Has anyone read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? The novel falls under the long tradition of alternate history near future dystopias and is kind of a product of the feminist movement of the seventies and eighties, but it deals with some of the same issues of gender and politics as Kessels "Lunar Quartet" in a very different way. On the one hand women are subjugated as handmaids in the patriarchal colony of Gilead and named depending on their husband/master (i.e. The handmaid of Fred would be Offred.) On the other hand women are masters of the lunar colony of Fowler and are carry the names of their mothers (i.e. The daughter of Inga's last name would be Ingasdaughter.) The dytopian novel and the lunar satire do some pretty heavy hitting, Entertainment Weekly called the "Lunar Quartet" a "sustained exploration of the ways gender dynamics can both empower and enslave us," but the same could be said for The Handmaid's Tale. I smell a paper topic....dibs.
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It seemed like a reverse of Atwood's story, men being oppressed rather than women. I also didn't like the fact that the author seemed to glorify in making men seem meek and women so tyrannical--reversing the traditional gender bias.
ReplyDeleteYeah it really makes me think how gender is not determined biologically, as a result of sexual characteristics of either women or men, but is constructed socially. To me, it seems easiest to debate and explore these issues with the use of the hypothetical...it takes author's like Kessel and Atwood to really explore issues and ideas like gender roles/relations.
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