The Handmaid’s Tale is a sad and thought provoking story. It shows a community trying to become utopian but end up becoming dystopian.

The story starts with a family of three trying to escape the country by crossing the border. Unfortunately, they were caught; the husband was shot, the wife was taken away and the daughter was left alone to wander around aimlessly in the wilderness. The wife was taken away to become a Handmaid. The job of a Handmaid is to help a commander’s wife to give birth. They were like surrogate mothers. The Handmaids were cruelly treated and the punishment was very severe for them. Nuns were hanged, publicly, as they refused to become Handmaids and bear chidren.

The people running the community had twisted Bible teachings and brainwashed the women. They were trying to instill the sense of importance of giving birth into their minds. They felt that abortion was a disrespect to God and they were destroying God’s creation. I felt very frustrated as the Bible is a Holy book which teaches people the right morals and give people the strength and hope to live. Instead, they used the Bible and indirectly frighten the people. They are inhumane to carry out this propaganda.

The wife, Kate, was sent to a commander’s house. In the process of trying to make a baby, all three, the commander, commander’s wife and Kate, had to be present. I was very disgusted and disturbed by that scene. The scene kept replaying in my mind and Kate’s agonized expression kept appearing inside my head for days! I pitied Kate as she did not want to become a Handmaid but for the sake of saving her own life, she had to go through all the suffering and hardship. The commander’s wife, Sabrina, was also pitiful as she had to witness the whole process. She must have felt hurt and sad that she needed the help of a Handmaid to conceive a baby for her.

We stopped at this scene in class but I continued watching it at home. There was a scene where a Handmaid was about to be hanged and the other Handmaids were forced to pull the rope, lifting her above ground, and eventually killed her. A man, probably sexually involved with the Handmaid, was harshly beaten by the other Handmaids. I was saddened by this scene as it shows that the community was so cruel and corrupted till they made Handmaids kill their own kind. The Handmaids had no choice but to obey the community or else their lives would be at risk. They were also forced to call a Handmaid ,who was raped, a “whore”. This community is clearly DYSTOPIAN.

The Handmaid’s tale relates to The Giver as The Giver is also a utopia gone dystopia. In Jonas’s society, people were called according to their assignment such as ‘Street Cleaners’, ‘Landscape Workers ‘ to identify them. When they were born, the ‘newchildren’ were also numbered. In the movie, they were numbered and were called by their identification numbers.

In Jonas’s society, the people are clearly identified by the clothes they wear and the items they have. For example, all ‘Nines’ receive their bicycles at the Ceremony. In the movie, the Handmaids wear a red cloak and the commander’s wife wear a blue dress. Everything is uniform.

In Jonas’s society, the rules were so strict and rigid that any minor mistakes will result in ‘released’ which is equivalent to death. When the pilot-in-training made a navigational mistake and frightened the people, he was sent for ‘released’. Similarly, in the movie, the Handmaids were severely punished for a minor mistake. A Handmaid, whose toes were brutally slashed, could not even walk and she faced this harsh punishment just for a minor mistake. The rules in both society are made to create perfection in the community.

In Jonas’s society, it was against the rules to escape the community and anyone who tries to escape and were caught red-handed would be ‘released’. In the movie, when Kate and her family tried to escape, they were caught and her husband was killed. In both society, the community seemed ‘small’. The elders knew what everyone did and kept a close eye on them. They knew when Jonas ‘crushed [his] finger in a door’ and ‘scraped [his] knees in falls on [his] bicycle’. They also knew that Jonas brought a apple home and even directed an announcement to him. This shows that the community is very ‘small’ and it is constantly under surveillance. Similarly, the people running the community knew what mistake, major or minor, a Handmaid had committed and they were quick in carrying out punishments. The community was also under constant surveillance as they knew when and where someone was trying to escape.