Response to The Handmaid’s Tale—Part Five

    This is the last part of The Handmaid’s Tale but we do not know the ending of the narrator. The book leaves an open ending of the story and we need to guess what the fate of that handmaid. After I read the historical notes, I realize that this book is based on a true story. Speaker said that the writer found many tape cassettes in an old footlocker, and these cassettes recorded a woman’s story. According that woman’s worlds, the writer formed The Handmaid’s Tale. 

  

     In this part, narrator accepted the suggestion that to have sex with Nick. She said that she fell in love with him and was willing to have sex more than once. Because of the special relationship between she and Nick, the narrator was extremely nervous when two mysterious people took her. As far as I am concerned, these people are not members of that secret organization and Nick is private eye. On the one hand, every time when Nick was together with narrator, the main focus of Nick was not the feeling of her. To express this in another way, Nick did not love her at all, thus he ignored what narrator’s thought was. He took advantage of her and did his spying at the same time. As a spy, there is no doubt that he knew the sign of “Mayday”. He used this code to build trust between he and narrator, so that she could go with those two men in black. On the other hand, from historical note, the narrator of the tape also stopped recording after that and we may infer the writer of this book wanted to create the same ending of that woman. If that woman was still alive after that, some evidence must be found to prove her existing. However, the writer cannot find any evidence. The possible ending of that woman was death.

   

Response to The Handmaid's Tale -- PART 4

This is almost the last part of this novel and the relationship between Commander and narrator becomes closer. As I wrote in the response to part three, from my point of view, commander loves narrator. He takes her to a party secretly and this action is dangerous and illegal, but he still does it. Once the narrator’s identity is discovered, both of them will be punished. If commander regards her as normal handmaid, it will be no need for him to take her to such a strange party. Magazines are a better entertainment for her.

As we read Jezebel’s, a feeling will come to our mind that not only the women want to fight against the society or the law, but also the men. Although these men are at the top of this society, what they do is against the law. We learn from the previous of this book that homosexual is forbidden in Gilead, but in Jezebel’s, those men are happy to see two women being together. That sounds weird. I think this delivers a message that those men are not satisfied with the society, they also want to change it.

The women in Jezebel’s will play an important role in changing of regime, because they present a large number of the handmaid in Gilead. These women cannot be called handmaid, but their thoughts are the same with many handmaids. Those handmaids who look pious, but what they really want is freedom, just like narrator. 

I still wonder why Gilead has these rules? I did not see any benefit through the law. It seems that all people hate it.

Response to The Handmaid’s Tale—Part Three

   In the third part of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, the narrator begins to tell about her life during her pregnant period. Here, I want to come up with two arguments.

   The first one is said by Aunt Lydia. She told narrator that they are a transitional generation. For the one who come after them, it will be easier. I do not agree with this opinion. This is only the view of Aunt Lydia, and what she thinks may not be right. Just like her attitude towards Janine. She thinks that Janine is a true believer, but the fact is that Janine will tell anything just for a moment of approbation. Moreover, the life of their offspring will not be easy because the man will still revile the women in next generation. It is just like a tradition, the men will do what their fathers do and follow the actions of old men. The reality is that, men will teach the next male generation and boys will be told that handmaids are bad women. As a result, the attitude towards women will remain constant even in next generation. 

   The second one is the relationship between Commander and narrator. Personally, in commander’s mind, narrator is not an entertaining tool but his lover. His love towards narrator is true. He invites narrator to come to his room twice or three times a week, from the novel, we can find that this is illegal at that time and both commander and narrator know it. He takes a large  risk to see her and the only thing he wants her to do is playing game of Scrabble with him. It sounds weird but also interesting. At the end of their first meeting, commander asks narrator to kiss him as if she meant it. This action indicates that his emotion is true because he shows his respect to narrator and hopes she can understand his love. In fact, narrator also feels about it. In the following section, she mentions that they play Scrabble as if they were an old married couple and commander uses “WE” to he and she. He is patient when she hesitated in the game. Although these are only details, they are also strong evidence to show that commander falls in love with narrator. In his mind, narrator is special and worth his effort.

   These are two arguments I think is interesting. Anything, as the story is approaching to the end, I hope that commander and narrator will have a happy ending. All the handmaids can win back their freedom just as the slogan shows “TAKE BACK THE NIGHT”.