In Praise of The Handmaid’s Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale has become a significant artifact of North American postmodern culture. It’s hard to imagine, for example, the myriad of shelves dedicated to young-adult fiction at your local Barnes and Noble without the influence—however indirect or incorrect—of The Handmaid’s Tale. After all, in our age of intellectual stagnation, who better to destroy patriarchal oppression than a noble and brave teenage girl, a postmodern Joan of Arc?

But this is a most superficial reading of the novel. In reality, the story is as complicated as anything Huxley or Orwell wrote.

Bradley J. Birzer of Hillsdale College writes about the virtues of Margaret Atwood’s most-loved novel. (via Prufrock News)

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