Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.” In exposing those inner workings, The Testaments offers a tour of the power structures that Offred, in her confinement, can’t see. “Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. “Dear Readers,” she writes in a promotional letter. 3Ītwood used to dismiss the notion that her fiction was “secretly telling the truth,” but The Testaments suggests she’s changed her mind. The discourse surrounding the book is far more literal than the novel itself, with many commentators going so far as to declare Atwood a prophet and Donald Trump’s America Gilead. Liberal activists and pundits invoke Gilead as a warning for the real world, and the signature Handmaid’s uniform-a formless red gown with a winged white bonnet-has been used at women’s marches and abortion ban protests throughout the world. Widely assigned in high schools and universities for years, The Handmaid’s Tale is now a hit TV series with nearly ubiquitous imagery and nomenclature. There are obvious commercial reasons for this. Now, more than three decades after refusing closure, Atwood seeks resolution, returning to the landscape of her iconic dystopia in The Testaments.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |