Guess what? It’s happening! The Critically acclaimed Handmaids Tale on Hulu will return for the much-desired 5th season. Here is a bit for those of you who have been living under rocks. Let me give a tidbit of what we are dealing with here.
Handmaid’s Tale was awarded the 1985 Governor General’s Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987; it was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. In addition to a movie in 1990, an opera in 2000, a television series in 2017, and other adaptations of the book have been made.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the eBook version is available.
A sequel novel, The Testaments, was published in 2019. An 85-year-old dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale is by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, and is a classic from the future. Taking place in a near-future New England, the Republic of Gilead is a totalitarian theocratic government ruled by an imperialistic patriarchy, a white supremacy, and a totalitarian theocracy. The central character and narrator is a woman named Offred, one of the group known as “handmaids”, who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the “commanders” — the ruling class of men in Gilead.
Subjugated women in a patriarchal society are explored, as well as how women resist and attempt to gain independence during a time when women’s reproductive rights are suppressed. The central character tells a story, which is an allusion to fairy tales. A series of stories connected by the title of the novel, The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer.
This is binge ready TV that subliminally attacks systemic racism and sexism. It will make you think the world over.
Jonathon M. Poe 