Vingtage Books The Handmaids Tale 使女的故事 企鵝復古布脊經典系列

“A standoff will have been achieved vis-a-vis the Russians, and our own country will be ruled by right-wingers and religious fundamentalists, with males restored to the traditional role of warriors and us females to our ''place'' - which, however, will have undergone subdivision into separate sectors, of wives, breeders, servants and so forth, each clothed in the appropriate uniform. A fresh postfeminist approach to future shock, you might say. Yet the book just does not tell me what there is in our present mores that I ought to watch out for unless I want the United States of America to become a slave state something like the Republic of Gilead whose outlines are here sketched out.” — The New York Times

 

In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate “Handmaids” under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred’s persistent memories of life in the “time before” and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. 

 

The new world of ''The Handmaid's Tale'' is a woman's world, even though governed, seemingly, and policed by men. Its ethos is entirely domestic, its female population is divided into classes based on household functions, each class clad in a separate color that instantly identifies the wearer. THE Commanders, presumably, are the high bureaucracy of the regime, yet they are oddly powerless in the household, having no part in the administration of discipline and ceremonially subject to their aging wives. That they lack freedom, are locked into their own rigid system, is only to be expected. Plusca change, plus c'est la meme chose. 

 

But that cannot be the motto for a cautionary tale, whose job is to warn of change. If The Handmaid's Tale doesn't scare one or doesn't wake one up, it must be because it has no satiric bite. We are warned, by seeing our present selves in a distorting mirror, of what we may be turning into if current trends are allowed to continue. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning.

 

Features

• Edition : -
• Binding : hardback
• ISBN : 9781784879679
• Publication Date : 2024/4/4

 

Materials & Care

• Imported