Recap (Blog#13)

In the book "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margret Atwood there was a confusing and peculiar last chapter called historical notes. I'm here to try to explain a reason why it's there in the first place. One of the reason could be through the outburst of religion at the time. As we know Gilead is an extremely religious society and there was another great powerful religion at the time of the book's publishing and people were beginning to question it. In the Historical Notes Gilead isn't even a memory that Archeologists find rare artifacts of. Then one of the Professors makes an article called "Problems of Authentication Reference to the Handmaid's Tale" which goes on to question if Offred's story was wrong. Which connects with real life because people started questioning their religious views at that point. This shows why the Historical Notes were included into the "Handmaid's Tale" and why Margret Atwood put it there.

The ending of "The Handmaid's Tale" was rather open and strange and from what people have said, they are outraged by this ending. I've come to view it in a different light which I would like to explain. I view it a much more happier light after re-reading the ending multiple times. The reason for this is because if you think of both possible outcomes freedom or death, both are positive alternatives to staying alive in Gilead. In the book the ending is that she gets "caught" and is taken away by Eyes to the front door and then that's it, the book ends and it's on with the Historical Notes. As mentioned previously any alternative would be better than living a life of lies and being miserable. So I prefer this open ending rather than a solid one. It fills one with hope that Offred's suffering will all be over soon.