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I don't understand The Handmaid's Tale

Haphazard

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The whole '60s and '70s thing was the entire point of the thread. I was thinking that her vision may have just been very dated. But then I see people saying that this is "extremely relevant today" and I'm just very confused.
 

Zarathustra

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The whole '60s and '70s thing was the entire point of the thread. I was thinking that her vision may have just been very dated. But then I see people saying that this is "extremely relevant today" and I'm just very confused.

Hmmm... sounds kinda like a post from earlier in this thread...

You're probably just beyond its style of feminism...
 

Zarathustra

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That's like saying 1960's US is the same as current day.

Well, to be accurate, we are actually have more freedom of speech now.

(Yeah, went to Berkeley, the birthplace of the 60s free speech movement.

I kinda know about this stuff...)


Our nation continuously strives to perfect the vision expressed in The Constitution, and, to be quite honest, has been pretty damn successful at it.
 

Zarathustra

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Guess that makes you equal, eh? :jew:

Well, we are equal in one regard:

That we have the right to talk about the other without perfect information.

It does not, however, make us equal in another regard:

I seem to be accurate in my interpretation of her vision; her vision, however, does not seem to be accurate about my nation.
 

PeaceBaby

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I seem to be accurate in my interpretation of her vision; her vision, however, does not seem to be accurate about my nation.

Zarathustra - my heavens, that smacks of arrogance, right there.
 

PeaceBaby

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You force me to use it:

:doh::doh::doh:

You are so arrogant you even think you are right about something you have NEVER READ?

I am speechless.
 

PeaceBaby

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The issue now is money, as it always has been.

The issue in the book has nothing to do with money. This is strange and foreign.

Is that entirely true? Think carefully.

Also, what IS the central issue in the novel? Spell it out for me.
 

Haphazard

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Is that entirely true? Think carefully.

Also, what IS the central issue in the novel? Spell it out for me.

The central issue of the novel is control.

Control =/= money. While it is true that certain control can be useful for obtaining wealth, the sort shown in the book is not at all.
 

Lark

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Seriously, I just finished this book, and then looking for answers I only come across sites that say "omg this book is SOOO RELEVANT to today" when I don't see it that way. At first I had figured that perhaps this vision of the future from the past was perhaps outdated (as the Jetsons or 1984 is today), but apparently it isn't? I dunno. What's up with this book?

Properly understood I dont believe that 1984 is dated, people think so because authorities are more apt to be controlling without cruelty (Brave New World rather than Big Brother) or because of the regime in 1984 being superficially "socialist" IngSoc being "English Socialism".

However, Orwell felt, as I do, that in a real pinch, like in the wake of a limited Nuclear War, which has already happened in the book by the time it picks up with Winston Smith, or if it were really threatened by the lower classes and intellectuals, which neednt really be a genuine threat, just felt enough regardless, it would become cruel. Basically enough of a destabilising crisis and it would happen. So basically even if a regime was Brave New World it could become 1984 with sufficient push and pull.

Orwell also went to great lengths to try and ensure that people understood it wasnt a criticism of socialism, neither was Animal Farm, but in both instances the betrayal of such by the authorities without the population properly comprehending what had happened.

I dont think that the Handmaiden's Tale is relevent, its more a work of pure fiction like The Jetsons, the idea that the US would be seized by vaguely Masonic/Religious elites who want to enslave particularly women and institute breeding programmes is patently crazy, I dont see any of the anxieties about diminished elite or white birth rates translating that way. From reading about the book and its reception the author said their aim was to write a consciously feminist version of the other dystopias, I dont think its a good book, the writing style isnt anything like the others.
 

Lark

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Perhaps Children of Men is one of the most or more relevent books, the film adaptation was very good for a low budget, really and truly managed to grasp the existential futility of choices being made by the individuals when the world around them was crazy.
 
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