To be disappointed with The Handmaid's Tale ending (the book)

[Buck3t]

Nothing has been resolved. It's infuriating me. Reminds me of how I felt at the end of Stephen King's Gunslinger series.

The ending of that book was so amazing that I've remembered it for 25 years. It suddenly sweeps you away from the trauma and makes it historical. You know what happened and they think they do. It said to me "all those accounts you have read about suffering -like for example, the Holocaust- that was real and we don't know the half of it." It forced me to re evaluate how I thought about other people's stories.

I now can't continue reading what was an interesting thread, because I don't know if there will be more references back to the spoiler

Well, save it and read it when give finished the book/series then!

**You've not give

I think the promotion of exactly this sort of discussion is one of the points of the book.

It's a rage against the violence and inequality women suffer. It's a call for women to not allow themselves to be divided - to remember we are all one sex. It's a giant flashing neon bright sign reminding us that women are not to be invisible in their suffering, that's the (male) voices who tell our stories should not go unchallenged.

It's a call to arms. It's a angry fist being waved at the futility of individual fights, but the importance of every single one.

It doesn't end with clarity. Because it's themes are not clear and in neat boxes.

You can't know what happened to Offred because there was no Offred.

She was a composite character they put together from the old tapes they recovered and presented at the conference.

It's never about Offred. It's about the Handmaid.

The book/MA is responsible for me always using 'Ms' and not changing my name when I married. My dad bought me the book to read.

Chardonnay That's not true. Offred is a typical representative who happened to leave a record, but she is one woman. The academics suggest that she elided characteristics of two different Commanders, but she herself was one concrete woman.

It is about all the Handmaids (and Marthas, and wives, and Unwomen), but Offred is real. Part of the point of the academic conference coda is their contempt for the reality of her life.

The novel's ending is perfect, and is actively playing on our understandable identification with Offred, and our understandable desire to find out what happens to her, and our frustration at not getting that.

The violent shift of tone from Offred getting into the van, not knowing whether she's going to her death or salvation, to the subtly unpleasant and sexist academic snideries of the conference, where Gilead is a distant historical period, and Offred's narrative is an artefact whose authenticity is quibbled over, and her fate unknown, is the whole point.

We are meant to be frustrated, and find the academic ending inadequate as a way of trying to understand the past (which we've just been living through with Offred in all it's vividness) and as a way subtly minimising the reality of female suffering under totalitarian regimes, while appearing to pay it attention.

I thought they said they recovered the tapes but weren't sure it was the same woman, or voice and the mashed up the character, for want of better word.
I might be misremembering.

No, they are pretty sure it is all the same voice IIRC, but the tapes aren't ordered so they are never sure if they've put the narrative together right. They also think Offred has disguised or changed some details, I think.

Nicely put, Sardines.

I liked a story mostly about a survivor rather than a fighter.
We get enough Laura Crofts... most people in reality are survivors. Relatable.

If the TV series changes the ending, that's shite for me, good reason to never watch. I am sick of excellent stories being happified.

I apologise if anyone was unhappy with the TV series spoilers. I guess in the context of this thread I thought it wasn't really that much of an issue, because if you've read the book (and I'm assuming all those on here have, since this is a thread about the book ending), then you already know pretty much all of the plotline in the series anyway. Any changes between the book and TV series are really minor points in the overall plotline of the TV series and the message it's trying to project, and you are still left with more questions than answers.

It's a bit like worrying about plot spoilers in the film Titanic. You already know the main thread of the film anyway and that the boat is going to sink and most people are going to die, so the rest of it is just minor details really.

Fuck. Does the boat sink Kitkat?

That's my evening viewing ruined.

I'm afraid it does Smile.

It's been a while since I've read it but of course now I think about it is important to have the story of one woman to opposed to the anonymity of the life of a Handmaiden, so to have the story of June and not Offred, so in my mind it's about June, not Offred. I'm probably not articulating this properly.

The conference talk did feel just as dehumanising as the Gilead reality, with the laughter and bad jokes.

June is only name not accounted for at the Centre so people assumed it was Offred. In the TV show she is explicitly June but it was never MA intention to give her a name as such.

The book does have June in it.

The book does have June in it.

Yes, June is mentioned at the very start as one of the names the narrator lists. We then find out, as readers, what happened to all the other women listed apart from June and thus the assumption is that June is Offred.

Yes the book has June in it, but MA has said in an interview that she knows people surmise that June is Offred's name and that's fine, but it wasn't her explicit intention.

Oh, sorry it was an article! I my memory I can see her saying it, funny thing, memory!

Here are Margaret Atwood's own words:

"Why do we never learn the real name of the central character, I have often been asked. Because, I reply, so many people throughout history have had their names changed, or have simply disappeared from view.

Some have deduced that Offred’s real name is June, since, of all the names whispered among the Handmaids in the gymnasium/dormitory, “June” is the only one that never appears again. That was not my original thought but it fits, so readers are welcome to it if they wish."

Article

The erasing of identity....described so simply.

And the reader's need to give her an identity.

Atwood is such a very skilled wordsmith.

There are thirty tapes, I think. Same voice, but they have to order them.

When I'm teaching it to A Level students, one of the things we talk about is the way in which the female voice, the female control of the narrative, is undermined by the Historical Notes where we find out that the tapes have been organised by a male academic. As others have said: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose and all that.