time she tells the story of the first time they have sex three times and she's like actually that's not really what happened. Actually that's not what happened either.
>> One point where she's doing that where she actually gets annoyed and it's like yeah I'm not going to be able to really tell it how it was guys. Like there is almost a sense of like yeah you know in a conversation you would get kind of be like I can't do this. We're moving on to the next thing. And there's almost that sense to it. And and she even says, she goes, "I'll talk about this thing. I can talk about this thing I can tell you about." And there's a a couple times where she says, "This is just a reconstruction." And because any story that you tell someone is just a reconstruction of what happened. And sometimes you have to like change the wording of how you would say it so that the other person gets the feeling you were feeling. Because if you just told them like super matterofactly everything that was said, it might not like hit the right way. So you have to like >> editorial.
>> You polish it up. You polish it up. You tighten it up. Yeah.
>> And it is fascinating watching it happen in the And it just it it's really good.
It's so good.
>> I mean, if we end up doing one of those Yeah. This will be have to be our first person example cuz it does certain things with first person that other books don't.
>> It is accident. for our Patreon stream actually upcoming this month. Uh I am going to Maria's not going to do it because she has a life. But uh the other three hosts I'm going to our game for that day is just going to be thinking of books we can do that for and which parts of them. So it's going to be kind of like almost like a research live stream for the Patreons. But I think they would like having us talk about it and come up with >> I like how you pitch this as a fun game as opposed to a way for you to get out of doing research. I'm trying. I want to get everybody's opinion on this. I don't want to just be mine. It's a collaborative process. I'm not a commander, though. I could be. You're not giving us homework.
>> If we have to sit and talk about something, we might as well monetize it.
>> Or not use it as content.
>> Yeah, we might as well.
>> You and your brain. Part of it is also getting everybody together on a video call would actually be really difficult anyway.
Yeah, true.
>> Okay. Uh, all right. Thank you all. We love you. Our parasocial darlings.
>> Bye >> bye.
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