Well I had a great holiday in the winter and I felt the need to update my blog and talk about something related to the topic of Law and Society, most specifically the book The Handmaid’s Tale.

First of all I want to debate the ending of both the book and the film adaptation. The book’s conclusion was rather open-ended, leaving the readers themselves to generate discussion and to imagine what Offred’s fate would have been. Did she die? Did she really join MAYDAY? Is there a symbolic message underneath all of this? On the other hand the film adaptation completely alters it to form a more suitable conclusion to the tale. One that has been Hollywoodized and is rife with explosions and over the top sequences. But in a way I preferred the movie’s ending to the book’s because of two reasons. The first being that the main heroine actually does something that contributes to her feeling of rebellion and oppression towards the regime. Whilst in the book she remains passive all throughout, always hesitating to enact her actions upon the system. Subjectively this is merely because in a story with strong themes of rebellion in it as well as reflecting on a society that is very totalitarian in nature I wanted the protagonist to undergo some serious character development where she transforms from a typical sheep of the current society to a woman who plays a significant role in starting up a rebellion or even joining MAYDAY and fighting against the regime alongside them. In other words I wanted a really strong female character like Katniss from The Hunger Games and not someone like Bella from Twilight (aka the passive damsel in distress who relies on two other protagonists to defend her). The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian future, a novel that often involves the theme of rebellion and oppression and to me having the main character rebel or even do something significant to the society is what sells the genre to me. Another aspect of the movie’s ending which I preferred to the book’s was the sense of an actual conclusion to the story. The book ended almost on a cliffhanger except there is no sequel getting released any time soon. The movie actually concludes the tale and gives the heroine an actual ending. Your mileage may vary on this but to me I felt the film’s ending was better since I do not have to worry about a sequel or have to imagine what happened to Offred.

I also want to mention a little about whether Offred has agency. Within Gilead I would say that she does have some agency but is limited in the amount of power she has over her own personal decisions. For example there are multiple occasions within the novel where we as readers think she is going to do something but she instead doesn’t. One example is where she plays scrabble with the commander or even attends an illegal party with him. She just seems to go with the flow of things and most of the time doesn’t even oppose them. As for moments where she does seem to have agency, the ending is a prime example of it where she decides to go with Nick despite Serena Joy’s reaction to it. A person who follows the system would refuse to go with him but Offred instead makes the choice to go with Nick to an unplanned future.