NEXT UP! 3 130 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a future dystopian society called Gilead somewhere in the USA. In Gilead, women have been stripped of all their rights. Fertile women are rare, and the ones who are fertile are trained in centres to be Handmaids. A Handmaid’s task is to be obedient and to breed children for Commanders, who will then raise the children with their wives. Deeply religious doctrines decide everything in Gilead, and not doing as you are told means a certain death. In this excerpt, you meet Offred at the Handmaids’ training centre. […] I must have been there three weeks when Moira came. She was brought into the gymnasium by two of the Aunts, in the usual way, while we were having our nap. She still had her other clothes on, jeans and a blue sweatshirt – her hair was short, she'd defied fashion as usual – so I recognized her at once. She saw me too, but she turned away, she already knew what was safe. There was a bruise on her left cheek, turning purple. The Aunts took her to a vacant bed where the red dress was already laid out. She undressed, began to dress again, in silence, the Aunts standing at the end of the bed, the rest of us watching from inside our slitted eyes. As she bent over I could see the knobs on her spine. I couldn't talk to her for several days; we looked only, small glances, like sips. Friendships were suspicious, we knew it, we avoided each other during the mealtime lineups in the cafeteria and in the halls between classes. But on the fourth day she was beside me during the walk, two by two around the football field. We weren't given the white wings until we graduated, we had only the veils; so we could talk, as long as we did it quietly and didn't turn to look at one another. The Aunts walked at the head of the line and at the end, so the only danger was from the others. Some were believers and might report us. Before reading Read the short text about dystopian literature below. Then study the photos and the title. What kind of society do you think this text might be about? fertile – frjósamur rare – sjaldgæfur obedient – hlýðinn to breed – fjölga sér a doctrine – kenning a gymnasium – íþróttahús to defy – storka a bruise – mar slitted – hálfopin spine – hryggur suspicious – tortryggileg to avoid – forðast a veil – slæða, slör A utopia is an imagined place where everything is perfect. A dystopia is the opposite – a place where everything is bad. Dystopian fiction is dark literature about societies that, in their pursuit of utopia, end up being oppressive, tyrannical or with a devastated environment.
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