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The Handmaid's Tale Vol 3

574 replies

CruCru · 24/07/2017 21:18

Hi all

As the last thread has all but totally filled up, I've started this new one.

Bit shallow - but do you think the Wives are allowed cosmetics? I got the impression that make up is banned but they do all look very polished.

OP posts:
Oldowl · 01/08/2017 19:31

I did not think handmaids were allowed writing implements. How did they write all those letters? June is carving her story in the floorboard alongside the Handmaid who killed herself.

The story of Malala resonates here. A girl being educated and letting the world know through the power of the word is suddenly silenced by masked gunmen.

I would love to know what she makes of the book/series.

PaintTheWholeWorld · 01/08/2017 20:27

Loved the whole series but this episode in particular was a triumph.

I've also loved reading through this debate, a couple of additional points of my own:

I found it really creepy how you could hear the guardians' radios in the background in a lot of the outdoor scenes. A constant reminder that everyone is being watched.

Something I found incredibly powerful in the book was how Offred's daughter was never referred to by name. I appreciate that this wouldn't have worked in the TV adaptation, but I felt that Offred/June's inability to name her daughter was so emotive, it would have just been too painful for her I suppose.

SomethingOnce · 01/08/2017 21:21

I found it really creepy how you could hear the guardians' radios in the background in a lot of the outdoor scenes.

That was very effective, wasn't it? A couple of times I've been out and about since the series began and heard that sound, it's been jarring Shock

notyummy · 01/08/2017 22:03

Agree it has been fantastic. Music also added to the whole package for me.

Ineedagoodusername · 01/08/2017 22:34

Just finished watching. Did they cut off that blokes arm? I couldn't look!!

TheHandmaidsTail · 01/08/2017 22:39

I like think my favourite part of the whole series was when she said the pregnancy was awful, and Nick said it wasn't. Only time I've welled up for a happy reason in THT.

BrightonBelleCat · 01/08/2017 23:55

I've just finished watching last one. What did nick say to her. My hearing is awful! And did she tell the Martha about the letters?

EBearhug · 02/08/2017 00:27

Nick said, "Trust me, go with them," and she said to the Martha, "Behind the bathtub."

InigoTaran · 02/08/2017 01:57

This ( lukewarm) review of the book, in 1986, is interesting in that times have changed to such an extent that THT actually seems more relevant now than when it was actually written...

www.nytimes.com/books/00/03/26/specials/mccarthy-atwood.html

emmyrose2000 · 02/08/2017 04:30

Did they cut off that blokes arm? I couldn't look!!

Oh god, neither could I! When they took his wedding ring off I guessed what was going to happen next and had to cover my face. Horrifying!

Don't get me wrong, the whole idea of this society is horrifying, but anything relating to amputation just terrifies me.

badbadhusky · 02/08/2017 07:56

Thanks for posting the link to that 1986 review, inigo - it is, indeed, lukewarm. Interesting that the book resonates do more strongly now, although I first read it ~1990 and thought it was outstanding then, as well as deeply unsettling.

AdalindSchade · 02/08/2017 08:03

The clinical operation nature of the amputation was utterly chilling

noblegiraffe · 02/08/2017 08:09

I don't understand why they went into quite so much detail with the amputation scene, I thought it was a bit unnecessary. When Ofglen was mutilated, they didn't even say what had been done to her, just implied, and that was horrific enough.

Abra1d · 02/08/2017 09:54

When I first read the book, shortly after its publication, I thought of it as a kind of futuristic science fiction.

I don't think like that about it now. It seems a fair reproduction of life for women in parts of the Middle East and elsewhere.

Elendon · 02/08/2017 10:28

When I read the book after publication, I lived in Ireland where there wasn't even divorce. I had tried my best in the divorce referendum but we lost that first time around.

Our freedoms are easily taken from us.

colouringinagain · 02/08/2017 13:36

Chilling stories, both of those.

Inigo do you know what the actual dress code is?

Oldowl · 02/08/2017 14:01

Wow, ProfYaffle, that is truly shocking that Afghan women are not known by their name, not even on their headstone or on their child's birth certificate.

orlantina · 02/08/2017 14:02

There's been a real change in Turkey.
Lots of disappearances, people losing their jobs because of their associations and more power to the President.

Just a glimpse of the Turkish President

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/06/turkish-president-erdogan-childless-women-deficient-incomplete

I wonder how many people have fled Turkey? And how many are waiting for things to get better?

ProfYaffle · 02/08/2017 14:26

The article says not using womens names is an 'age old' tradition. I wonder if Margaret Atwood was referencing it when she wrote the book.

SophieCatScribbles · 02/08/2017 14:31

Noblegiraffe (love the name), just a theory, but I think the very clinical nature of the amputation was done as a very stark contrast to how the handmaids are often punished.

According to the 'court' the commanders wife asked for the harshest possible punishment...and although amputation is terrible, and clearly something they do a lot 🙄, he didn't physically suffer. No whippings to the soles of your feet until they are cut open and dripping blood, no stonings or an eye fairly roughly removed (by the look of things with poor Janine) - I noticed the camera focused in twice on his face as he lay there asleep twitching an eye occasionally. Contrast that with those terrible close ups of June as she was whipped. I know the horrible FGM is done in the clinic place, but otherwise handmaid punishment is usually just brutal, instant and they're well awake.

The regime want the women to suffer torture - mental and physical and sexual - whereas the commanders are just punished. Different standards of brutality?

Awful to think that the only doctors who survived the wall were the ones prepared to obey the twisted shit of the regime. The ones strung up were presumably the ones who were decent and ethical and tried to resist...leaving the sort of doctors who will do those unnecessary amputations and mutilations, and offer to rape (can't think of a better phrase) an enslaved, brutalized woman because pregnancy is the only way they survive...

This is one of those rare bits of TV that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I'm so glad they're doing the second series. I'd love them to do a big interview with Margaret Attwood now and get her thoughts on her book given the current global scariness.

BeyondQueenOfLists · 02/08/2017 15:02

I'm keeping a very close eye on my Turkish friends fb, orlantina. She only just missed the terrorist attack in Attatürk airport last year, so I've been panicking about her for a while :(

Crinkle77 · 02/08/2017 15:37

SophieCatScribbles some of the doctrs who were on the wall were those that performed abortions and sterilisations.

SophieCatScribbles · 02/08/2017 16:29

Crinkle77 I'm thinking that was because those were things that went against their very hardline religious beliefs and the need to have as many children as possible born in Gilead - even if those involved didn't want children for personal reasons... Wasn't there a scene earlier with some guy saying that he didn't want a family yet? The pressure on young people was clearly there before Gilead really got going.