tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/margaret-atwood-32422/articlesMargaret Atwood – The Conversation2022-08-25T10:32:57Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881722022-08-25T10:32:57Z2022-08-25T10:32:57ZFive books you’ll like if you love The Odyssey<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479377/original/file-20220816-6097-5eioce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C113%2C3916%2C2982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Goddess Athena appearing to Odysseus to reveal the Island of Ithaca by Giuseppe Bottani.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Athena_appearing_to_Odysseus_to_reveal_the_Island_of_Ithaca_by_Giuseppe_Bottani.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In The Odyssey, an almost 3,000-year-old epic attributed to a poet known as Homer, the soldier Odysseus narrates most adventures in retrospect. The poem, which tells of Odysseus’ return from the Trojan War, is both the origin of our concept of nostalgia (from the Greek <em>nostos</em> meaning the journey home) and one of the first travel narratives. Whether or not you’re already familiar with The Odyssey, <a href="https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/the-odyssey">Emily Wilson’s celebrated English translation</a> is a must-read (or listen).</p>
<p>The epic has inspired many writers. For anyone hungry for more, these suggested reads take Homer’s Odyssey as a springboard to expand on the myths, offering additional perspectives, especially from female characters and taking the story to new and imagined worlds.</p>
<h2>1. Ithaka by Adele Geras</h2>
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<img alt="Cover of book featuring a greek woman looking out to sea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480851/original/file-20220824-4311-pwpqn5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480851/original/file-20220824-4311-pwpqn5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480851/original/file-20220824-4311-pwpqn5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480851/original/file-20220824-4311-pwpqn5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480851/original/file-20220824-4311-pwpqn5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480851/original/file-20220824-4311-pwpqn5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480851/original/file-20220824-4311-pwpqn5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Random House Children's UK</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/100/1005168/ithaka/9780552574150">Geras’ novel</a> tells the story of what happened to Odysseus’ family and household while he was away. Both parents and young adults can enjoy her shift of focus (featuring descriptions of the dog’s daydreams) which opens with children playing on the beach and moves among peach orchards and almond groves. Told from the perspective of Penelope, Odysseus’ son Telemachus and their friends, Geras capture “kitchen gossip” and tangible details of a place seemingly caught in limbo in Odysseus’ absence.</p>
<h2>2. Meadowlands by Louise Gluck</h2>
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<img alt="Cover of Meadowlands featuring an abstract island painting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480850/original/file-20220824-4473-dyjtgm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480850/original/file-20220824-4473-dyjtgm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480850/original/file-20220824-4473-dyjtgm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480850/original/file-20220824-4473-dyjtgm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480850/original/file-20220824-4473-dyjtgm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480850/original/file-20220824-4473-dyjtgm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480850/original/file-20220824-4473-dyjtgm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ecco</span></span>
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<p>A collection of poems, Gluck’s <a href="https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857543919">Meadowlands</a> weaves a portrait of the end of a marriage with the story of The Odyssey. Timeless myth is set against everyday struggle. There are poems written from the perspective of Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, about being raised by one parent. There are also the voices of Penelope and Circe. These epic figures become knowable as Gluck makes their lives seem at times ordinary. For instance, in the poem “Quiet Evening” she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the quiet evenings in summer,<br>
the sky still light at this hour.<br>
So Penelope took the hand of Odysseus,<br>
not to hold him back but to impress<br>
this peace on his memory.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a collection full of wit and humour as well as emotion. </p>
<h2>3. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood</h2>
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<img alt="Cover of book featuring mythic harpies." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479368/original/file-20220816-25-ertrdm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479368/original/file-20220816-25-ertrdm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479368/original/file-20220816-25-ertrdm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479368/original/file-20220816-25-ertrdm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479368/original/file-20220816-25-ertrdm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479368/original/file-20220816-25-ertrdm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479368/original/file-20220816-25-ertrdm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Canongate Canons</span></span>
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<p>The Odyssey ranges across wildernesses, beaches, gardens, orchards and palaces, but as the writer Madeline Miller notes, “however far afield [Odysseus] travelled, always [his stories] came back to Ithaca.” Odysseus eventually returns to his wife Penelope. In the epic poem of shifting locations and identities, Odysseus’ immoveable “here” is his marital bed, built around “an olive tree/ with delicate long leaves, full-grown and green,/ as sturdy as a pillar”.</p>
<p>Written also in the style of an epic poem, <a href="https://canongate.co.uk/books/72-the-penelopiad/">Margaret Attwood’s The Penelopiad</a> (2005) gives Odysseus’ long-suffering wife a chance to tell her side of the story. Penelope and her maids narrate Odysseus’ violent homecoming in hindsight from their afterlife location in the mythical underworld. Atwood’s retelling pioneered this approach to novels which give the perspectives of characters often marginalised in canonical ancient texts – especially the women. </p>
<h2>4. Circe by Madeline Miller</h2>
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<img alt="Cover of the book Circe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479366/original/file-20220816-14-hiye6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479366/original/file-20220816-14-hiye6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479366/original/file-20220816-14-hiye6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479366/original/file-20220816-14-hiye6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479366/original/file-20220816-14-hiye6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479366/original/file-20220816-14-hiye6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479366/original/file-20220816-14-hiye6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bloomsbury</span></span>
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<p>One of Odysseus’ most memorable adventures is his sojourn with the goddess Circe, who turns Odysseus’ crew into pigs. <a href="http://madelinemiller.com/circe/">Madeline Miller’s Circe</a> powerfully re-conceives her story from several Greek myths. The daughter of the song god and titan Helios, she is an unremarkable child born into a life of luxurious tedium. But Circe wants more and seeks the companionship of humans. In trying to twist her fate and defy the will of the gods she discovers she possesses powers. For this, she is exiled. </p>
<p>This story of Circe’s life in exile on her island challenges The Odyssey’s focus on Odysseus. Miller emphasises Circe’s isolation as intended punishment that grows to become so much more. </p>
<p>In contrast to her “father’s halls”, Miller’s Circe experiences her island as “the wildest, most giddy freedom”. Circe discovers that “to swim in the tide, to walk the earth […] is what it means to be alive. […] All my life, I have been moving forward, and now I am here.”</p>
<h2>5. An Odyssey: a Father, a Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn</h2>
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<img alt="Book cover featuring greek artwork." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479367/original/file-20220816-5564-z7u5be.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479367/original/file-20220816-5564-z7u5be.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479367/original/file-20220816-5564-z7u5be.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479367/original/file-20220816-5564-z7u5be.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479367/original/file-20220816-5564-z7u5be.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479367/original/file-20220816-5564-z7u5be.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479367/original/file-20220816-5564-z7u5be.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vintage</span></span>
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<p>The critic and writer Daniel Mendelsohn’s memoir, <a href="https://www.williamcollinsbooks.co.uk/products/an-odyssey-a-father-a-son-and-an-epic-shortlisted-for-the-baillie-gifford-prize-2017-daniel-mendelsohn-9780007545124/">An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and an Epic</a>, relates his experience exploring The Odyssey with his father, first in his classroom and then as they travel around the Mediterranean recreating Odysseus’ journey. The book is part literary crash course on The Odyssey, part touching memoir and part travelogue. An informative and moving read.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188172/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Bryant Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>These books and poems give the women of the Odyssey a say and other new perspectives on the classic tale.Rachel Bryant Davies, Lecturer in Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1835092022-06-07T14:01:42Z2022-06-07T14:01:42ZFiction about abortion confronts the complicated history of gender, sexuality and women’s rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466446/original/file-20220531-49081-6364m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C4500%2C2391&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists defending women's rights to choose abortion dress up as characters from Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale,' at the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, in October 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/fiction-about-abortion-confronts-the-complicated-history-of-gender--sexuality-and-women-s-rights" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Recent debates around <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-us-supreme-court-roe-v-wade-1.6442427"><em>Roe v. Wade</em> in the United States</a> have sparked new conversations about the right to abortion and what it means. </p>
<p>On the one hand, the anti-abortion movement <a href="https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2016/november/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america">envisions a fetus as an individual with rights</a>. </p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a19748134/what-is-abortion/">pro-choice advocates</a> believe individuals with uteruses should have control over their own reproduction and futures. </p>
<p>Before and after abortion was <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/after-morgentaler">decriminalized in Canada in 1969</a>, writers have explored how abortion taps into networks of meaning and our cultural imagination about women’s bodies and the future. In fiction and literary scholarship, <a href="https://www.aupress.ca/books/120257-without-apology/">abortion draws on the complicated history</a> of gender, sexuality and women’s rights. </p>
<p>Figuratively, to abort is to expel or to miscarry. To abort becomes entangled with our perceptions of how we shape the future.</p>
<h2>‘No Clouds of Glory’ / ‘Sarah Bastard’s Notebook’</h2>
<p>Although many of her works explore motherhood, Canadian novelist <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/marian-engel">Marian Engel’s</a> first novel <em>No Clouds of Glory</em> (1968), <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781897178126">later re-titled</a> <em><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/13-canadian-writers-celebrate-underrated-books-by-women-1.4223947">Sarah Bastard’s Notebook</a></em> (1974), pivots on an abortion. </p>
<p>In retrospect, the protagonist Sarah names her first unborn fetus Antonio. Sarah’s abortion is complicated by social pressure to keep an affair with her sister’s husband a secret. Choosing to name the fetus encapsulates her search for love and identity. She imagines herself as an “almost-mother” to a strong and loving boy with whom she can share the world. Antonio becomes an antidote for her loneliness. </p>
<p>But Sarah’s desire to be a writer marks her as an unusual woman, a monstrosity. The aborted fetus also personifies the fear she has of finding value in the world as an author rather than a mother. As literary scholar Cinda Gault suggests, Sarah is someone who imagines the domestic sphere as being prison-like and incarcerating women based on “<a href="https://mellenpress.com/book/National-and-Female-Identity-in-Canadian-Literature-1965-1980-The-Fiction-of-Margaret-Laurence-Margaret-Atwood-and-Marian-Engel/8638/">assumptions about sexuality and reproduction</a>.” </p>
<p>Sarah’s multiple abortions are literally related to her <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-queer-art-of-failure">unease with gendered expectations</a>. They also figuratively represent her self-sabotage as a writer. Only when she comes to understand her identity, seeking another abortion to sustain her independence, can she overcome her abortive tendencies as a writer.</p>
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<h2>Reproductive futures</h2>
<p>Abortions get caught up in morality, in sexuality and in what literary critic and queer theorist Lee Edelman calls “<a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/no-future">reproductive futurism</a>” — dominant society’s cis-gendered heteronormative investment in the figure of the innocent child. The fetus, he argues, is seen as the future and the potential for what heteronormative narratives desire society to be. As historian Jennifer Holland argues, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520295872/tiny-you">anti-abortion advocates have “made fetal life feel personal to many Americans</a>.”</p>
<p>Lee’s discussion demonstrates the complexity and charged nature of abortion as a cultural metaphor. He asks, when a particular fetus is seen as embodying our collective future: “Who <em>would</em>, after all, come out for abortion or stand <em>against</em> reproduction, <em>against</em> futurity, and so against life?” </p>
<p>In asking this question, Lee scrutinizes how “the queer,” seen as aligned with pro-choice advocacy, is positioned to embody “a relentlessly narcissistic, antisocial and future-negating drive.” </p>
<p>Abortion comes to stand in for monstrosity. Cells that have the ability to express as nerve, bone and organ tissue (read: brain and heart) get imaginatively conceived as a squirming, breathing baby, the hope for our future and survival.</p>
<h2>‘The Handmaid’s Tale’</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/9780771008795"><em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em></a> (1985), novelist Margaret Atwood’s future <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ban-roe-supreme-court-mississippi/">dystopian American state</a>, Gilead, demonstrates how cultural anxieties about female infertility become entwined in the politics of abortion.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Copies of 'The Handmaid's Tale,' seen in a bookstore display." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466457/original/file-20220531-49499-g86vv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466457/original/file-20220531-49499-g86vv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466457/original/file-20220531-49499-g86vv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466457/original/file-20220531-49499-g86vv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466457/original/file-20220531-49499-g86vv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466457/original/file-20220531-49499-g86vv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466457/original/file-20220531-49499-g86vv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is set in a future dystopian world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The novel’s postscript <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2020.102362">links abortion to birth control</a> and “plummeting Caucasian birth rates.” Gilead, it would seem, restricts women’s independence in a highly structured <a href="https://medium.com/the-establishment/the-handmaids-tale-a-white-feminist-s-dystopia-80da75a40dc5">white supremacist</a>, theocratic and totalitarian society. Here, Atwood connects abortion as a <a href="https://adanewmedia.org/2013/11/issue3-sheldon/">reproductive technology</a> to histories of racist and religious oppression. </p>
<p>But critics of the novel note that its avoidance of directly addressing race ultimately <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/for-black-women-the-handmaids-tales-dystopia-is-real-and-telling">erases the voices and struggles of Black and racialized women</a>, as writer Melayna Williams argues. Writer Noah Berlatsky notes that while “<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/15808530/handmaids-tale-hulu-margaret-atwood-black-history-racial-erasure">America has always been a dystopia for people of colour</a>,” this acknowledgement is missing from Atwood’s novel. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hulus-the-handmaids-tale-casts-canada-as-a-racial-utopia-167766">Hulu's 'The Handmaid's Tale' casts Canada as a racial utopia</a>
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<h2>Abortion riots</h2>
<p>The omission of racist histories of oppression and violence against Black and racialized women, including <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/the-racist-history-of-abortion-and-midwifery-bans">oppressive histories of sexual and reproductive control</a>, stands out considering how reproductive rights feature in the novel.</p>
<p>The character Janine confesses to being traumatically “gang-raped at fourteen.” She testifies to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html">having had an abortion</a>, while the narrator, June, remembers her pro-choice mother coming back from “the abortion riots” bruised and bleeding.</p>
<p>Although not seeking an abortion, June still wants her right to choose not to be raped and to choose when, how and with whom she shares her reproductive abilities as they impact her future. In Atwood’s novel, Gilead terminates the freedom of individuals with viable uteruses — it “aborts” women’s futures.</p>
<p>Engel, Atwood and other writers aren’t simply interested in whether abortion is right or wrong. They want to know how abortion gets entwined with love, hate, despair and joy, with sexuality and desire, with abuse, violence and histories of colonialism and patriarchy. </p>
<p>They examine how abortion becomes a part of the analogies and metaphors through which we imagine the future. And, as women, they want to know whether they’ll have a choice in how their own futures unfold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Engbrecht does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Before and after abortion was decriminalized in Canada in 1969, fiction has explored how abortion intersects with cultural imaginings about women’s bodies and humanity’s future.Sharon Engbrecht, PhD Candidate, Department of English Language and Literatures, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840512022-05-31T03:15:41Z2022-05-31T03:15:41ZMargaret Atwood’s flamethrower of a stunt and the misguided moral certainty of book burning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465879/original/file-20220530-23-o122et.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C59%2C2646%2C1414&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">YouTube, Penguin Random House</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If someone had told me a few weeks ago that nearly every major news website and social media account in the English-speaking world would post a video of Margaret Atwood – the 82-year-old matron saint of Canadian letters, the subject of countless doctoral dissertations and at least ten forests worth of undergraduate student essays – firing a flamethrower at a specially made, unburnable copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, I probably would have been a bit sceptical.</p>
<p>Then again, in her public appearances, Atwood has always managed to combine an elegant self-possession with an unflinching, even rugged pertinacity. In every interview I have read or seen, she seems simultaneously demure and terrifying, like a diminutive grandmother – who also just happens to be holding a flamethrower. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zpsMsAMY4eM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The reason why you will have no trouble finding a video of Atwood trying and failing to burn an unburnable copy of her own book, should you be so inclined, is that she would like to draw attention to the eternal struggle against censorship. </p>
<p>More accurately, she would like to draw attention to an auction at Sotheby’s in which her unburnable book will be sold to the highest bidder, with all proceeds going to the writer’s organisation <a href="https://pen.org/">PEN America</a>. </p>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale has, it is worth noting, an all but unique status in the long history of literary censorship, including book burning, for it has come to exemplify the events it portrays. </p>
<p>It is a book about censorship that <a href="https://global.penguinrandomhouse.com/announcements/margaret-atwood-prh-fight-censorship-with-an-unburnable-edition-of-the-handmaids-tale/">has itself been censored</a> on too many occasions to count. It is thus, strangely but undeniably, a kind of dystopia of the real world, a speculative fantasy that describes, sometimes in frighteningly accurate detail, what is actually taking place.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-margaret-atwoods-the-handmaids-tale-75062">Guide to the Classics: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Power</h2>
<p>While it has been lodged in popular consciousness as a decidedly political novel, anyone who reads The Handmaid’s Tale will quickly realise that it is a profoundly ambiguous work. The book offers moral certainty about nothing save the need for constant vigilance and suspicion with respect to all manifestations of moral certainty. </p>
<p>For Atwood, it is clear that moral certainty is a characteristic of power, and that power can take many forms, both violent and coercive. </p>
<p>And, beyond the purely negative suppression of dangerous or forbidden knowledge, book burning has always been a way of positively communicating power – part of the theatre of authority designed to instil both fear and awe, both a trembling compliance and a perverse fascination. </p>
<p>Indeed, the burning of books has often operated as a substitute for another historically common practice, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20477359?seq=1">namely the burning of people</a>. We should never be allowed to forget that both the public spectacle of the conflagration of paper and the public spectacle of the conflagration of flesh have generally taken place with the approval, and even rapacious delight, of a significant popular audience.</p>
<p>Perhaps in part for this reason, it appears that humans have burned books for as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burning">long as there have been books to burn</a>, and in every culture in which paper or something of that sort has been used to preserve and transmit information.</p>
<p>Naturally, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings">the Nazis</a> are everyone’s go to example. But did you know that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich">on August 23, 1956</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/11/archives/wilhelm-reich-vs-the-usa-the-discoverer-of-the-orgone-by-jerome.html">the American Food and Drug Administration executed a court order</a> by placing six tons of books by the renegade psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich in a public incinerator on 25th Street in New York City?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466138/original/file-20220531-24-l94ww5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Book burnings in Berlin, 1933.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They included copies of his classic studies The Sexual Revolution, Character Analysis, and <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374508845/themasspsychologyoffascism">The Mass Psychology of Fascism</a> – the last one being a book someone should also consider making an unburnable copy of right around now. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465880/original/file-20220530-24-6y69vm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wilhelm Reich at his desk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile – notoriously propped up by the American regime and defended by the fathers of neoliberalism – also burned books, including academic studies of Cubism, which were presumably consigned to the flames on the assumption that they had something to do with Cuba. </p>
<p>The Venn diagram of those who burn books and those who read them is typically two separate circles. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-pinochets-chile-100659">World politics explainer: Pinochet's Chile</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Words as weapons</h2>
<p>But in Atwood’s curious stunt, she is the one holding the flamethrower. In doing so, she might be unintentionally reminding us of a completely different tradition of book burning: that of authors burning or asking others to burn their own books, or at least those papers and documents that we so suggestively call their “literary remains”. </p>
<p>Franz Kafka is undoubtedly the most famous example. We know of his work today almost exclusively because his literary executor Max Brod refused to fulfil his expressed desire to have his papers burned after his death.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466137/original/file-20220531-12-frmmqn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The last known portrait of Franz Kafka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brod’s justification was quite brilliant. It introduces some difficult questions about the concept of the will and the nature of posthumous consent. While he admitted that Kafka had made the request, Brod proposed that Kafka had asked him because he knew he would not follow through. </p>
<p>Maybe we all share this desire to have our past, or at least elements of our past, forgotten rather than remembered. And maybe the very social media that spread the video of Atwood and her flamethrower like fire, as it were, make that increasingly impossible. </p>
<p>In either case, we would be remiss to think that book burning itself is a memory, much less a joke. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/02/06/pastor-holds-bonfire-burning-books-harry-potter-and-twilight-orig-as.cnn">it is happening today</a>. And it will unquestionably happen again. And the only real weapon we have against it is to write continuously about it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Barbour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Margaret Atwood’s new fireproof copy of The Handmaid’s Tale protests book banning – and burning. The Venn diagram of those who burn books and those who read them is typically two separate circles.Charles Barbour, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1677662021-11-23T16:32:17Z2021-11-23T16:32:17ZHulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ casts Canada as a racial utopia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432954/original/file-20211121-19-okuarf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C126%2C1044%2C599&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hulu's 'Handmaid's Tale' Season 4 envisions escapes to Canada that draw on 19th century abolitionist narratives, yet the show doesn't acknowledge race. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hulu/YouTube)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/hulu-s--the-handmaid-s-tale--casts-canada-as-a-racial-utopia" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When Hulu’s series <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> premiered in 2017, reviewers noted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/arts/television/review-the-handmaids-tale-creates-a-chilling-mans-world.html">its gripping drama and dystopian exploration</a> of rape culture and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/26/the-handmaids-tale-year-trump-misogyny-metoo">misogyny at a time when both were hallmarks of Donald Trump’s presidency</a>.</p>
<p>The series is adapted from Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel. It has won numerous awards and was recently renewed for <a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a35130606/handmaids-tale-season-5-news-date-cast-spoilers-trailer/">a fifth season</a>. But some commentators, including writer Ellen E. Jones, have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/31/the-handmaids-tales-race-problem">criticized the series for its use of colour-blind casting that created inclusivity but otherwise ignored race in storylines</a>. Others, including Noah Berlatsky, have analyzed how both the series and novel <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/15808530/handmaids-tale-hulu-margaret-atwood-black-history-racial-erasure">erase Black people’s history</a>.</p>
<p>Our research examines representations of <a href="https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/R/Race-in-Young-Adult-Speculative-Fiction">race in speculative fiction</a> and of <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/reading-between-the-borderlines-products-9780773555136.php">Canada in U.S. literature</a>, leading us to notice how Hulu’s series represents race and national difference. </p>
<p>The show positions Canada as a morally superior nation that has rejected the dystopian society’s repressive and exclusionist thinking. This is especially apparent in Season 4’s focus on characters’ escape to Canada, a theme that references older abolitionist narratives. In so doing, the show obscures Canada’s history of slavery, colonialism and racism. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/81PyH5TH-NQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Atwood’s dystopian world</h2>
<p>Both the novel and show draw on U.S. history to imagine a dystopian world facing an unexplained fertility crisis. Gilead, a <a href="https://lithub.com/margaret-atwood-on-how-she-came-to-write-the-handmaids-tale">theocratic nation led by religious fundamentalists</a>, has overthrown the U.S. government. Atwood’s female narrator is an <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA206534450&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00294047&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ec0791e64">educated white woman</a> forced to become a “handmaid.” Each month, a commander rapes her in a religious fertility ceremony. Babies born to handmaids are raised by commanders and their wives. The sole purpose of the handmaids is to rebuild Gilead’s population. </p>
<p>Writer Priya Nair explains that Atwood’s novel draws on the historical <a href="https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/anti-blackness-handmaids-tale">oppression of Black enslaved women and applies it to fictional white women</a>. For example, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Dark-Horizons-Science-Fiction-and-the-Dystopian-Imagination/Moylan-Baccolini/p/book/9780415966146">handmaids who are disobedient</a> are beaten or hanged. </p>
<p>Despite clear parallels to slavery, Atwood only obliquely
references slavery when the narrator <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2017/05/02/whats-not-said-handmaids-tale/">explains that the “Children of Ham</a>” have been relocated to the Dakotas. “Children of Ham” is a Biblical phrase that was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/arts/from-noah-s-curse-to-slavery-s-rationale.html">used historically to justify enslaving Africans</a>.</p>
<p>Nair also notes that the novel focuses on white women’s oppression, while seemingly ignoring “the historical realities of an American dystopia founded on anti-Black violence.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd of women, of white, Black and Asian identities, seen in cloaks and bonnets." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433508/original/file-20211123-26-1jbixok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433508/original/file-20211123-26-1jbixok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433508/original/file-20211123-26-1jbixok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433508/original/file-20211123-26-1jbixok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433508/original/file-20211123-26-1jbixok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433508/original/file-20211123-26-1jbixok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433508/original/file-20211123-26-1jbixok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actors are seen at the filming of Handmaid’s Tale at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., February 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Victoria Pickering/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the novel relies on historical experiences of Black Americans, its characters are predominantly white, a feature of Gilead that Atwood maintains in the 2019 follow-up <em>The Testaments</em>. As reviewer Danielle Kurtzleben notes, in this second instalment: “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/755868251/the-testaments-takes-us-back-to-gilead-for-a-fast-paced-female-centered-adventur">Readers hoping to hear more about race in Gilead will be sorely disappointed</a>.” </p>
<p>Atwood intentionally framed Gilead as both misogynist and racist: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/15808530/handmaids-tale-hulu-margaret-atwood-black-history-racial-erasure">the theocracy is interested only in reproducing white babies and, therefore, only enslaving white women</a>.</p>
<h2>Colour-blind casting in Hulu’s adaptation</h2>
<p>In adapting the novel, Hulu relied on a diverse cast of actors. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005253/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">White actor Elisabeth Moss</a> plays June and <a href="https://blackbookmag.com/arts-culture/essay-the-handmaids-tale-star-o-t-fagbenle-on-racial-fairness-in-the-entertainment-industry/">Black British actor</a> <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1282966/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">O-T Fagbenle</a> portrays her husband Luke. <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/samira-wiley-on-doing-right-by-her-handmaids-tale-character-her-wife-the-queer-black-community-herself-8732193">Black actor</a> <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4148126/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Samira Wiley</a> was cast as June’s best friend Moira. Actors of colour portray characters of all class positions in Gilead’s society. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A Black woman dressed glamorously in red lipstick is seen arriving at an event in front of a Hulu / Handmaid's Tale sign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433506/original/file-20211123-25-401rkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433506/original/file-20211123-25-401rkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433506/original/file-20211123-25-401rkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433506/original/file-20211123-25-401rkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433506/original/file-20211123-25-401rkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433506/original/file-20211123-25-401rkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433506/original/file-20211123-25-401rkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Samira Wiley, who plays Moira, arrives for ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ FYC Phase 2 Event in August 2017 in Los Angeles, Calif.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0588005/">Executive producer Bruce Miller</a> acknowledges that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/31/the-handmaids-tales-race-problem">he cast actors of colour</a> in many roles to avoid creating an all-white world, which would result in a racist TV show. The show doesn’t address race, he explained, because: “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/31/the-handmaids-tales-race-problem">It just felt like in a world where birth rates have fallen so precipitously, fertility would trump everything</a>.” </p>
<p>The show then relies on colour-blind casting and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/06/16/the-handmaids-tale-proves-that-colorblind-casting-isnt-enough/">colour-blind storytelling</a>. </p>
<p>In Atwood’s novel, Canada is <a href="https://the-handmaids-tale.fandom.com/wiki/Canada">the place to which handmaids escape</a>, fleeing there on the Underground Femaleroad — a term that clearly invokes <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/underground-railroad">the Underground Railroad</a>.</p>
<p>In Hulu’s series, handmaids — <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5931656/?ref_=ttep_ep10">including Moira</a> — escape from Gilead to Canada where they find protection and safety, and are able to rebuild their lives. The series draws on older literary traditions that have been integral to maintaining the myth of Canada as free from racism. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-am-not-your-nice-mammy-how-racist-stereotypes-still-impact-women-111028">I am not your nice 'Mammy': How racist stereotypes still impact women</a>
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<h2>Draws on abolitionist narratives</h2>
<p>In the 1840s and 1850s, U.S. abolitionist authors intentionally represented Canada as a racial haven. By casting <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/jcs.2020-0025">Canada as morally superior</a>, abolitionists imagined what the U.S. might look like if slavery were abolished. </p>
<p>Abolitionist authors like Black songwriter and poet <a href="https://southernspaces.org/2020/white-people-america-1854/">Joshua McCarter Simpson</a> and white novelist <a href="https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/harriet-beecher-stowe/harriet-beecher-stowe-life/">Harriet Beecher Stowe</a> celebrated Canada as a place that resisted racial violence and provided legal protection for Black refugees fleeing U.S. slavery. </p>
<p>Some abolitionists sought to capture the nuanced accounts of Black refugees in Canada. Abolitionist editor <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/drew/drew.html">Benjamin Drew</a> published oral testimonies of Black refugees, including their experiences of racism in Ontario. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancestry-ad-gets-it-wrong-canada-was-never-slave-free-116051">Ancestry ad gets it wrong: Canada was never slave-free</a>
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<p>Others, like Stowe, minimized the difficulties of the lived experiences of Black Canadians, focusing on stories of Black success in Canada. These celebratory narratives dominated representations of Canada in U.S. literature.</p>
<h2>Canada as utopia?</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A group of women in red cloaks and bonnets are seen walking by a cluster of trees outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433513/original/file-20211123-20-1n4hkjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433513/original/file-20211123-20-1n4hkjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433513/original/file-20211123-20-1n4hkjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433513/original/file-20211123-20-1n4hkjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433513/original/file-20211123-20-1n4hkjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433513/original/file-20211123-20-1n4hkjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433513/original/file-20211123-20-1n4hkjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ escape-to-Canada stories draw on historical narratives by abolitionists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Victoria Pickering/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/chairholders-titulaires/profile-eng.aspx?profileId=4528">Literary scholar Nancy Kang</a> argues these abolitionist stories constructed an “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40033673">allegory of Canadian freedom reigning triumphant over American bondage</a>.” </p>
<p>Hulu’s <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> escape-to-Canada stories draw on these historical narratives. The handmaid Emily, portrayed by white actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0088127/">Alexis Bledel</a>, escapes Gilead dramatically, entering Canada by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8363118/?ref_=ttep_ep1">wading across a rushing river</a>, nearly losing June’s daughter. Once across, she weeps over the baby, recreating an iconic scene from Stowe’s <a href="http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/uncletom/uthp.html"><em>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</em></a>, when the enslaved Eliza escapes slave-catchers by fleeing across a river with her child.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-uncle-tom-still-impacts-racial-politics-152201">How 'Uncle Tom' still impacts racial politics</a>
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<p>Later in the episode, an Asian Canadian doctor welcomes Emily to Canada, saying: “You’re safe here.”</p>
<p>On some level, Hulu’s use of colour-blind casting, as Berlatsky notes, “addresses the narrative’s debt to African-American history.” But viewers are still watching an adaptation of a novel whose emotional horror is based on imagining violent, racist aspects of U.S. history <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/15/15808530/handmaids-tale-hulu-margaret-atwood-black-history-racial-erasure">as if the atrocities happened to white people</a>.</p>
<h2>Myths of Canada</h2>
<p>The series avoids Canada’s history of anti-Black racism, slavery and state violence against Black bodies, as detailed by gender studies and Black/African diaspora scholar <a href="https://wgsi.utoronto.ca/person/robyn-maynard/">Robyn Maynard</a> in <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/policing-black-lives"><em>Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present</em></a>. It also overlooks Canada’s colonial <a href="https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525">violence toward Indigenous peoples</a>. These <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-shameful-history-of-sterilizing-indigenous-women-107876">forms of violence</a> are intertwined with seeking control over women’s reproductive rights and sexual freedom. </p>
<p>The series also overlooks Canada’s history of <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chinese-immigration-act">racist immigration</a> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/auschwitz-jews-not-welcome-in-wartime-canada">and asylum</a> policies.</p>
<p>Hulu’s series does explore some of the consequences of patriarchal oppression. But the show’s positioning of Canada as a racial haven obscures <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/racism">its history</a> and the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/m_blog/dont-believe-the-hype-canada-is-not-a-nation-of-cultural-tolerance">contemporary reality of racism</a> experienced by BIPOC women and communities in Canada.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alyssa MacLean receives research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miranda Green-Barteet does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Myths of Canada’s moral superiority in contrast to the United States can be a barrier to acknowledging and addressing racism in Canada.Miranda Green-Barteet, Associate Professor, Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, Western UniversityAlyssa MacLean, Assistant Professor, Department of English and Writing Studies, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1491642020-12-10T17:20:15Z2020-12-10T17:20:15ZMeet the Canadian writers and researchers who deserve to win the Nobel Prize<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374232/original/file-20201210-19-1pq1r1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=39%2C15%2C5248%2C3504&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Margaret Atwood gives a talk at a Walrus magazine event in Toronto on June 14, 2016. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year, Nobel Prizes continued to celebrate women’s achievements: the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02765-9">Nobel Prize in chemistry</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/summary">was awarded jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna</a> for developing a tool for genomic editing called CRISPR-Cas9.</p>
<p>This builds on the 2018 chemistry prize which went to <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2018/arnold/facts/">Frances Arnold</a> for her application of genetic engineering to create new proteins to benefit humanity. And in physics, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/ghez/facts/">Andrea Ghez</a> received the award for the discovery of a black hole in the centre of the Milky Way. Canada’s own <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2018/summary/">Donna Strickland</a> received the Nobel in 2018.</p>
<p>With the Nobel in literature going to Canada’s <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2013/munro/facts/">Alice Munro</a> in 2013 and this year’s award to American <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2020/summary/">Louise Gluck</a>, Canadians eagerly await even further recognition for <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/news/margaret-atwood-and-bernardine-evaristo-winners-2019-booker-prize-announced">Margaret Atwood</a>, a double winner of the Booker prize. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The author Alice Munro reads from her book while sitting next to a large replica of the $5 coin celebrating her achievements." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372026/original/file-20201130-23-1iuvkxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro reads from her book ‘The View From Castle Rock’ at a ceremony held by the Royal Canadian Mint to celebrate her win at the Great Victoria Public Library in Victoria, B.C., on March 24, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Several women in Canada have made <a href="https://www.healthing.ca/science/o-canada-a-look-at-canadian-health-innovation">Nobel-worthy discoveries in the area of life sciences</a>. None may be more deserving than McGill University’s Brenda Milner for her discoveries on long-term memory. </p>
<p>It is not only women in Canada whose contributions should be recognized with more Nobel Prizes, there is a strong case for men as well. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-memory-pill-cognitive-neurosciences-contributions-to-the-study-of-memory-109707">A memory pill? Cognitive neuroscience's contributions to the study of memory</a>
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<h2>Canadian pride</h2>
<p>This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine went to the University of Alberta’s <a href="https://www.ualberta.ca/michael-houghton-nobel-prize-2020.html">Michael Houghton</a> for his discovery of hepatitis C. In 2015, the Nobel Prize in physics went to Arthur McDonald at Queen’s University, for his <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2015/mcdonald/facts/">discovery that neutrinos have mass</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-alberta-researchers-discovery-of-hepatitis-c-led-to-the-nobel-prize-and-saved-lives-147553">How an Alberta researcher’s discovery of hepatitis C led to the Nobel Prize and saved lives</a>
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<p>Canada aspires to even further recognition for the discovery of bacterial adaptive immunity by <a href="https://www.moineau.bcm.ulaval.ca/index.php?id=2&L=3">Sylvain Moineau</a> at Laval University that was the foundation for this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry. </p>
<p>Together with <a href="https://cals.ncsu.edu/food-bioprocessing-and-nutrition-sciences/people/rbarran/">Rodolphe Barrangou</a> at North Carolina State University and <a href="https://www.dupontnutritionandbiosciences.com/news/dupont-scientist-philippe-horvath-receives-franklin-institute-science-prize-2018-bower-award-for-groundbreaking-research-on-crispr-cas.html">Philippe Horvath</a> at Dupont Nutrition and Health in France, they demonstrated that CRISPR-Cas9 is the adaptive immune system of bacteria. </p>
<p><a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1042/EBC20160017">Adaptive immunity</a> has been long understood in vertebrates as the acquisition of memory of past infections from a pathogen. Any subsequent infection leads to destruction of the pathogen. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-cant-canada-win-another-nobel-prize-in-medicine-87910">Why can't Canada win another Nobel Prize in medicine?</a>
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<p>Barrangou, Horvath and Moineau’s interest was in yogurt, and specifically why <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2859-10-S1-S20">bacteria used to make yogurt died from viral infections</a>. Moineau is an expert on bacterial viruses known as bacteriophages. Barrangou and Horvath are food scientists. Together, they discovered that bacteria could resist viral infections by an adaptive immune system that had <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1138140">a memory of past bacteriophage infections</a> and a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09523">mechanism to destroy any subsequent infections</a>. These discoveries extended the concept of adaptive immunity from vertebrates to bacteria.</p>
<p>They discovered the memory of past viral infections in bacteria is CRISPR. They also discovered that any subsequent infection would be destroyed by the bacterial enzyme Cas9. It is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3659">these discoveries</a> that enabled Charpentier and Douda to create the tool kit of CRISPR-Cas9 to edit genes in any organism. </p>
<p>By 2010, more than 10 Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine had been given for <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/uncategorized/nobel-prizes-and-the-immune-system/">discoveries of immune systems</a> with <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2011/summary/">three more in 2011</a>. Recognizing Barrangou, Horvath and Moineau with a Nobel Prize for their demonstration of adaptive immunity in bacteria is more than a hope.</p>
<p><em>John Bergeron gratefully acknowledges Kathleen Dickson as co-author.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149164/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Bergeron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada has produced Nobel Prize winners in the arts and sciences. With several recent awards, Canadian talent still has the potential for future achievements.John Bergeron, Emeritus Robert Reford Professor and Professor of Medicine, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1480512020-10-19T13:49:35Z2020-10-19T13:49:35ZMuch like Dorian Gray’s portrait, Trump is a reflection of America’s soul<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363779/original/file-20201015-21-bwq28s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2420%2C1654&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 'The Picture of Dorian Gray,' the protagonist remains youthful while a portrait of him ages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As many have noted, United States President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trump-is-the-embodiment-of-the-worst-of-america/article28111767/">embodies the very worst American traits</a>. If one were to caricature America’s vices, from bombast to narcissism, heartless individualism and toxic machismo, one would come up with someone who looks very much like Trump. </p>
<p>Yet, by imbuing the president with all of America’s faults, supporters of Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket place too much faith in electoral politics. The removal of Trump will not erase America’s faults. Instead, like Irish playwright Oscar Wilde’s <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm"><em>The Picture of Dorian Gray</em></a>, Trump is just a reflection of America’s very soul.</p>
<p>By all means vote and otherwise participate in electoral politics. But don’t shy away from the painful process of self-examination in order to discover effective ways to heal divisions and address injustices in your own life and circle. </p>
<p>For my part, I have been striving to learn the ways I have benefited from the status quo and taking some concrete steps to better understand and support those who have been left out. There are many things we can do on a much more regular basis beyond voting every few years, and much closer to home. In my own context as a white settler in Canada, <a href="https://www.ictinc.ca/books/21-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-indian-act">this book</a> — which explains Canada’s Indian Act and its repercussions — has helped.</p>
<p>First published in <em>Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine</em> in 1890, and then a year later in extended book form, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Picture-of-Dorian-Gray-novel-by-Wilde"><em>The Picture of Dorian Gray</em></a> is Wilde’s take on the Faustian bargain. In it, the protagonist makes a deal with the devil for short-term gain followed by an inevitable downfall. </p>
<h2>Dorian’s downfall</h2>
<p>In Wilde’s novel, the young Dorian Gray sits for a portrait painted by his friend, Basil Hallward. Upon seeing the painting, Gray is struck by its youthful beauty and vigour, and despairs that, unlike the painting, he will age and decay. If only he could remain as youthful as the painting! </p>
<p>Unwittingly, by wishing so, Gray ensures that the painting itself will take on all the ravages of age and the distortions of wickedness, while Gray himself remains young and untainted by his actions, no matter how selfish and evil. </p>
<p>At first horrified by this situation and repulsed by the painting as it grows ever more sinister, Gray gives himself over to a life of hedonism, leaving many ruined lives in his wake. By the novel’s end — spoiler alert! — Gray is driven mad by his ludicrously consequence-free life, and recognizes that even though he has avoided the physical effects of his actions, his soul is as guilty as the painting is repulsive. </p>
<p>Stuck in a cycle of hurting others and living an unfulfilled and meaningless life of base pleasures, Gray turns to the painting as the cause of his inability to change for the better. </p>
<p>In the end, he thrusts a knife through the painting to destroy it and break its hold over him, but only manages to kill himself. The painting reverts to its former beauty as the twisted and newly aged body of the real Dorian Gray lies dead on the floor.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of a young man holding a framed portrait — the person in the portrait is a twisted version of the man and appears to be emerging from the frame" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363781/original/file-20201015-13-1ypg98z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s interpretation of a young Dorian Gray interacting with his sinister portrait.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Honest reflections</h2>
<p>In a certain sense, America is fortunate to have in Trump a shocking image of its own excesses and divisions. Shocking images, after all, have the power to, well, shock. And sometimes a system needs a shock in order to correct itself. </p>
<p>Canada has many of the same vices as America, including growing inequality, an out-of-touch and cynical political class and its own demons of historic and systemic racism and exclusion, but it remains easy for many Canadians to say: “Well, at least we live in Canada!” </p>
<p>Without a figure like Trump reflecting their sins like Dorian Gray’s hideous portrait, Canadians are harder to rouse to react against the injustices and inequalities that surround them. Trump offers a useful focal point.</p>
<p>But such a focal point runs the risk of becoming a scapegoat. </p>
<p>Even if they might have been exacerbated over the past four years, America’s most pressing problems — such as deepening divisions in everything from income and wealth to political views, horrors facing desperate immigrants on the southern border and an <a href="https://theconversation.com/partisan-supreme-court-battles-are-as-old-as-the-united-states-itself-146657">absurdly partisan Supreme Court</a> — pre-existed Trump and will outlast him.</p>
<h2>A reckoning</h2>
<p>Electoral politics up to this point, and even the administrations of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-democratic-national-convention-ap-fact-check-immigration-politics-2663c84832a13cdd7a8233becfc7a5f3">supposedly “good” presidents</a>, saw these pressing problems grow in intensity, and a Biden presidency will almost certainly do the same. </p>
<p>Like Dorian Gray, America is due for a reckoning with its own soul. Removing Trump will do no more good than destroying Gray’s portrait did. </p>
<p>Oscar Wilde used his protagonist to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/deceptive-picture">comment on</a> late 19th-century English high society. Even though Dorian Gray represents an extreme example of the hedonism and indolence of the wealthy aristocracy — a caricature, even — Wilde certainly meant for his contemporaries to see themselves in the pages of his novel. Good literature, like all good art, should cause us to think critically about our world and our place in it. The best literature has the capacity to shock us into a new awareness, and even concrete action. </p>
<p>Many artistic works have been brought to bear to comment on current events, such as Margaret Atwood’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/amy-coney-barrett-confirmation-hearings-senate-vote-handmaids-tale-protests-b992825.html"><em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em></a>. I suggest that <em>The Picture of Dorian Gray</em> should remind us, especially those of us gearing up for an important election, that the picture itself was never the problem.</p>
<p>Instead, the picture only revealed the darkness of Gray’s own soul, just as Trump lays bare the darkness in America’s soul (and the soul of many other nations besides).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew A. Sears does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Oscar Wilde’s novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ a painted portrait of the protagonist becomes ugly and twisted with age, much like Trump is represented as reflecting all of America’s evils.Matthew A. Sears, Associate Professor of Classics & Ancient History, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1435592020-07-29T11:45:46Z2020-07-29T11:45:46ZBooker Prize: refreshingly diverse longlist with plenty of new writers – but let’s see if Hilary Mantel wins her third<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350146/original/file-20200729-29-46ijys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=91%2C93%2C1458%2C766&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Top selection: the 2020 Booker Prize longlist.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Booker Prize</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When she announced the 2020 Booker Prize longlist recently, the chair of the judging panel, Margaret Busby, <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/news/2020-booker-prize-longlist-announced">noted that the selected books</a> “represent a moment of cultural change”. And while one could be tempted to see her words as the sort of hyperbole that often accompanies these announcements, the selection of 13 novels (the “Booker dozen”) for 2020 is – in some ways – one of the more interesting and diverse we’ve seen in a long time.</p>
<p>Two key aspects of the list made for the most discussion for literary commentators and social media. First, the inclusion of Hilary Mantel’s latest book, and the final in her Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light. Both the two previous books in the trilogy – Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies – won the Booker Prize, in 2009 and 2012 respectively. If Mantel was to win the 2020 Booker Prize for The Mirror & the Light she would be the first author to ever win three Bookers. </p>
<p>Second, nearly half of the longlist is made up of debut novels, which even the <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/booker-prize/news/2020-booker-prize-longlist-announced">literary director of the Booker Prize Foundation, Gaby Wood</a>, has admitted is an “unusually high proportion”. This is certainly something the Booker Prize and its judging panel should be commended for. </p>
<p>Like all other creative industries, publishing has been hit hard by the worldwide pandemic. From the cancellation of major events, including <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51735208">the London Book Fair in March</a>, and the <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/insight/book-shops-close-coronavirus-advice-comes-1195864">closing of bookshops</a>, to the <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/live-publishers-postpone-major-titles-until-pandemic-over-1199511">postponement of major releases</a>, including <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/launch-ruth-jones-second-novel-postponed-until-september-1195813">Ruth Jones’ second novel Us Three</a>, the 2020 publishing calendar has been turned upside down. </p>
<p>The celebration of debut novels in the Booker Prize longlist, then, is particularly fortuitous, since many debut writers have lost the opportunity to go through the usual new book tours, literary event circuits and bookshop signings.</p>
<h2>Spreading the love?</h2>
<p>Independent publishers in particular have been hit hard in 2020. A survey conducted in May by <a href="https://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/small-presses-at-risk-results-of-the-bookseller-and-spread-the-word-survey/">the Bookseller and Spread the Word</a> found that 85% of the publishers surveyed saw their sales drop by over a half since the UK’s national lockdown in March. So the 2020 Booker Prize longlist might also be applauded for its celebration of titles from indie presses. </p>
<p>Six of the 13 longlisted books come from four (admittedly well-known and larger) independent presses: Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness (Oneworld Publications), Tsitsi Dangarembga’s, This Mournable Body (Faber & Faber), Colum McCann’s Apeirogon and Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age (Bloomsbury), Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King (Canongate) and Brandon Taylor’s Real Life (Daunt Books Publishing).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AYbYLL7lLbM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The seven other books are from Pan Macmillan, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Hachette. I’ve written before about how the Booker’s terms of submission <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-man-booker-prize-still-has-a-long-way-to-go-before-it-is-truly-inclusive-49157">may sway the prize in favour of big publishers</a>, but this year there is at least some semblance of balance.</p>
<p>I’ve also written before about how the Booker Prize <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-man-booker-fiction-prize-became-stacked-in-favour-of-the-big-publishers-45344">has historically failed to award writers of colour</a> – an issue which was highlighted once again in 2019 when Bernardine Evaristo became <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/bernardine-evaristo-being-first-black-woman-to-win-booker-is-bittersweet-38595669.html">the first black British woman to win the award</a>.</p>
<p>Evaristo’s win was considered by many to be a long overdue recognition for a widely acclaimed writer, but the fact that Evaristo had to share the award with Margaret Atwood, a white, former Booker Prize winner, <a href="https://gal-dem.com/as-the-first-black-woman-to-win-the-booker-prize-bernardine-evaristo-deserved-to-win-alone/">did not go unnoticed</a>. It is perhaps promising, then, that nine of the new 13-strong Booker longlist are women – and more than half are writers of colour. </p>
<p>The overwhelming majority are US-based or born. This is significant since American writers have only been eligible for the prize since 2014 – and the change in rules that led to the inclusion of American writers was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/02/publishers-call-on-man-booker-prize-to-drop-american-authors">criticised by a number of authors and publishers at the time</a>. Since the rule change, only two American authors have won the award: Paul Beatty in 2016 and George Saunders in 2017. The prize is also now sponsored by the <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/crankstart-revealed-new-booker-prize-funder-five-year-deal-964761">American-based charitable foundation Crankstart</a>, founded by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Michael Moritz.</p>
<h2>Important themes</h2>
<p>Finally, it is worth highlighting the kinds of themes and issues dealt with in the longlisted books. The books examine race, homosexuality, gender and gender identity, poverty, class (and in some cases, intersections of them all), homelessness and climate change. </p>
<p>The subjects foregrounded by many of the longlisted books, therefore, not only speak to current socio-political movements and conflict – most notably Black Lives Matter and the call for active anti-racism. But they also foreshadow the kinds of issues we will undoubtedly come up against (and, in some circumstances, already are) in a post-coronavirus world. In other words, more so than ever before, this longlist feels both born from, and representative of, the very particular moment in history in which we are in.</p>
<p>But only time will tell if this will be reflected in the final shortlist which will be announced on September 15, with the winner being announced in November. If Mantel were to be crowned the winner – receiving her third Booker Prize in just over a decade – it would arguably prove that yet again the Booker Prize acts only to reinforce, as opposed to disrupt as hoped, the systemic inequalities and imbalances of contemporary publishing culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stevie Marsden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Booker Prize has always struggled with inclusivity.Stevie Marsden, Research Associate, CAMEo Research Institute for Cultural and Media Economies, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1369082020-04-29T12:11:14Z2020-04-29T12:11:14ZAre we living in a dystopia?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330857/original/file-20200427-145503-so76k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">State police officers during a "Reopen Virginia" rally around Capitol Square in Richmond on April 22, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/state-police-officers-monitor-activity-during-a-reopen-news-photo/1210663121?adppopup=true">Getty/Ryan M. Kelly / AFP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dystopian fiction is hot. Sales of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/326569/1984-by-george-orwell-with-a-foreword-by-thomas-pynchon/">George Orwell’s “1984”</a> and Margaret <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/">Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”</a> have <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dystopian-fiction-why-we-read/">skyrocketed</a> since 2016. Young adult dystopias – for example, <a href="https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/hunger-games-the-by-suzanne-collins/">Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games,”</a> <a href="https://veronicarothbooks.com/books/divergent/">Veronica Roth’s “Divergent,”</a> <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-Giver/9780547345901">Lois Lowry’s classic, “The Giver”</a> – were best-sellers even before. </p>
<p>And with COVID-19, dystopias featuring diseases have taken on new life. Netflix reports <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/outbreak-movie-top-10-netflix-titles-movies-pandemic-tv-series-coronavirus/">a spike in popularity</a> for “Outbreak,” “12 Monkeys” and <a href="http://blog.dvd.netflix.com/new-dvd-releases/4-virus-related-films-to-watch-in-the-time-of-covid-19">others</a>. </p>
<p>Does this popularity signal that people think they live in a dystopia now? Haunting images of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/23/world/coronavirus-great-empty.html">empty city squares</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-wild-animals-wales-goats-barcelona-boars-brazil-turtles/2020/04/14/30057b2c-7a71-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html">wild animals roaming streets</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/economy/coronavirus-food-banks.html">miles-long food pantry lines</a> certainly suggest this. </p>
<p>We want to offer another view. “Dystopia” is a powerful but overused term. It is not a synonym for a terrible time. </p>
<p>The question for us as <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnBSYuwAAAAJ&hl=en">political</a> <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LWLkiYMAAAAJ&hl=en">scientists</a> is not whether things are bad (they are), but how governments act. A government’s poor handling of a crisis, while maddening and sometimes disastrous, does not constitute dystopia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Today’s empty city streets capture the feeling of a dystopian time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/empty-city-coronavirus?agreements=pa:77130&family=editorial&locations=61907&phrase=empty%20city%20coronavirus&sort=newest#license">Getty/Roy Rochlin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legitimate coercion</h2>
<p>As we argue in our book, “<a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/survive-and-resist/9780231188913">Survive and Resist: the Definitive Guide to Dystopian Politics</a>,” the definition of dystopia is political.</p>
<p>Dystopia is not a real place; it is a warning, usually about something bad the government is doing or something good it is failing to do. Actual dystopias are fictional, but real-life governments can be “dystopian” – as in, looking a lot like the fiction. </p>
<p>Defining a dystopia starts with establishing the characteristics of good governance. A good government protects its citizens in a noncoercive way. It is the body best positioned to prepare for and guard against <a href="https://la.curbed.com/2018/4/17/17244978/lucy-jones-book-earthquake-flood">natural</a> and human-made horrors. </p>
<p>Good governments use what’s called “<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a228/d1aceec6ea2cadf1c41d2319793dd0ca9d30.pdf">legitimate coercion</a>,” legal force to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/">which citizens agree</a> to keep order and <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174556/read-my-lips">provide services</a> like roads, schools and national security. Think of legitimate coercion as your willingness to stop at a red light, knowing it’s better for you and others in the long run. </p>
<p>No government is perfect, but there are ways of judging the imperfection. Good governments (those least imperfect) include a strong core of <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Methodology_Proof1.pdf">democratic elements</a> to check the powerful and create <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Development_as_Freedom/Qm8HtpFHYecC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=amartya%20sen%20development%20as%20freedom&pg=PR4&printsec=frontcover">accountability.</a> They also include constitutional and judicial measures to check the power of the majority. This setup acknowledges the need for government but evidences <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Federalist-Anti-Federalist-Papers/dp/1495446697">healthy skepticism</a> of giving too much power to any one person or body. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=EWbOLZcXugsC&lpg=PA1&ots=G0KJZqipPn&dq=federalism%20democracy%20devolution&lr&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false">Federalism</a>, the division of power between national and subnational governments, is a further check. It has proved useful lately, with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/politics/states-band-together-reopening-plans/index.html">state governors and mayors</a> emerging as strong political players during COVID-19.</p>
<h2>Three kinds of dystopias</h2>
<p>Bad governments lack checks and balances, and rule in the interest of the rulers rather than the people. <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3">Citizens</a> can’t participate in their own governance. But dystopian governments are a special kind of bad; they use illegitimate coercion like force, threats and the “disappearing” of dissidents to stay in power. </p>
<p>Our book catalogs three major dystopia types, based on the presence – or absence – of a functioning state and how much power it has. </p>
<p>There are, as in Orwell’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell-ebook/dp/B003JTHWKU/ref=sr_1_1?crid=6FALM24842SX&dchild=1&keywords=orwell+1984&qid=1586894038&s=books&sprefix=orwell+%2Cstripbooks%2C142&sr=1-1">“1984,”</a> overly powerful governments that infringe on individual lives and liberties. These are authoritarian states, run by dictators or powerful groups, like a single party or corporate-governance entity. Examples of these governments abound, including <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/20/syria-torture-opposition-regime-defector/">Assad’s murderously repressive regime in Syria</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm5pE_BDtCc">silencing of dissent</a> and <a href="https://cpj.org/data/killed/europe/russia/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&cc_fips%5B%5D=RS&start_year=1992&end_year=2020&group_by=location">journalism</a> in Russia. </p>
<p>The great danger of these is, as our country’s Founding Fathers knew quite well, too much power on the part of any one person or group limits the options and autonomy of the masses. </p>
<p>Then there are dystopic states that seem nonauthoritarian but still take away basic human rights through market forces; we call these “capitocracies.” Individual workers and consumers are often exploited by the political-industrial complex, and the environment and other public goods suffer. A great fictional example is <a href="https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/walle">Wall-E</a> by Pixar (2008), in which the U.S. president is also CEO of “Buy ‘N Large,” a multinational corporation controlling the economy. </p>
<p>There are not perfect real-life examples of this, but elements are visible in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/republic-samsung">chaebol</a> – <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/south-koreas-chaebol-challenge">family business</a> – power in South Korea, and in various manifestations of corporate political power in the U.S, including <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/12/05/tracking-deregulation-in-the-trump-era/">deregulation</a>, corporate <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575125/corporations-are-not-people-by-jeffrey-d-clements/">personhood</a> status and big-company <a href="https://time.com/5814076/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-corporate-bailout/">bailouts</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly there are state-of-nature dystopias, usually resulting from the collapse of a failed government. The resulting territory reverts to a primitive feudalism, ungoverned except for small tribal-held fiefdoms where individual dictators rule with impunity. The Citadel versus Gastown in the stunning 2015 movie <a href="https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/mad-max-fury-road/">“Mad Max: Fury Road”</a> is a good fictional depiction. A real-life example was seen in the once barely governed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/23/somalia-no-longer-a-failed-state-just-a-fragile-one-says-un">Somalia</a>, where, for almost 20 years until 2012, as a U.N. official described it, “armed warlords (were) fighting each other on a clan basis.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fiction best describes dystopia – as in this reference to the landmark dystopian novel, ‘1984,’ by George Orwell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/graffiti-1984-is-now-titel-of-the-novel-1984-by-george-news-photo/545003371?adppopup=true">Getty/Schöning/ullstein bild</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fiction and real life</h2>
<p>Indeed, political dystopia is often easier to see using the lens of fiction, which exaggerates behaviors, trends and patterns to make them more visible. </p>
<p>But behind the fiction there is always a real-world correlate. Orwell had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/books/review/dorian-lynskey-ministry-of-truth-1984.html">Stalin, Franco and Hitler</a> very much in mind when writing “1984.” </p>
<p>Atwood, whom literary critics call the “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/margaret-atwood-the-prophet-of-dystopia">prophet of dystopia</a>,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/15/margaret-atwood-interview-english-pen-pinter-prize">recently defined dystopia</a> as when “[W]arlords and demagogues take over, some people forget that all people are people, enemies are created, vilified and dehumanized, minorities are persecuted, and human rights as such are shoved to the wall.” </p>
<p>Some of this may be, as Atwood <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/15/margaret-atwood-interview-english-pen-pinter-prize">added</a>, the “cusp of where we are living now.” </p>
<p>But the U.S. is not a dystopia. It still has functioning democratic institutions. Many in the U.S. fight against dehumanization and persecution of minorities. Courts are adjudicating cases. Legislatures are passing bills. Congress has not <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-nominations/trump-threatens-to-adjourn-u-s-congress-idUSKCN21X3GI">adjourned</a>, nor has the fundamental right of habeas corpus – the protection against illegal detention by the state – (yet) been <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023">suspended</a>. </p>
<h2>Crisis as opportunity</h2>
<p>And still. One frequent warning is that a major crisis can cover for the rolling back of democracy and curtailing of freedoms. In Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a medical crisis is the pretext for suspending the Constitution. </p>
<p>In real life, too, crises facilitate authoritarian backsliding. In Hungary the pandemic has sped democracy’s unraveling. The legislature gave strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban the power to <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/understanding-hungarys-authoritarian-response-pandemic">rule by sole decree indefinitely</a>, the lower courts are suspended and free speech is restricted. </p>
<p>Similar dangers exist in any number of countries where democratic institutions are frayed or fragile; leaders with authoritarian tendencies may be tempted to leverage the crisis to consolidate power.</p>
<p>But there are also positive signs for democracy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign ‘We are in this together’ is written in chalk on the sidewalk in front of NYU Langone Medical Center during the coronavirus pandemic on April 22, 2020 in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-we-are-in-this-together-is-written-in-chalk-on-the-news-photo/1220487757?adppopup=true">Getty/John Lamparski</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/30/21199785/homemade-coronavirus-masks-n95-ppe">People are coming together</a> in ways that didn’t seem possible just a few months ago. This <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-vu-face-shields-st-0416-20200413-zyreuxfwqfajhirqlql2khhpj4-story.html">social capital</a> is an <a href="http://robertdputnam.com/bowling-alone/social-capital-primer/">important element</a> in a democracy. </p>
<p>Ordinary people are performing incredible acts of kindness and generosity – from <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/us/coronavirus-student-volunteers-grocery-shop-elderly-iyw-trnd/index.html">shopping for neighbors</a> to <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2020/03/17/son-serenades-mom-during-coronavirus-lockdown-harmony-brentwood-tennessee-nursing-home/5065211002/">serenading residents at a nursing home</a> to a <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/30/21199785/homemade-coronavirus-masks-n95-ppe">mass movement to sew facemasks</a>. </p>
<p>In politics, Wisconsin primary voters risked their lives to exercise their right to vote during the height of the pandemic. <a href="https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/voters-sue-legislature-leaders-and-wec-demanding-april-7-revote/">Citizens</a> and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/time-essence-after-wisconsin-fiasco-150-civil-rights-groups-urge-congress-protect">civil society</a> are pushing federal and state governments to ensure election safety and integrity in the remaining primaries and the November election.</p>
<p>Despite the eerie silence in public spaces, despite the preventable deaths that should weigh heavily on the consciences of public officials, even despite the authoritarian tendencies of too many leaders, the U.S. is not a dystopia – yet. </p>
<p>Overuse clouds the word’s meaning. Fictional dystopias warn of preventable futures; those warnings can help avert the actual demise of democracy.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Dystopia’ is a term that’s gained popularity during the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s not a synonym for ‘a bad time,’ and a government’s poor handling of a crisis does not constitute dystopia.Shauna Shames, Associate Professor, Rutgers UniversityAmy Atchison, Associate Professor of Political Science & International Relations, Valparaiso UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1276642020-01-28T17:52:18Z2020-01-28T17:52:18ZHow Darwin’s sexual selection theory co-stars in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311680/original/file-20200123-162194-13sgd8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C119%2C4962%2C3128&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The role of women in futuristic drama TV series 'The Handmaid's Tale' makes references to Darwin's writings on evolution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> is a TV series based on the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/">1985 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood</a> that presents a dystopian vision of a male-dominated society known as Gilead.</p>
<p>Widespread infertility means that the few fertile women who remain have been enslaved as handmaids and assigned to Gilead’s leaders to produce their future offspring. The series follows the struggles of June, who was separated from her family and forced to become a handmaid.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RcTvQx1Wot0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A trailer for the third season of The Handmaid’s Tale.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But just what is a reference to the evolutionist Charles Darwin doing in an episode of <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em>?</p>
<p>As a historian of science currently writing a book on the Darwinian Revolution, I am intrigued by Darwin’s connection with this fictional society. </p>
<p>The reference may have something to do with Darwin’s chief evolutionary mechanism: <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-selection/">natural selection or the survival of the fittest</a>. But we’ll see that Darwin’s inclusion in <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> actually relates to his less well-known and secondary evolutionary mechanism, <a href="https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/evolution/sexual-selection">sexual selection</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Women can be useful’</h2>
<p>The third episode of season 3, titled “Useful,” finds June assigned to Joseph Lawrence, a high-ranking commander in Gilead. As Lawrence hosts a meeting of Gilead’s leaders in his drawing room, the men discuss what to do about recently captured female insurgents. </p>
<p>Should they be forced into hard labour in the Colonies or be publicly executed? Commander Lawrence, however, finds neither of these options appealing. The realities of the widespread infertility that spurred the regime’s existence suggests that some of the intransigent women might be useful after all.</p>
<p>Lawrence then tells June to get a book from his bookcase that will help the leadership group better understand “an individual’s value in the world as it pertains to gender.” The book in question is Charles Darwin’s <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-descent-of-man-by-darwin"><em>Descent of Man</em></a>, which Lawrence calls “an oldie but a goodie.” </p>
<p>After June hands the book to Lawrence, he then exclaims to his powerful guests: “See? Women can be useful.”</p>
<h2>Darwin’s theory of sexual selection</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1242&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311676/original/file-20200123-162185-1a7i68b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1242&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Title page of ‘The Descent of Man’ by Charles Darwin (London, John Murray, 1875).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Collection</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Far from being a throwaway remark, the reference to Darwin’s <em>Descent of Man</em> in this scene is highly suggestive. While Darwin’s 1859 <a href="http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_OntheOriginofSpecies.html"><em>On the Origin of Species</em></a> is much more widely read and appreciated as establishing evolution as a science, Darwin did not write specifically about human evolution until 1871 when <a href="http://darwin-online.org.uk/contents.html#descent"><em>The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex</em></a> was published. In this book, Darwin put forward his theory of sexual selection.</p>
<p>Today, Darwin’s theory of sexual selection is often used to explain the bright and brilliant plumage typical of male birds of paradise, along with their often bizarre mating rituals meant to entice females. While Darwin spent several chapters discussing the esthetic senses of birds that led to such interesting evolutionary adaptations, he did not limit his application of sexual selection to birds alone.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311678/original/file-20200123-162216-luienz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Darwin explained the ostentatious displays of male birds - like this lesser bird-of-paradise - as a way to attract females and ensure genetic continuation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Science historian Evelleen Richards explains that Darwin believed that his theory of sexual selection could <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo25338514.html">account for important aspects of human evolution as well, such as the physical and mental distinctions between men and women</a>. </p>
<p>As Richards shows, when it came to issues of gender (and race for that matter), Darwin was very much a man of his time, and this fact shaped his evolutionary views. He argued that <a href="https://www.icr.org/article/darwins-teaching-womens-inferiority/">there was a vast distinction between the intellectual capabilities of men and women, believing that men were ultimately superior</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain — whether requiring deep thought, reason or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This distinction could be explained, according to Darwin, by the fact that men had to struggle against one another in the contest for mates, whereas women were largely passive. Through this struggle, men acquired certain intellectual capabilities late in their development, capabilities that were then only passed on to male offspring. </p>
<p>Because of this, the mental state of women was arrested in time and “characteristic,” as Darwin put it, “of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization.”</p>
<h2>Embracing maternity</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311940/original/file-20200126-81341-1u66mvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Commander Joseph Lawrence is played by the actor Bradley Whitford; in the show, Commander Lawrence is a high-ranking official.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hulu.com/press/actor/bradley-whitford/?show_id=1132">(Hulu Press)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It followed for Darwin that it would be a waste of resources to bring women up to the intellectual level of men. Women should, therefore, fully embrace their maternal instincts, raise children and establish happy homes. </p>
<p>Darwin’s wife Emma did exactly that, creating a comfortable home for Darwin to pursue his scientific endeavours while giving birth to 10 children, <a href="https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/emma-darwin">with the last one born when she was 48 years old</a>.</p>
<p>In many ways, <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> presents a society that is reduced to the gender stereotypes that were inscribed in Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Women are useful only in so far as they can reproduce. And those who can, like June, are essentially made sexual slaves to the powerful. Men, meanwhile, are physically and intellectually in control of the levers of power. </p>
<p>When Commander Lawrence tells June to get <em>Descent of Man</em> from the bookshelf, he is reminding her that she can be useful, but only from within the narrow sphere defined by her biology. <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em>, of course, is ultimately critical of such gender determinism, as the development of June herself makes clear. </p>
<p>But the politics of biology is not just a relic of the 19th century or the product of science fiction. Philosopher Cordelia Fine shows that <a href="https://www.wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393082081-testosterone-rex">there are still many evolutionary scientists who hold that the inequality between the sexes is natural, not cultural</a>. </p>
<p>On the surface, therefore, Gilead may look like an unrealistic society that chose to embrace its most extreme views about gender in order to survive. But the brilliance of <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> is in showing that many of those views, in certain contexts, are actually not so radical, and can even be found in classic biology texts. </p>
<p>This all suggests that the reference to Darwin’s <em>Descent of Man</em> in <em>The Handmaid’s Tale</em> is not only relevant but even necessary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127664/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Hesketh holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship grant FT170100194, entitled "The Place of History in Science: Reassessing the Darwinian Revolution."</span></em></p>In the television show ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ Charles Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’ makes a cameo — and its appearance makes a comment on how Gilead functions.Ian Hesketh, ARC Future Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1244692019-10-10T10:00:07Z2019-10-10T10:00:07ZWould you stand up to an oppressive regime or would you conform? Here’s the science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295044/original/file-20191001-173369-h1ze7k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jasper Savage/Hulu/Channel 4</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://margaretatwood.ca/">Margaret Atwood’s</a> novel, <a href="https://theconversation.com/handmaids-tale-adaptation-takes-margaret-atwoods-narrative-to-ever-bleaker-destinations-95683">The Handmaid’s Tale</a>, described the horror of the authoritarian regime of Gilead. In this theocracy, self-preservation was the best people could hope for, being powerless to kick against the system. But her sequel, <a href="https://theconversation.com/review-the-testaments-margaret-atwoods-sequel-to-the-handmaids-tale-123465">The Testaments</a>, raises the possibility that individuals, with suitable luck, bravery and cleverness, can fight back.</p>
<p>But can they? There are countless examples of past and present monstrous regimes in the real world. And they all raise the question of why people didn’t just rise up against their rulers. Some of us are quick to judge those who conform to such regimes as evil psychopaths – or at least morally inferior to ourselves. </p>
<p>But what are the chances that you would be a heroic rebel in such a scenario, refusing to be complicit in maintaining or even enforcing the system?</p>
<p>To answer this question, let’s start by considering a now <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5014575_The_Logic_of_Appropriateness">classic analysis</a> by American organisational theorist James March and Norwegian political scientist Johan Olsen from 2004.</p>
<p>They argued that human behaviour is governed by two complementary, and very different, “logics”. According to the logic of consequence, we choose our actions like a good economist: weighing up the costs and benefits of the alternative options in the light of our personal objectives. This is basically how we get what we want.</p>
<p>But there is also a second logic, the logic of appropriateness. According to this, outcomes, good or bad, are often of secondary importance – we often choose what to do by asking “What is a person like me supposed to do in a situation like this”? </p>
<p>The idea is backed up by psychological research. Human social interactions <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-psychology-of-conformity/251371/">depend on our tendency to conform</a> to unwritten rules of appropriate behaviour. Most of us are truthful, polite, don’t cheat when playing board games and follow etiquette. We are happy to let judges or football referees enforce rules. A <a href="https://theconversation.com/conform-to-the-social-norm-why-people-follow-what-other-people-do-107446">recent study</a> showed we even conform to arbitrary norms.</p>
<p>The logic of appropriateness is self-enforcing – we disapprove of, ostracise or report people who lie or cheat. Research has shown that even in anonymous, experimental “games”, people will pay a monetary cost <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/415137a">to punish other people</a> for being uncooperative.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295030/original/file-20191001-173337-1dfr87g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295030/original/file-20191001-173337-1dfr87g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295030/original/file-20191001-173337-1dfr87g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295030/original/file-20191001-173337-1dfr87g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295030/original/file-20191001-173337-1dfr87g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295030/original/file-20191001-173337-1dfr87g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295030/original/file-20191001-173337-1dfr87g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Psychopaths?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The logic of appropriateness is therefore crucial to understanding how we can organise ourselves into teams, companies and entire nations. We need shared systems of rules to cooperate – it is easy to see how <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-belfast-riots-helped-us-shed-light-on-the-nature-of-human-cooperation-51423">evolution may have shaped this</a>.</p>
<p>The psychological foundations for this start early. Children as young as three <a href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/psycho/staff/tomas/pdf/rakoczyNorms.pdf">will protest</a> if arbitrary “rules” of a game are violated. And we all know how punishing it can be to “stick out” in a playground by violating norms of dress, accent or behaviour.</p>
<h2>Authoritarian regimes</h2>
<p>Both logics are required to create and maintain an authoritarian regime. To ensure that we make the “right” personal choices, an oppressive state’s main tools are carrots and sticks – rewarding conformity and punishing even a hint of rebellion. </p>
<p>But personal gain (or survival) alone provides a fragile foundation for an oppressive state. It is easy to see how the logic of appropriateness fits in here, turning from being a force for cooperation to a mechanism for enforcing an oppressive status quo. This logic asks that we follow the “rules” and make sure others do too – often without needing to ask why the rules are the way they are.</p>
<p>Regimes therefore supplement rewards and punishments with self-policed norms, rules and conventions. A “good” party comrade or a member of a religious cult or terrorist group will learn that they are supposed to obey orders, root out opposition and not question authority – and enforce these norms on their fellows. </p>
<p>The authoritarian state is therefore concerned above all with preserving ideology – defining the “right” way to think and behave – so that we can unquestioningly conform to it.</p>
<p>This can certainly help explain the horrors of Nazi Germany – showing it’s not primarily a matter of individual evil. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/insight-therapy/201012/you-are-conformist-is-you-are-human">famously argued</a>, the atrocities of the Holocaust were made possible by normal people, manipulated into conforming to a horribly abnormal set of behavioural norms.</p>
<h2>Would you rebel?</h2>
<p>So how would you or I fare in Gilead? We can be fairly confident that most of us would conform (with more or less discomfort), finding it difficult to shake the feeling that the way things are done is the right and appropriate way.</p>
<p>Just think of the fervour with which people can enforce standards of dress, prohibitions on profane language or dietary norms – however arbitrary these may appear. Indeed, we may feel “morally bound” to protect the party, nation or religion, whatever its character.</p>
<p>A small number of us, however, would rebel – but not primarily, I suspect, based on differences in individual moral character. Rebels, too, need to harness the logic of appropriateness – they need to find different norms and ideals, shared with fellow members of the resistance, or inspired by history or literature. Breaking out of one set of norms requires that we have an available alternative.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296515/original/file-20191010-188783-bd8m5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296515/original/file-20191010-188783-bd8m5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296515/original/file-20191010-188783-bd8m5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296515/original/file-20191010-188783-bd8m5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296515/original/file-20191010-188783-bd8m5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296515/original/file-20191010-188783-bd8m5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296515/original/file-20191010-188783-bd8m5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People giving a Nazi salute, with an unidentified person (possibly August Landmesser or Gustav Wegert) refusing to do so.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That said, some people may <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2190/Y7CA-TBY6-V7LR-76GK">have more naturally non-conformist</a> personalities than others, at least in periods of their lives. Whether such rebels are successful in breaking out, however, may partly depend on how convincingly they can justify to themselves, and defend to others, that we don’t want to conform.</p>
<p>If so, we would expect a tendency to adopt non-standard norms to be linked to verbal ability and perhaps general intelligence in individuals who actually rebel, <a href="https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/01/non-conformity-hidden-driver-behind-positive-relationship-between-iq-and-v">which there’s some evidence to support</a>. </p>
<p>How we react to unfairness may also affect our propensity to rebel. One study found that people who are risk averse and easily trust others are less likely to <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Justice-and-personality%3A-Using-integrative-theories-Colquitt-Scott/82286f777c859285ced18c2c0672a3856cefbef3">react strongly to unfairness</a>. While not proven in the study, it may make such individuals more likely to conform.</p>
<p>Another factor is social circumstances. The upper and middle classes in Germany during the 1920s-1940s were almost <a href="https://theconversation.com/rise-and-fall-in-the-third-reich-nazi-party-members-and-social-advancement-123297">twice as likely</a> to join the Nazi party than those with lower social status. So it may be that those who have the most to lose and/or are keen to climb the social ladder are particularly likely to conform. And, of course, if other members of your social circle are conforming, you may think it’s the “appropriate” thing to do. </p>
<p>Few will fight Gilead after carefully weighing up the consequences – after all, the most likely outcome is failure and obliteration. What drives forward fights against an oppressive society is a rival vision – a vision of equality, liberty and justice, and a sense that these should be defended, whatever the consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Chater receives funding from ESRC and EPSRC. He is a member of the UK Committee on Climate Change and a director of Decision Technology Ltd. </span></em></p>We all like to think of ourselves as heroes. But according to science, the vast majority of us wouldn’t be prepared to rebel against totalitarian rulers.Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1233942019-09-13T13:08:35Z2019-09-13T13:08:35ZThe Handmaid’s Tale: no wonder we’ve got a sequel in this age of affronts on women’s rights<blockquote>
<p>We are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Haunting words from Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale that summarise how fertile women are dehumanised in the dystopic fictional nation of Gilead, enslaved and forced into pregnancy and birth through a process of ritualised rape.</p>
<p>A nightmarish reification of anti-choice rhetoric, this seminal feminist text has informed and mobilised pro-choice movements throughout the world. Protesters in Europe, the US and Latin America have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/03/how-the-handmaids-tale-dressed-protests-across-the-world">donned the handmaids’ iconic costumes</a> – blood-red robes and isolating white bonnets – to advocate access to abortion.</p>
<p>As readers devour The Testaments, the eagerly anticipated sequel to the original book, we are forced to ask why, in 2019, the tale of an authoritarian regime where women lack bodily autonomy resonates so acutely in the current political climate. As Atwood has remarked, momentum has shifted in recent decades and, with the election of Donald Trump, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00088q3">“Gilead moved a lot closer”</a>. </p>
<p>More than 30 years since readers’ first visit to Gilead, discourses surrounding reproductive justice have become increasingly foreboding. Ireland’s first abortion law on New Year’s Day 2019 – following last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/ireland-votes-to-repeal-the-8th-amendment-in-historic-abortion-referendum-and-marks-a-huge-cultural-shift-97297">historic referendum</a> – was momentous but an anomaly. Elsewhere, progress is being undone. </p>
<h2>‘Heartbeat bills’ in the US</h2>
<p>Aggressively anti-choice pieces of legislation passed during Trump’s presidency illustrate the disturbing accuracy of Atwood’s assessment. Alabama approved a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48275795">near-total ban on abortion</a> in May, with no exception for rape or incest.</p>
<p>In 2000 there were four US states said to have laws that were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48275795">“hostile” or “very hostile” to abortion rights</a>. There are now 21. Several are debating “heartbeat” bills, which would ban abortion after six weeks’ gestation, before many women know they are pregnant. Medics have condemned the use of the word “heartbeat” in these pieces of legislation for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05/abortion-doctors-fetal-heartbeat-bills-language-misleading">misleading</a> people about how developed an embryo is at this stage of pregnancy. </p>
<h2>Religious overreach in Europe</h2>
<p>Anti-choice politics is also thriving in Europe, particularly in traditionally Catholic countries. Malta is currently the only country with an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/maltas-abortion-rights/593845/">outright ban</a> on abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.</p>
<p>Even in countries where abortion is currently legal, conscientious objection proves a significant obstacle to access – recent statistics in Italy, where abortion was legalised in 1978, show that <a href="https://iwhc.org/resources/unconscionable-when-providers-deny-abortion-care/">almost 70% of doctors refuse to carry out terminations</a>. </p>
<p>In 2015, a right-wing coalition government in Portugal withdrew state funding for terminations and introduced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/23/portugal-tightens-abortion-laws-women-pay-end-pregnancies">compulsory counselling</a>, imposing restrictions on the 2007 abortion law that had been ratified by a national referendum. </p>
<p>A far-right government in Poland continues to push for an <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/08/poland-is-trying-to-make-abortion-dangerous-illegal-and-impossible/">outright ban</a> that would criminalise women and doctors who perform abortions and investigate women who have miscarriages. Attempts to pass such reforms in 2016 and 2018 provoked mass street protests. Even without these reforms, Poland still only permits abortions in cases of foetal abnormality, serious risk to life, rape or incest. </p>
<h2>Controversial laws</h2>
<p>Countries typically considered safe havens for social freedoms also impede access to abortion care through a labyrinth of protocol and paradoxical legislation. In 2017, <a href="https://webdoc.france24.com/abortion-women-croatia-malta-germany/germany-fined-for-promoting-abortions/index.html">a gynaecologist in Germany was fined €6,000</a> for advertising abortion services on her website, which is prohibited by a Nazi-era law.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/in-liberal-europe-abortion-laws-come-with-their-own-restrictions/278350/">Mandatory waiting periods</a> are a further barrier patients must navigate. Disregarding criticism from the World Health Organisation, which says waiting periods undermine “<a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/70914/9789241548434_eng.pdf;jsessionid=2CFFF32743F00F53191380856F313BED?sequence=1">women as competent decision makers</a>” and reproductive rights groups that condemn delays as <a href="https://www.abortionrightscampaign.ie/2018/03/16/lets-talk-about-mandatory-waiting-periods/">medically unnecessary and potentially dangerous</a>, German law requires a three-day period between initial consultation and access to abortion. Clinics in the Netherlands must enforce a five-day delay and offer alternatives to abortion.</p>
<h2>Dystopia is already here</h2>
<p>Barbaric laws in Latin America dehumanise, criminalise and torture women and girls. In El Salvador, Evelyn Hernández who suffered a stillbirth – impregnated after being repeatedly raped by a local gang – is currently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/06/el-salvador-stillbirth-retrial-evelyn-hernandez">facing a third trial for aggravated homicide</a>, a sentence that carries a prison sentence of 30 years. In Chile – where abortion was legalised in cases of rape, foetal abnormality and serious risk to life in 2017 – Adriana Ávila Barraza was forced to endure a torturous 24-hour labour before delivering a dead, deformed foetus when medics <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49110647">refused to terminate the pregnancy</a>. </p>
<p>After suffering a bitter blow last summer when a proposed abortion law <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/09/argentina-senate-rejects-bill-legalise-abortion">failed to pass in the senate</a>, pro-choice activists in Argentina – recognisable by their trademark green handkerchiefs – continue to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-48444884">push for reform</a>. They have been galvanised by the horrific recent case of an 11-year-old forced to <a href="https://www.es.amnesty.org/en-que-estamos/noticias/noticia/articulo/argentina-las-autoridades-niegan-a-una-nina-de-11-anos-su-derecho-a-interrumpir-su-embarazo-forzado/">undergo a caesarean</a> after she was repeatedly raped by her grandmother’s partner, brutalised by both social and legal patriarchal structures. </p>
<p>From barbarically misogynistic practices to legal loopholes that continue to inhibit reproductive justice, a world where the female body is subject to state control is not limited to Atwood’s writing. Rather than consider Gilead a fictional, hyperbolic extreme, this authoritarian, patriarchal regime should serve as a sobering reminder. Female bodily autonomy is conditional on a functioning democracy – fundamental rights that are both inherently interrelated and increasingly precarious.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deborah Madden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The sequel to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic provides an apt moment to consider attacks on women’s rights across the world.Deborah Madden, Lecturer in Hispanic Studies, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1234652019-09-12T19:14:46Z2019-09-12T19:14:46ZReview: The Testaments – Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292186/original/file-20190912-190026-1avs57h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3000%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Janine, a Handmaid, in series three of The Handmaid's Tale.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sophie Giraud/Channel 4</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>SPOILER ALERT: This review contains plotlines and details from Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Testaments</strong></p>
<p>When Margaret Atwood was writing The Handmaid’s Tale in 1984, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html">she felt</a> that the main premise seemed “fairly outrageous”. She wondered: “Would I be able to persuade readers that the United States had suffered a coup that had transformed an erstwhile liberal democracy into a literal-minded theocratic dictatorship?”</p>
<p>How times have changed. The connection the novel makes between totalitarianism, reproduction and control of women is now legible to most of us. The image of the red-and-white-clad handmaid has become a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-women-are-dressing-up-as-margaret-atwoods-handmaids-80433">symbol in the wider culture of resistance</a> to the restriction of women’s reproductive rights and to their sexual exploitation.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-women-are-dressing-up-as-margaret-atwoods-handmaids-80433">Why women are dressing up as Margaret Atwood's Handmaids</a>
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<p>Partly this is a consequence of the immensely successful TV series, the third series of which has just concluded. Series one was directly based on Atwood’s novel and subsequent episodes over two years have continued the story of Offred beyond the ambivalent ending Atwood imagined for her, in which her fate is uncertain. Now, in her eagerly awaited sequel, The Testaments, Atwood makes a series of dizzying creative decisions which move away from, but also develop out of, both novel and TV series.</p>
<h2>Next generation</h2>
<p>The action of The Testaments takes place 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale. The claustrophobic first-person narration of Offred is widened out to incorporate the stories of three narrators. These narrators are Aunt Lydia – the most senior of the Aunts in the first novel, who trains and manages the handmaids on behalf of the Gilead regime – and two young women. </p>
<p>It is in the identity of these young women that Atwood incorporates elements of the TV series. We discover that both are Offred’s daughters. One, Agnes, is the daughter she was forced to give up when she became a handmaid. The other, Nicole, is the baby she is pregnant with at the end of the novel and gives birth to in the second series of the TV programme. </p>
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<p>Agnes has been brought up as a privileged daughter of the Gilead regime; Nicole – and the name choice here, as well as aspects of the story, draw on the TV series – has been smuggled out of Gilead by the May Day organisation and raised in Canada.</p>
<p>The inventiveness of this choice of narrators, plus the time shift, allows Atwood to do all sorts of exciting things. She explores what it actually means to be a mother. The Gilead regime has to keep records of bloodlines to avoid the genetic conditions attendant on incestuous couplings. Genealogical information is kept by the Aunts in folders organised by the male head of the family, but paternity will always be more uncertain than maternity. We never find out for sure who Nicole’s father is, although there are hints. </p>
<p>More broadly, though, can the same uncertainty be attached to the mother figure too? As one of the Marthas (the domestic servant class in Gilead) says to Agnes when she finds out that the person she believed to be her mother was not her birth mother: “It depends what you mean by a mother … Is your mother the one who gives birth to you or the one who loves you the most?” How do we define a mother when conventional family structures have been upended?</p>
<h2>Making a difference</h2>
<p>The interplay between the three women’s stories also allows us to compare how individuals make decisions about what constitutes ethical behaviour in a totalitarian regime. In the world of The Testaments, unlike in The Handmaid’s Tale, later period Gilead is on its uppers. It struggles to control its leaky borders and there is internecine in-fighting and betrayal within the upper echelons of the Commanders.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292187/original/file-20190912-190065-h4npnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292187/original/file-20190912-190065-h4npnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292187/original/file-20190912-190065-h4npnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292187/original/file-20190912-190065-h4npnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292187/original/file-20190912-190065-h4npnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292187/original/file-20190912-190065-h4npnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292187/original/file-20190912-190065-h4npnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Change of heart: Aunt Lydia is now working for the downfall of Gilead.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sophie Giraud/Channel 4</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unbabies – defective births – continue to be born and the resistance is growing. Lydia begins to plot Gilead’s downfall, but in retrospect we also get her account of her earlier collaboration as the regime was established. Do her attempts to destroy Gilead cancel out her previous decision to collaborate? If she had not survived, she would not have been alive to work to bring down the regime, but can the master’s tools ever dismantle the master’s house?</p>
<p>Casualties of the resistance efforts abound. Becka – a friend of Agnes and a survivor of child sexual abuse – sacrifices herself for the greater good of what she believes to be the purification and renewal (rather than the destruction) of Gilead. Nicole (who engages in an undercover operation in Gilead vital to the resistance) remarks that she “somehow agreed to go to Gilead without ever definitely agreeing”. The novel asks readers to think about the extent to which exploitation of idealism and naivety are appropriate as means that justify the end of Gilead’s potential destruction.</p>
<h2>Judgement of history</h2>
<p>The Testaments ends with the Thirteenth Symposium of Gilead Studies – an academic conference taking place many years after the regime’s destruction. This is the same framing that concludes The Handmaid’s Tale, although the emphasis here is different. In her book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/205858/in-other-worlds-by-margaret-atwood/9780307741769/">In Other Worlds</a>, Atwood claims that the afterword to the first novel was intended to provide “a little utopia concealed in the dystopic Handmaid’s Tale”.</p>
<p>But, for most readers of the original novel, the effect of encountering the afterword is the opposite of optimistic. Reading it diminishes and undermines our emotional investment in Offred’s narrative, as historians debate whether or not her story is “authentic” and a professor warns us that “we must be cautious about passing moral judgement on the Gileadeans”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292198/original/file-20190912-190016-gbaocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292198/original/file-20190912-190016-gbaocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292198/original/file-20190912-190016-gbaocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292198/original/file-20190912-190016-gbaocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292198/original/file-20190912-190016-gbaocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292198/original/file-20190912-190016-gbaocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292198/original/file-20190912-190016-gbaocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dystopian vision of everyday oppression of women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jasper Savage/Channel 4</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The same historians make similar comments in the Thirteenth Symposium that ends The Testaments, but here they are fundamentally convinced of the witness transcripts’ authenticity. The postmodern uncertainty about the status of Offred’s narrative in The Handmaid’s Tale could be seen as characteristic of the mid-1980s (with its suspicion of narrative authenticity and reliability), as characterised by Jean-Francois Lyotard’s “incredulity towards metanarratives”. </p>
<p>Now, in 2019, Atwood replaces that incredulity with a much clearer sense of the validity of women’s stories. I believe we can relate this change of emphasis to the different times we find ourselves in – where the notion of the equal status of all versions of the past and indeed the present has been abused explicitly by Trump and others who make accusations of “fake news”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-handmaids-tale-is-being-transformed-from-fantasy-into-fact-77837">How The Handmaid's Tale is being transformed from fantasy into fact</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>In Gilead, women are not allowed to read or write – unless they are Aunts. Agnes therefore struggles to become literate as a young woman. The description of her slow and painful acquisition of literacy reminds us of the vital connection between words and power and how important it is to validate women’s words in particular. A testament is a witness after all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Watkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The author has returned to Gilead, 35 years after the original novel was published.Susan Watkins, Professor in the School of Cultural Studies and Humanities and Director of the Centre for Culture and the Arts., Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1184712019-06-13T10:06:36Z2019-06-13T10:06:36ZThe Handmaid’s Tale: symbols of protest and medieval holy women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279139/original/file-20190612-32373-1yyjm1n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3468%2C2321&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elizabeth Moss as Offred in season three of The Handmaid's Tale.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel 4</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ongoing TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale has done much to remind us of the astonishing pertinence of Margaret Atwood’s novel – which was first published in 1985 and is soon to be followed by a sequel: The Testaments. In particular, it has brought the costume of the handmaids, carefully described by Atwood in the book, to the attention of a new generation of thinkers.</p>
<p>In the novel, the red cloak and dress, worn with a white bonnet, are together described as a “modesty costume”. In Gilead – the repressive American regime in which the main protagonist Offred is forced to live – it is intended to function as a sign of female subservience.</p>
<p>But, as the #resistsister hashtag chosen by production house HULU to market the series suggests, the “modesty costume” – despite its intended function as a symbol of subservience – has remarkable potency when removed from its Gileadean context and redeployed as a symbol of female agency and the defiance of oppression. And this is exactly how the costume has functioned in recent years, when worn by women protesting the insidious erasure of female rights in the West. </p>
<p>In 2017, handmaids <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/photos/2018/10/handmaids-tale-protests-kavanaugh-healthcare-womens-march">marched on Capitol Hill</a>, Washington, in protest at the Republican healthcare bill which was seen to threaten women’s bodily autonomy. And in the same year, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/women-wore-handmaids-tale-robes-to-texas-senate_n_58d034bee4b0ec9d29de74f5?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAqAQqTlKL21aKqv-7Ik2J8GM4D1gB3iNNWE3y_yG1xwWh100VOiBk3u_w7E-2IHZrQXVEPw58GRxWWoQ8_rlQaCl366cvqPIOfE1R2ayDj4gdzkEuiBDmcqyft4h5iZS71_LWTx0j5FuKfC7j9F5Qmqle_Ipwtih4GxR7NBhAsT">handmaids entered the Texas senate house</a> to protest abortion-related legislation. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.newsflare.com/video/297591/politics-business/trump-state-visit-to-uk-brings-women-dressed-as-characters-from-handmaids-tale-to-the-streets">protesters against Trump’s 2018 and 2019</a> visits to the UK also sported handmaid costumes.</p>
<p>Beyond the UK and America, the modesty costume has also been <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-44965210">co-opted as a symbol of female agency and protest</a> – in countries including Poland, Argentina and Croatia. Like Offred, the protesting handmaids of recent years also refuse to be objectified – their bodies are their own and signify what and how they want them to signify.</p>
<p>In the introduction to the 2017 UK edition of The Handmaid’s Tale, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html">Atwood tells us</a> that “modesty costumes worn by the women of Gilead are derived from Western religious iconography”. This grounding of the costumes in the traditions of the church again brings them closer to the realms of non-fiction. And it reminds us that, over the centuries, countless women in the Christian West have been defined by appearance or attire and have been variously objectified by those in authority over them.</p>
<h2>Shut away</h2>
<p>Among these countless women, there is a particular group called “anchorites” (anchorites could be men, but were more frequently women). Anchorites, who were very common in England in the Middle Ages, were people who wanted to live lives of Christian prayer and extreme devotion to God. In order to do this, they allowed themselves to be permanently enclosed in small rooms (called “cells”) adjoining their local church and vowed themselves to a life of chastity and penance. Their enclosure began when they were literally bricked into their cells, and was meant to continue until the moment of their death. In fact, we have quite a few records of anchorites being buried within their own cells.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279132/original/file-20190612-32317-ifsmx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A bishop blesses an anchorite as he encloses her in her cell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Parker Library, courtesy of the Master and Fellows, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, there are a lot of differences between Atwood’s fictional handmaids and the historical anchorites. The latter were not, in fact, defined by what they wore – as their enclosure made them more or less invisible to the world, they were not meant to worry too much about their clothes. And neither were they the subjects of a repressive regime – they were not enclosed unless they actively sought it out as a lifestyle (though the issue of their motivation and agency is problematic and would be worth an article on its own).</p>
<p>But there are certainly similarities between the anchorite and the handmaid. Atwood emphasises that the handmaid is meant to live in a state of perpetual fear and so was the anchorite, as suggested by 12th-century theologian Aelred of Rievaulx in his book of guidance, <em>De Institutione Inclusarum</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Beware of your weakness and like the timid dove go often to streams of water where as in a mirror you may see the reflection of the hawk as he hovers overhead and be on your guard.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And, for both women, the body is a site of considerable conflict and anxiety. The Handmaid’s body, in Atwood’s narrative, is a “sacred vessel” – valuable only for its childbearing potential. The anchorite’s body, meanwhile, is of worth only insofar as it houses the “jewel” of virginity – as Aelred wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bear in mind always what a precious treasure you bear in how fragile a vessel.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Objectification</h2>
<p>But what is intended as oppression in Gilead does not inevitably function thus. Aunt Lydia wanted the handmaids to be “pearls”, but Offred resisted this. The modesty costumes were meant to indicate subservience, but they have been redeployed by activists to mean the opposite. </p>
<p>Is it, then, equally possible that the medieval anchorite took her apparent objectification and turned it into an opportunity to assert her own agency? We might perceive the anchorite only partially (her head, isolated at the window of her cell, as in the medieval image above), but she perceives herself fully. We might see only her enclosure, but she perceives herself as “a bird of heaven” (according to a 13th-century English book of guidance for anchorites – <em>Ancrene Wisse</em>), soaring at liberty in her vivid, independent imagination.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-handmaids-tale-is-being-transformed-from-fantasy-into-fact-77837">How The Handmaid's Tale is being transformed from fantasy into fact</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>So, while the lives of the fictional handmaid and the real anchorite are not the same, they have in common their isolation from the world around them and their submission (whether enforced or chosen) to wills other than their own. But they should not be seen as nothing more than passive victims – instead we should credit them both with the capacity to turn subjection into agency and subservience into freedom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Sutherland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Margaret Atwood’s handmaid has become a symbol of the subjugation of women. Anchorites were the medieval equivalent: women who were literally bricked up to keep them chaste.Annie Sutherland, Associate Professor; Rosemary Woolf Fellow, Tutor in Old and Middle English, Somerville College, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177962019-06-06T21:26:41Z2019-06-06T21:26:41ZLanguage matters when the Earth is in the midst of a climate crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277418/original/file-20190531-69091-1xr1pyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=142%2C123%2C3982%2C2622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tens of thousands of students march in Sydney, Australia in March 2019 to demand action on climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://medium.com/matter/it-s-not-climate-change-it-s-everything-change-8fd9aa671804">In a 2015 essay</a>, poet and novelist Margaret Atwood wrote, “It’s not climate change, it’s everything change.” </p>
<p>Atwood asked us back then to reconsider the term “climate change” because there is not a system — human or non-human — that will remain untouched by the impacts of climate change. Everything will be affected, and so, likely, everything (as we know it) will have to change.</p>
<p>The writing impressed me, and I agreed with her thesis, but somehow it wasn’t this essay that shook me up as much as another recent reading on climate change did. </p>
<p>The recent scientific <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">Special Report on the impacts of 1.5C of global warming</a> of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded: “Limiting global warming to 1.5C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” </p>
<p>That’s what gave me pause: Rapid. Far-reaching. Unprecedented. All aspects of society.</p>
<p>Everything screamed “emergency,” even though the word wasn’t used. </p>
<p>I know how cautious scientists can be in their communications — I am one myself. That is precisely why those words were sufficient to evoke an emotional response. </p>
<p>It was this shift in language (and not the countless graphs, reports, books and scientific articles I’d read — and indeed created myself — as a global-change ecologist) that finally elicited a tipping point in my own behaviour towards mitigating climate change. </p>
<h2>Between “cliffhanger” and “climbdown”</h2>
<p>Recently, the <em>Guardian</em> updated its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-a">style guide</a> to revise its use of the term “climate change.” The move both echoes the tones of Atwood’s essay and the seriousness of the latest IPCC report. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277510/original/file-20190602-69059-1j59yc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate change or climate emergency?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The newly defined climate change terms appear in the guide, right between “cliffhanger” and “climbdown.” </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Climate change … is no longer considered to accurately reflect the seriousness of the situation; use climate emergency, crisis or breakdown instead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The IPCC reports with high confidence that global warming reached approximately 1C above pre-industrial levels in 2017, and several catastrophes, indeed we could say “emergencies,” including floods, forest fires, drought and storms <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852/attribution-of-extreme-weather-events-in-the-context-of-climate-change">have been linked</a> to this change.</p>
<p><a href="https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2017.04.pdf">Researchers have determined</a> that media can influence policy and public understanding of the environment. Both of these things can also affect human behaviour. So the language they use is indeed important. </p>
<p>The <em>Guardian</em> wants to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-guardian-is-changing-the-language-it-uses-about-the-environment">tell it like it is</a>, but where did the term “climate change” come from in the first place?</p>
<h2>New terms now old?</h2>
<p>The study of anthropogenic climate change is quite old. Svante Arrhenius proposed the <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/keeling-curve.html">connection between fossil fuel combustion and increases in global temperature</a> in 1896. In the late 1950s, Charles David Keeling’s measurements of atmospheric CO2 from the Mauna Koa Observatory determined the effect of human activities on the chemical composition of the global atmosphere. But widespread adoption of the term climate change is relatively new. </p>
<p>I was a student in the very first cohort of the Environmental Sciences Graduate Program at Western University more than 20 years ago. We learned about global warming and the greenhouse effect, both of which had become well-established facts decades earlier. But I don’t recall the term climate change ever being used in my courses and neither do some of my classmates.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-meaning-of-environmental-words-matters-in-the-age-of-fake-news-106050">The meaning of environmental words matters in the age of 'fake news'</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://pmm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-warming-vs-climate-change">NASA claims the term</a> climate change <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/189/4201/460">was introduced in 1975</a>, in an article titled “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of Pronounced Global Warming?” published in <em>Science</em>. </p>
<p>The article communicates the difference between the two commonly used terms: “Global warming: the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases. Climate change: a long-term change in the Earth’s climate, or of a region on Earth.” </p>
<p>Yet when my colleagues and I published our textbook <em><a href="https://www.cabi.org/bookshop/book/9781845937485">Climate Change Biology</a></em> in 2011, it was, to our surprise, one of the first with the term in its title in our field. With several climate change terms already in existence, it does merit some consideration as to what might be the impact of the new terms the <em>Guardian</em> wants to use. </p>
<h2>Climate change poetics</h2>
<p>Poets, who have been famously dubbed “the unacknowledged legislators of the world” by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry">Percy Bysshe Shelley</a>, know the power of language is not only about accuracy but also metaphorical potential. </p>
<p>Many poets, some of whom are discussed in the book <em><a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102795472">Can Poetry Save the Earth?</a></em> have been working to use language to foster change. In my 2015 found poem based on one of my climate change scientific articles, “<a href="https://howapoemmoves.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/madhur-anand-especially-in-a-time/">Especially in a Time</a>,” I refer to a need for a new word for “change” when I write: “a prolonged change is also under scrutiny.” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277511/original/file-20190602-69091-1rao9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277511/original/file-20190602-69091-1rao9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277511/original/file-20190602-69091-1rao9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277511/original/file-20190602-69091-1rao9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277511/original/file-20190602-69091-1rao9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277511/original/file-20190602-69091-1rao9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277511/original/file-20190602-69091-1rao9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Projections suggest that a recent trend towards heavy rainfall and flooding will continue in parts of the United States, Canada, Europe and elsewhere.</span>
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<p>But poetry alone, by definition, overshoots the aim to serve as specific propaganda, even for good causes, and thus we must also look to the language of other discourses to create the change we want. Certainly, <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91728-words-that-change-the-world">politicians know the power of language when they prepare speeches</a>. </p>
<h2>What might emergency mean?</h2>
<p>The past few years there has been a dramatic <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1038/539140a">change in the language</a> scientists use to communicate their science. This isn’t unusual; science could not progress without the invention of terms to communicate new discoveries precisely. </p>
<p>And to be fair, scientists have long referred to different kinds of change related to climate and weather in scientific papers. There’s “abrupt climate change,” “extreme events,” “acceleration” (the rate of change of change) and even “regime shifts,” which all have specific scientific definitions. </p>
<p>But generally speaking, scientists often refrain from using emotion-inducing language. As such, you will rarely find the term “emergency” in a scientific article about some new impact of climate change. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-impact-of-climate-change-on-language-loss-105475">The impact of climate change on language loss</a>
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<p>Consider another example of language change from the <em>Guardian Style Guide</em>: The term “child abuse images” is recommended over “child pornography,” “child porn” and “kiddy porn,” to avoid “a misleading and potentially trivializing impression of what is a very serious crime.” Reporters and editors are also urged to add a footnote with details about support services to stories about child sexual abuse.</p>
<p>And the United Nations rarely uses the term genocide, but when it does, it demands attention. This includes “<a href="https://theconversation.com/un-report-documents-genocide-against-rohingya-what-now-102555">naming and shaming the persecutors</a>,” something others have said should be done for the climate crisis. </p>
<p>Not everyone is on board with changing “climate change” to “climate emergency.” Just this past week, my own city council <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5325462/guelph-city-council-climate-crisis-emergency-vote/">voted against it</a> in favour of the term “crisis.” Words do carry weight. <a href="https://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/9394243-guelph-council-narrowly-votes-against-declaring-climate-emergency/">One of the councillors feared</a> that “to knowingly say emergency today, knowing that that will kick 20, 30, 40 per cent of the people in our city out of that conversation because they will not engage any more.” This councillor worried that if the general public heard this, some of them might disengage, thinking it was for the radicals, not them. </p>
<p>Arundhati Roy, one of my <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/arundhati-roy-literature-shelter-pen-america">favourite writers</a>, is wary, and indeed prescient, of how the term “emergency” may get used by those in power. She finds, especially in India and the Global South, that “increasingly the vocabulary around it is being militarized. And no doubt very soon its victims will become the ‘enemies’ in the new war without end.” </p>
<p>Still, as a global citizen, as a scientist and as a poet, I commend the <em>Guardian</em> for its change in style. The IPCC report language led me to make personal lifestyle changes (diet, car, air plane use and divestment), but the word “emergency” adopted by governments and media would certainly make me more hopeful for the kind of rapid and far-reaching and unprecedented change we need. I wonder if in the future the style guide will include a footnote with details about support services for readers to be added to future climate emergency stories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madhur Anand receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, the Canada First Research Excellence Fund & the James S. MacDonnell Foundation.</span></em></p>Can new language change the way the public and politicians perceive the hazards of the Earth’s changing climate?Madhur Anand, Professor & Director, Global Ecological Change & Sustainability Laboratory, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1128542019-03-04T05:39:48Z2019-03-04T05:39:48ZMargaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale feels real in 2019, but the solution won’t come from novels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261808/original/file-20190304-110146-1jxn74i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Author Margaret Atwood spoke in Sydney yesterday at a talk hosted by the UNSW Centre for Ideas.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liam Sharp</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The crimson cloaks and white bonnets of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist classic <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38447.The_Handmaid_s_Tale?from_search=true">The Handmaid’s Tale</a> have become a distinctive feature of Trump’s America. They’ve been worn by protestors <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/03/how-the-handmaids-tale-dressed-protests-across-the-world">outside state legislatures</a> across the country, as elected officials attempt to enact laws limiting women’s reproductive rights.</p>
<p>Let’s face it, there are few costumes in classic or contemporary literature that will immediately tell everybody exactly why you’re there. But for the unfamiliar, the cloaks are invariably accompanied by posters with <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/these-margaret-atwood-signs-at-the-womens-march-will-give-you-the-chills-32074">slogans like</a> “The Handmaid’s Tale is not an instruction manual” and “Make Margaret Atwood fiction again”.</p>
<p>Atwood’s dystopia was undoubtedly on the minds of the hundreds of people – nearly all of them women – who filled the concert hall at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday to listen to her speak. So eager were they to hear that the tickets to the talk hosted by UNSW’s Centre for Ideas sold out in a record 45 minutes. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-women-are-dressing-up-as-margaret-atwoods-handmaids-80433">Why women are dressing up as Margaret Atwood's Handmaids</a>
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<p>The Handmaid’s Tale describes a toxic world in which misogyny and environmental degradation has turned the US into a totalitarian theocracy. The fictional republic of Gilead has enforced a system of gender-based violence, enslaving the few women capable of bearing children to serve as “handmaidens” to the ruling class. </p>
<p>In Gilead, lesbians and “gender traitors” are hanged. Citizens are tracked, watched, and spied upon. Women are not permitted to read. Children are torn from the arms of their birth mothers. There are deadly skirmishes at the borders, as refugees attempt to flee.</p>
<p>Little wonder so many critics have <a href="http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180425-why-the-handmaids-tale-is-so-relevant-today">remarked on the unexpected parallels</a> with the present – in a US in which a resurgence of threats to rollback <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-19/donald-trumps-presidency-two-years-shaped-womens-rights-us/10728882">women’s rights</a> are accompanied by wider attacks on <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/donald-trumps-unprecedented-assault-on-the-media/567826/">media freedom</a>. News from the US border with Mexico – and from Australia’s detention centres – reads like something out of Atwood’s darkest imaginings. </p>
<p>It is tempting to stretch this looking-glass analogy to suggest the only substantive difference between The Handmaid’s Tale and our present moment is that environmental degradation is a pressing concern for the rulers of Gilead.</p>
<p>Atwood’s mind seldom runs in a straight line. It dances around what she wants to say – before skewering her point with a flash of dark humour. She recounted with affection some fashion advice from Dame Edna Everage about her hairstyle and – to the delight of her audience – actually sung. Then acknowledging the audience had possibly gathered to hear more about the “end of the human race”, said she would not delay them.</p>
<p>Control of women and children has been a feature of every repressive political regime on the planet and throughout history, Atwood told her audience. And oppression comes in many forms. </p>
<h2>The power of words?</h2>
<p>Writers write about the things that worry them. And Atwood’s work spans the major concerns of the century – climate change, species extinction, designer humans, the control and subjugation of women. Her work has been astonishingly adept at incorporating “each fresh hell” – as she calls them – as it arises. </p>
<p>And it was clear from the anxious laughter in the auditorium that the audience believed Gilead was already here – or at least, “there” in Trump’s America. </p>
<p>Atwood’s books paint a speculative or parallel reality. But she is careful to point out that they are also of their own historic moment. They contain nothing that has not already become part of what James Joyce once called the “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/23697-history-stephen-said-is-a-nightmare-from-which-i-am">nightmare of history</a>” – no technology, no atrocity, “nothing goes on that has not already gone on”, she says.</p>
<p>She is also quick to insist that she is not a “prophet”. Atwood says – looking back on the Pollyanna decades of the 1990s – it could have gone the other way. She wished it had. We could have “all gone shopping” in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Francis Fukuyama</a>’s consumer capitalist utopia, she jokes. It would have been preferable.</p>
<p>Atwood is well known for her belief in the power of language to change things – something of an occupational hazard for writers. But she is also clear that words can obscure. They can damage. And they are often manipulated. “Who is going to decide how fake a piece of fake news is before it’s fake?”</p>
<p>One member of the audience claimed that she felt her whole life – from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump – had been an experience of living through a series of “high literary dystopias”, lurching from atomic threat to species extinction.</p>
<p>Atwood had an answer for that, too. The solutions, says Atwood, will not come to you as novels. </p>
<p>They will also not be hers to find. She is – she claims – already an old lady who is arranging her own “environmentally friendly funeral”, without plastics.</p>
<p>Perhaps the reality is that in these dark times words are simply not enough. Words can be sharp instruments. They often seem to cut through a maelstrom to catch at the truth. But what we need is not just words, but also actions on a global scale. And so perhaps it’s time to don the cloaks and bonnets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camilla Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Margaret Atwood’s classic novel imagined a society where women had almost no power. Hundreds of people gathered in Sydney yesterday to hear Atwood speak about dystopias – fictional and otherwise.Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956832018-05-21T11:13:53Z2018-05-21T11:13:53ZHandmaid’s Tale: adaptation takes Margaret Atwood’s narrative to ever bleaker destinations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217678/original/file-20180504-138586-1v67joh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Image courtesy of Channel 4.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>“June”, the opening episode of season two of The Handmaid’s Tale, picks up where it left off in the closing episode of season one. The central character, June/Offred (Elisabeth Moss), is forcibly taken from the house where she has been placed for breeding, as a response to her refusal to stone to death the tragic character of Janine/Ofwarren. The question of where she will be taken is answered swiftly. June and her fellow Handmaids are muzzled and, in a shocking and brutal scene, armed guards force the insubordinate women onto gallows and subject them to a mock execution. </p>
<p>The scene, ironically soundtracked by Kate Bush’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzx--YefD8">This Woman’s Work</a>, is a visceral act of physical and psychological violence that extinguishes the temporary satisfaction gained from June’s previously proud defiance. But June’s voiceover indicates that this act has galvanised her resolve: “Our Father who art in heaven – seriously? What the actual fuck?”</p>
<p>In season one of The Handmaid’s Tale, press and social media attention consistently framed the television series as an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel. But now the majority of the storyline has been used, the new season offers the show’s storyrunners – unshackled as they are from Atwood’s original narrative – new possibilities and scope. </p>
<p>This follows what is becoming a popular trend in television drama. Recent examples of this include <a href="https://www.hbo.com/the-leftovers">HBO’s The Leftovers</a> (2014-17), and <a href="https://www.hbo.com/big-little-lies">Big Little Lies</a> (2017-) which have both continued beyond their opening season, despite using up the majority of the material in their source novels. Season two of Amazon Studios’ <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740299/">The Man in the High Castle</a> (2015-), adapted from Philip K. Dick’s 1962 dystopian novel, also became liberated from its literary source, while HBO’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/25/george-rr-martin-winds-winter-not-coming-2018-sixth-volume-game-thrones-targaryen">Game of Thrones</a> (2011-) famously outpaced George R. R. Martin’s material in season six. </p>
<h2>Right here, right now</h2>
<p>For The Handmaid’s Tale, expanding beyond the source for season two has clearly been a conceptual challenge for the show’s writers, but one guided by actual current social and political events. Despite the first season being originally developed during the Obama administration, the second season was written and produced during Donald Trump’s presidency – and it shows. </p>
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<p>The culture surrounding Trump’s election – his ill-judged <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38781302">travel ban</a> on “enemy” country citizens, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/alt-right/549242/">rise of the alt-right movement</a> that resulted in violence against people of colour, pervasive <a href="https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/women/what-is-toxic-masculinity-and-why-does-it-matter/">toxic masculinity</a> that has galvanised into men’s rights activism and the <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/93167/what-is-the-incel-movement">Incel movement</a> as well as the growth of the much-needed <a href="http://time.com/5189945/whats-the-difference-between-the-metoo-and-times-up-movements/">#MeToo movement</a> – have all served to make The Handmaid’s Tale especially relevant and necessary.</p>
<p>The opening episode continues the use of flashbacks to highlight the world as it was before – with its creeping changes to society that see the rights of women, homosexuals, and non-Christians being exponentially eroded. As in season one, these scenes of creeping misogyny, homophobia and Christian conservatism contrast against the brutality of the “present” religious dictatorship. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-handmaids-tale-is-being-transformed-from-fantasy-into-fact-77837">How The Handmaid's Tale is being transformed from fantasy into fact</a>
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<p>The heroism of June’s refusal to stone Janine at the close of season one is reframed in this opening episode. Her pregnancy makes her physically untouchable, unlike the other rebellious Handmaids. This detail is underlined in a gut-wrenching scene in which the Handmaid Ofrobert is tortured in front of all the Handmaids, while June is forced to eat soup “for the baby”. This is a significant narrative shift. Where June finishes the previous season in a state of empowerment, the second season quickly restrains her. Aunt Lydia spells out the folly of June’s actions:</p>
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<p>Every Handmaid who followed you into disobedience will face the consequences. But not you. You are with child, you are protected … Such a brave girl aren’t you? Standing in defiance but risking nothing.</p>
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<h2>Casting off</h2>
<p>The episode is dominated by June’s escape following a natal examination. This sharp pivot hints at a new narrative thread that may come to define the entire season. The claustrophobic intensity of her assigned home in season one looks to be replaced with running, evading recapture and attempts to be reunited with her daughter and husband. This first episode closes with a scene that sets up the narrative for season two: June removes and burns her Handmaid clothes and slices her own ear to extract the cattle tag. </p>
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<p>This symbolic moment demonstrates June’s casting off that which defined her captivity, but also represents the painful sacrifices she must now endure for this freedom. Her closing voiceover calls back to the opening episode of the first season in which she stated “my name is Offred. I had another name, but it is forbidden now” before closing with “my name is June”. In the final moments of this opening episode of season two, she repeats and extends this reinforcement of her true identity: </p>
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<p>My name is June Osbourne. I’m from Brooklyn, Massachusetts. I’m 34-years-old. I stand 5’ 3" in bare feet. I weigh 120 pounds. I have viable ovaries. I’m five weeks pregnant. I am free.</p>
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<h2>Warning signs</h2>
<p>Hulu has renewed The Handmaid’s Tale for a third season, presumably a response to strong viewing figures for the second season’s opening episode, which have apparently <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/handmaids-tale-renewed-season-3-at-hulu-1107754">doubled from season one</a>. Naturally, like so many other adapted TV dramas, this show will move further away from its source as it builds on its origin story. But Atwood’s novel – like all great speculative dystopian fiction – is more than just a warning of what could happen in the future if totalitarianism goes unchecked and unconfronted. It is also a spotlight on that which is taking place now, incrementally, under our noses. </p>
<p>While the second and third seasons may dramatically move June’s story in radical new directions, it is the exploiting of the political and emotional relevance of Atwood’s allegorical novel for our current lives that must surely be its primary dramatic function.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Sherry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Series two of the award-winning show has now moved beyond the original novel.Jamie Sherry, Reader in English, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/950412018-04-17T07:01:14Z2018-04-17T07:01:14ZFirst look: Season Two of The Handmaid’s Tale extends Atwood’s novel in our #metoo moment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214946/original/file-20180416-105522-2vijtn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Season Two, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) reclaims the identity stripped from her by GIlead.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article contains mild spoilers for the first two episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale Season Two.</em></p>
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<p>The final episode of the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale ended with June Osborne, aka Offred, (Elisabeth Moss) being taken away by the Eyes - the Gilead police force/secret service. She was uncertain of her fate but buoyant, following the handmaids’ refusal to stone one of their own to death, and hopeful, given the whispered reassurances of her lover, Nick (Max Minghella).</p>
<p>In Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel of the same name, Offred’s narrative ends at this point. In the Historical Notes section that closes the novel, readers learn that Offred remained free long enough to record her story on tapes discovered almost 200 years later. These tapes are the subject of a session of the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies, which reveals that Gilead was long ago overthrown, though whether Offred herself escaped to Canada is unknown.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-margaret-atwoods-the-handmaids-tale-75062">Guide to the Classics: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale</a>
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<p>Season Two of Hulu/MGM’s television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale promises to answer these questions. The first episode opens with June gazing hopefully at the sunlight filtering into the back of the Eyes’ van. However, when the grille through which the sun shines is abruptly slammed shut, June is plunged into darkness, foreshadowing the most harrowing scene in the series to date.</p>
<p>Despite moving on from the events of Atwood’s novel, this second season continues with the book’s central themes, with a focus on female communities, resistance to tyranny, and freedom. </p>
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<p>June is forced to interrogate the idea of freedom, even as she tries desperately to escape. Early in the first episode, Aunt Lydia, a fanatical woman responsible for training and punishing the handmaids, challenges them to accept their new lives by comparing “freedom to” with “freedom from”. In a speech adapted from the novel, Lydia explains that although women in the pre-Gilead United States enjoyed the freedom to do many things - work, own property, have sex for pleasure – they were always at risk of harassment or worse by men. </p>
<p>In Gilead, by contrast, she claims that women enjoy freedom from this kind of predatory behaviour, as any man assaulting a handmaid would be subject to the most severe punishment. This, of course, overlooks the monthly rape handmaids are forced to endure, and the brutal physical and psychological torture meted out to any handmaid who refuses to display the utmost humility and obedience.</p>
<p>June refuses to accept Aunt Lydia’s sermonising. When presented with the opportunity to escape, she seizes it without hesitation. Setting fire to her handmaid habit, June reclaims the identity that Gilead has sought to strip from her: “My name is June Osborne … I am free”. </p>
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<span class="caption">Handmaids mourning.</span>
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<h2>A more openly defiant Offred</h2>
<p>By contrast, readers of Atwood’s novel never discovered Offred’s real name. Her resistance was less overt than the protagonist of the television series, and more obviously troubled by doubts, although her determination to tell her story in defiance of a society that sought to render women voiceless was extremely courageous. Atwood was heavily involved in Season One of the TV adaptation as a producer and writer, but only continued as a consultant in Season Two, with the show’s creators taking her characters in new directions. </p>
<p>Although much more openly defiant than the Atwood character on which she is based, the June of the second season is also beset by doubt, fed by Aunt Lydia’s claim that the handmaids’ resistance is merely “theatrics” and a “waste of energy”. As she is smuggled from place to place, June wonders, “Is this what freedom looks like?” She fears that even if she does make it to Canada, she may never escape the “Gilead within”. </p>
<p>Still, June refuses to succumb to despair, even when forced to hide in an abandoned building scarred with evidence of past violence, unsure when she will be able to leave. She and Nick make passionate love; as in the novel, their sexual relationship is an affirmation of life and love, an act of resistance to a violent society that would deny female sexual desire.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214948/original/file-20180416-543-1agec3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Handmaids in the colonies, where Ofglen is sent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>June is isolated from other handmaids following her escape, but the second season picks up the novel’s theme of female community through the storyline of Emily (previously Ofglen), played by Alexis Bledel. She has been sent to the Colonies to clean up radioactive waste with other “Unwomen” after killing a Gileadean guard. </p>
<p>Despite being sentenced to slow deaths by radiation poisoning, the women continue to care for and support each other; Emily draws on her medical knowledge to ease the suffering of the afflicted. Nevertheless, when the opportunity arises for violent retribution against those she holds responsible for the handmaids’ suffering, she shows no mercy.</p>
<p>In Season Two, we also see a flashback to Emily’s pre-Gilead life as a university lecturer and lesbian wife and mother, moving further away from the novel’s singular focus on Offred. Even in the first season, Oflgen’s character was developed in much greater depth than was possible in the novel, positioning her as a key figure of resistance. </p>
<p>The flashbacks to both her and June’s former lives explain how Gilead came about, and encourage viewers to reflect on similar problematic tendencies in our own time. This device, drawn from Atwood’s novel, is perhaps what made Season One of The Handmaid’s Tale such a phenomenal success, with women donning handmaid outfits (in the 2018 US Women’s March, for example) to protest threats to women’s rights and freedoms.</p>
<p>Season Two promises to continue to disturb and inspire, as does Atwood’s novel, more than 30 years on. Early reviews have been mixed. But the first two episodes (which I was able to view) at least remain true to the themes of Atwood’s novel while speaking to a new generation of women in our #metoo moment.</p>
<p><em>The Handmaid’s Tale 2 airs on SBS and SBS On Demand 8.30pm, from Thursday April 26.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Wight does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the much awaited second season of the TV series, Offred is more openly defiant than she was in Margaret Atwood’s novel. Still, the first two episodes remain true to the themes of Atwood’s book.Linda Wight, Senior Lecturer, Literature and Screen Studies, Federation University AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/904702018-01-22T15:40:37Z2018-01-22T15:40:37ZMargaret Atwood: tried on social media, convicted by the press<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202799/original/file-20180122-46244-j6xv91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/birds-speech-bubbles-seamless-pattern-211401517?src=q-UBvH_baSTaEaobwhJiNg-1-17">Alex Gorka via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The struggling economics of news organisations these days means that it’s cheap to report debates and controversies taking place on social media and so these rows, especially when they involve well-known people, get more prominent coverage in newspapers and news bulletins than they deserve.</p>
<p>Recent reports have focused on the savaging Canadian author Margaret Atwood has received on social media for <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/am-i-a-bad-feminist/article37591823/">an article</a> she authored in which she claimed that the #MeToo campaign was a symptom of a broken legal system. Referring to a case in which a Canadian academic lost his job after allegations of sexual harassment, she claimed that the campaign has become a “witch hunt” in which the idea of due process – that people must be presumed innocent until found guilty under the law, is being threatened by mob rule by which an anonymous allegation (usually of some kind of sexual misconduct) is enough to unleash a reputation-destroying avalanche of negative comments. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"953333272217575424"}"></div></p>
<p>It begs the question of what the role of social media should be in modern public debates. Scholars have been debating this topic for a while now, and the main contributions are grounded in an important theory by Jurgen Habermas: the theory of the <a href="http://www.socpol.unimi.it/docenti/barisione/documenti/File/2008-09/Habermas%20(1964)%20-%20The%20Public%20Sphere.pdf">Public Sphere</a>. According to Habemas, democratic societies are characterised by the presence of a space of public debate – the public sphere, or a public space such as a town square or a bar of cafe where people would get together to discuss matters of public interest. Importantly, the public sphere is a place where people are not monitored and are able to hold the power accountable by forming a public opinion. </p>
<p>With the increasing prominence of social media, scholars have started asking whether they can be seen as new forms of public sphere. Supporters of this position <a href="http://sites.asiasociety.org/womenleaders/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/The-Political-Power-of-Social-Media-Foreign-Affairs2.pdf">argue</a> that social media have already become an important tool for political activism around the world. Indeed, <a href="http://usir.salford.ac.uk/41501/">Mohammad Mesawa’s PhD</a> work has demonstrated the key role played by social media in Tunisia and Egypt during the so-called Arab Spring during which young people especially made extensive use of social media as a tool to communicate and coordinate action. </p>
<p>In this sense, the #MeToo campaign can be seen as an example of mobilisation whereby women from all around the world join in to make a statement about the predominance and diffusion of sexual harassment in modern societies. The effectiveness of this campaign rests in bringing the issue of sexual harassment in the political and media agenda. Importantly, <a href="https://www.samblackman.org/Articles/Suler.pdf">the online disinhibition</a> effect (the fact that people are more likely to disclose intimate information online) may encourage victims to disclose true instances of sexual harassment if protected by anonymity and the security of the online environment.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202792/original/file-20180122-110097-wi5dh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202792/original/file-20180122-110097-wi5dh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202792/original/file-20180122-110097-wi5dh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202792/original/file-20180122-110097-wi5dh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202792/original/file-20180122-110097-wi5dh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202792/original/file-20180122-110097-wi5dh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202792/original/file-20180122-110097-wi5dh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Margaret Atwood: savaged online for her views on the #MeToo campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Margaret-Atwood_19.10.2009.jpg">Lesekreis</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the opposing side are those who argue that social media are essentially a place where people are seeking entertainment – <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ljitCQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA131&dq=cute+cat+theory+of+digital+activism&ots=K9CG9ZRUNE&sig=suOLOq6WUA3K_jfC3eH2gBV_epw#v=onepage&q=cute%20cat%20theory%20of%20digital%20activism&f=false">sharing pictures of cute cats</a> rather than engaging in serious political debates. What is worse, even when people do engage in political activities online, they do so as token gestures – what is often referred to as “virtue signalling” – which are more about establishing a cause as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321730612X">part of someone’s identity</a> and which might distract people from actually doing anything in the real world, as Malcom Gladwell argued in his famous 2010 <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell">article in the New Yorker</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Social networks are effective at increasing participation – by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Civil engagement</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/is-social-media-making-britains-political-debate-more-extreme-61232">As I argued elsewhere</a>, the issue of whether social media are amplifying or simply reflecting rivalry and incivility characterising political debates is still contentious. People are always pointing the finger at what they see as the unpleasant or over-the-top tone of social media debate, yet – let’s face it – the quality of political debate in the House of Commons or in mainstream media doesn’t exactly encourage people to seek the higher ground. The adversarial style of conversation and the relentless personal attacks by politicians – combined with the media’s tendency to <a href="https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/may-2015/age-celebrity-politics">focus on individuals and political scandals</a> mean that they are hardly models of balanced and respectful debates on political issues.</p>
<p>In the case of online campaigns such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, the point made by Atwood is perfectly valid – these campaigns all too often do turn into violent and irrational altercations online – but this is actually not very different from the way in which people might argue at a public meeting or in a bar.</p>
<p>The big difference is, of course, that social media are public platforms – and what we say there can potentially reach a much larger audience. But unless you use a specific hashtag to find a particular issue, you’ll generally end up limited to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Solomon_Messing/publication/276067921_Political_science_Exposure_to_ideologically_diverse_news_and_opinion_on_Facebook/links/5699070a08ae6169e55161f5/Political-science-Exposure-to-ideologically-diverse-news-and-opinion-on-Facebook.pdf">talking to your own network</a> of – mostly like-minded – individuals.</p>
<h2>Reported speech</h2>
<p>It has become a common journalistic practice to report instances in which particular people have been targeted by critics online. A simple search for the word “backlash” associated to Twitter, social media or Facebook in the UK press in the past month returns more than 150 results. Social media could therefore influence people’s perceptions of the <a href="https://search.proquest.com/docview/304772839?pq-origsite=gscholar">standards</a> within their own community. But the attention dedicated to it by mainstream media could potentially work as a megaphone and amplify the phenomenon.</p>
<p>News outlets and journalists quite rightly want to cover what people find interesting – and social media can be a useful way of gauging public opinion on issues. But when the exchanges become the news rather than the substance of the political issue, journalists are missing an amazing opportunity to fulfil their role in providing useful information which could contribute to – rather than amplify – the debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Coen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Canadian author made the mistake of questioning the #MeToo campaign and was savaged on social media.Sharon Coen, Senior Lecturer in Media Psychology, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882042017-12-05T12:22:06Z2017-12-05T12:22:06ZMargaret Atwood’s Alias Grace: a period drama for the #metoo movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197447/original/file-20171203-5420-wtak1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong><em>Warning: this article contains spoilers</em></strong></p>
<p>Following the recent success of the television adaptation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/handmaids-tale-39030">The Handmaid’s Tale</a>, a second Margaret Atwood novel, Alias Grace, has recently aired – this time courtesy of Netflix. It sets a new benchmark in female-led and orientated period drama. Unusually for costume dramas on television, Alias Grace presents an unvarnished picture of systematic male abuse of female servants that echoes the collective voice of the #metoo movement. </p>
<p>Alias Grace is based on the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/mysterious-murder-case-inspired-margaret-atwoods-alias-grace-180967045/">true crime story of Grace Marks</a>, an Irish servant in mid 19th-century Canada. It is set in the years following the spread of radical ideas and a failed rebellion against British rule. Alongside fellow servant, James McDermott, Marks was convicted of the double murder of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. Both servants accused the other of masterminding the crime, but McDermott was hanged shortly after conviction – while doubts continued to surround the young woman’s role in the murders. She was eventually pardoned after many years in Ontario’s notoriously brutal Kingston penitentiary. </p>
<p>Sarah Polley’s screen adaptation of Alias Grace reproduces the complex structure of Atwood’s narrative. The series uses repeated images of Grace hand stitching a patchwork quilt to highlight the fragmented story that she offers Simon Jordan, the handsome doctor who supports the campaign for her release. Shown in flashbacks, Grace’s story includes many scenes and reflections that are either absent from or conflict with the narrative that she constructs for Jordan. Grace tells the doctor that “a girl should not ever let her guard down” – hinting that she will not disclose the whole truth. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A-fofQ9VpPQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The series leaves the viewer uncertain as to whether she was involved in the crimes, but wholly convinced of the sociohistorical context of class exploitation and virulent misogyny that the murders took place within.</p>
<h2>Below stairs</h2>
<p>Grace’s father tyrannises his wife and attempts to molest the teenage Grace. When Grace is forced to find work to support her younger siblings, she is befriended by a lively, politically minded servant girl, Mary Whitney, who tutors Grace in the rhetoric of class rebellion and gender equality. Mary dies tragically after being seduced by the spoiled son of their employer and undergoing a backstreet abortion. Seeking alternative employment to avoid the “young gentleman’s” predatory behaviour, she arrives at Kinnear’s house. She is quickly aware that the housekeeper, Nancy, has also been impregnated by the master of the house. The arrogant and patronising Kinnear soon turns his attentions towards Grace instead. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197768/original/file-20171205-22977-c5fqk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197768/original/file-20171205-22977-c5fqk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197768/original/file-20171205-22977-c5fqk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197768/original/file-20171205-22977-c5fqk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197768/original/file-20171205-22977-c5fqk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197768/original/file-20171205-22977-c5fqk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197768/original/file-20171205-22977-c5fqk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon) with her friend Mary Whitney (Rebecca Liddiard).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alias Grace thus differs from the standard format of female-led and orientated costume drama in two significant ways. First, reflecting their basis in the novels of 19th-century authors such as Jane Austen, George Eliot or the Brontës, mainstream costume dramas rarely feature women below the lower middle-class. By contrast, Alias Grace focuses throughout on the grim lives of domestic servants. Perhaps more significantly, it presents them as intelligent characters who resent their “betters” and perceive class and gender inequality as arbitrary and unfair. </p>
<p>Second, popular costume dramas tend to conclude with the heroine’s marriage to a more affluent man. Although educated, privileged men might initially appear stuffy or difficult (such as Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice or Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre) but they eventually show their softer side by falling in love with the heroine and offering her a better life. This generic pattern is so insistent that even costume dramas written more recently, such as Jane Campion’s widely acclaimed film, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/21/the-piano-rewatched-re-examining-the-erotic-via-sexually-charged-music-lessons">The Piano</a> (1993), depict the heroine’s rescue by a dominant but caring male. </p>
<h2>#Gracetoo</h2>
<p>In Alias Grace, there are two male figures that initially appear as potential “rescuers”: Dr Jordan and James, a sweet young farm boy that Grace meets at the Kinnear household. Both are clearly attracted to Grace and seem sympathetic towards her. However, Grace is immediately suspicious of Jordan, inwardly observing that “you want to open up my body and peer inside” and mocking his ignorance of the basic domestic tasks that have always been performed for him by women.</p>
<p>As the story progresses, it becomes evident that Grace’s instincts are right. Jordan takes an increasingly prurient interest in the abuse that she has suffered and is clearly titillated by her narrative. Unbeknown to her, he also “rescues” his impoverished landlady with additional funds. Jordan exploits the besotted woman’s gratitude by having sex with her while fantasising about Grace. He then cruelly rejects her.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197767/original/file-20171205-22996-jfg19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197767/original/file-20171205-22996-jfg19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197767/original/file-20171205-22996-jfg19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197767/original/file-20171205-22996-jfg19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197767/original/file-20171205-22996-jfg19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197767/original/file-20171205-22996-jfg19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197767/original/file-20171205-22996-jfg19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ill-treated: Alias Grace focuses on the hardships suffered by working-class women in the 19th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When James appears after Grace’s release, he offers marriage and a degree of financial stability. Grace accepts but is not surprised when he too pleads for – and is aroused by – repeated accounts of her ill-treatment at the hands of other men.</p>
<p>The only significant male figure who does not attempt either to molest her or press her for lurid details of past abuse is her friend Jeremiah the peddler. Despite his humble origins, as a man, Jeremiah can rise in society without fear of rape or the disgrace of an unwanted pregnancy. </p>
<p>Although few Western women now experience the extreme vulnerability of the live-in domestic servant, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/metoo-45316">#metoo movement</a> has revealed the ongoing sexual exploitation of working women in a variety of high-profile industries and institutions. In its bold depiction of the systematic sexual harassment and abuse of women by powerful men, Alias Grace adds historical weight to the exposure of such abuse in our own time. </p>
<p>Through its depiction of Grace’s interactions with those eager to hear such stories, it also warns us against perpetuating the exploitation of women by sensationalising their suffering and offering it up as public entertainment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roberta Garrett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>True crime drama focuses on the inequality and degradation of working-class women in service in the 19th century.Roberta Garrett, Senior Lecturer in Literature and Cultural Studies, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/880612017-11-27T12:06:43Z2017-11-27T12:06:43ZEight surprising things it’s time you knew about Gulliver’s Travels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196221/original/file-20171123-17988-1vwsyta.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gotcha!</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Happy 350th birthday, Jonathan Swift. Widely recognised as the leading satirist in the history of the English language, Swift found his way into the world 350 years ago on November 30, 1667. Celebrations of his life and legacy have been underway across the globe – not only in his home city of <a href="https://jonathanswiftfestival.ie">Dublin</a> but also <a href="http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/swift_papers.html">Philadelphia</a>, <a href="http://www.uni-muenster.de/Anglistik/Swift/Library/Events/7th_Symposium.html">Münster</a>, <a href="http://www.city.yokosuka.kanagawa.jp.e.rb.hp.transer.com/2490/event/15kannnonnzakifes.html">Yokosuka City</a>, <a href="https://beinghumanfestival.org/events/series/jonathan-swift-350-lost-found/">Dundee</a> and beyond.</p>
<p>Gulliver’s Travels is Swift’s most famous work. Since it first appeared in 1726, it has captivated readers, authors and artists alike. But many people’s engagement with this astonishing book tends to get lost in fantastical images of scampish little people and baffled giants. So here is your cut-out-and-keep guide to all things Gulliver. </p>
<h2>1. Not really a children’s book</h2>
<p>Most readers will fondly remember Gulliver as a children’s book, but the <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/classics//catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679405450">unexpurgated version</a> is full of brutality. The ruthlessly logical Houyhnhnms – highly intelligent horse-like creatures – plan to wipe out the bestial humanoid Yahoos by castrating them all. This plan is inadvertently inspired by Gulliver’s description of how horses are treated in England.</p>
<p>There is a particularly unsavoury scene in the Lilliput voyage where Gulliver urinates on the queen’s home to quench a devastating fire. This is routinely included in the children’s edition, albeit in sanitised form. And then there’s the scene in one of Gulliver’s final adventures where our hero has to fend off a highly libidinous female Yahoo who appears intent on raping him. </p>
<h2>2. Coining new words</h2>
<p>Gulliver’s Travels has given the English language a number of notable words, not least Houyhnhnm (move your lips like a horse when saying it). There’s also Yahoo, an uneducated ruffian; brobdingnagian, meaning huge, after the giants in the second voyage; and lilliputian, meaning small, after the miniature humans of the first voyage. </p>
<p>Swift also loved puns. Lindalino, a most unusual place, is another name for Dublin (double “lin”). The flying city of Laputa is a harsh allegory of England and its colonial dominion over Ireland – the name means “the whore” in Spanish (la puta). As for the kingdom of Tribnia, it is an anagram of Britain. Its residents call it Langden, an anagram of England. </p>
<h2>3. Roman à clef</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196222/original/file-20171123-17982-6d64gn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Robert Walpole.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Walpole">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>Like any successful satirist, Swift had many enemies. Britain’s first prime minister, Robert Walpole, is recreated as Flimnap, who as the pompous Lord High Treasurer of Lilliput has an equivalent role in their society. Either the Duke of Marlborough or Earl of Nottingham is the inspiration for his war-hungry governmental counterpart Skyresh Bolgolam, the Lord High Admiral of Lilliput. </p>
<p>Other authority figures are roundly mocked throughout the book. The pettiness of politicians – Whigs and Tories alike – is compellingly conveyed by rendering them small. That moment where Gulliver urinates on the palace is <a href="https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-5">sometimes interpreted</a> as a reference to the <a href="http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/History-of-Gibraltar/">Treaty of Utrecht</a> of 1713, which ceded Gibraltar to the UK – and by which the Tories put out the fire of the War of Spanish Succession with some very ungentlemanly conduct.</p>
<h2>4. Big in Japan</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g298174-d1238912-Reviews-Kannonzaki_Park-Yokosuka_Kanagawa_Prefecture_Kanto.html">Konnonzaki</a> in Japan, just south of Tokyo, is a tourist delight. In addition to stunning mountains and beautiful beaches, it is thought to be where Gulliver first set foot in Japan – represented as the port of Xamoschi. </p>
<p>Local tourist associations in neighbouring Yokosuka City hold a Gulliver-Kannonzaki Festival every November. American sailors from the Yokosuka Naval Base dress up as Gulliver and parade around the district. In the first Godzilla movie, the monster also lands at Kannonzaki, then heads toward Tokyo – just like Gulliver. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196224/original/file-20171123-17988-1qk8jmi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">He gets around.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
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<h2>5. Gulliver goes Martian</h2>
<p>The book jokingly mentions the presence of moons around Mars. After Phobos and Deimos were discovered by astronomers in 1872, <a href="http://www.irishphilosophy.com/2015/08/17/swifts-crater/">Swift crater</a> on Deimos was named in the Irishman’s honour. </p>
<h2>6. Swifter things</h2>
<p>Before the advent of film, Gulliver appeared in stage adaptations, musical rearrangements, visual caricatures – and on fans, pots and various other knick-knacks. Pioneering French illusionist Georges Méliès directed and starred in the first cinematic adaptation in 1902, the spectacular Le Voyage de Gulliver à Lilliput et Chez les Géants. </p>
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<p>Yet it’s the <a href="https://youtu.be/nzdon9kK5-k">live-action version</a> from 1977 with its Disneyfied Lilliputians that tends to stick in our minds. That film features an ebullient Richard Harris as Gulliver, but many other actors have portrayed him – including <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320261/">Jack Black</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115195/">Ted Danson</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026793/">Vladimir Konstantinov</a>. Gulliver even appeared in a 1968 Doctor Who serial (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/mindrobber/detail.shtml">The Mind Robber</a>) and in the first volume of Alan Moore’s comic <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen-volume-1-alan-moore/1102302221">The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</a> (1999-2000).</p>
<h2>7. Inspiring other writers</h2>
<p>Writers expressly influenced by Gulliver’s Travels include HG Wells (most obviously in The Island of Dr Moreau and The First Men in the Moon) and George Orwell (Animal Farm). Margaret Atwood’s adventure romance Oryx and Crake takes a quotation from Swift for an epigraph. Atwood has also written an <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10356713-in-other-worlds">important essay</a> on the mad scientists depicted in Gulliver’s third voyage. </p>
<p>In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the main character, Guy Montag, alludes to the Big Endian-Little Endian controversy about the proper way to break a boiled egg (“It is computed that 11,000 persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end”).</p>
<h2>8. Gulliver’s encores</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196225/original/file-20171123-17982-1kj5hq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196225/original/file-20171123-17982-1kj5hq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196225/original/file-20171123-17982-1kj5hq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196225/original/file-20171123-17982-1kj5hq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196225/original/file-20171123-17982-1kj5hq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196225/original/file-20171123-17982-1kj5hq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196225/original/file-20171123-17982-1kj5hq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Our notional hero’s life ends unhappily – by his own account – when he returns home to a wife and children he has come to loathe. Nevertheless, scores of secondary authors keep taking Gulliver on yet more journeys, typically beyond the world Swift created for him, but sometimes back to where it all began.</p>
<p>The earliest of these was the anonymously authored <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Memoirs_of_the_Court_of_Lilliput.html?id=IZTRAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Memoirs of the Court of Lilliput</a>, published less than a year after Gulliver took his first bow. More recently, a 1965 Japanese <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059212/">animated film</a> (right) took an elderly Gulliver to the moon – along with a new crew comprising a boy, a crow, a dog and a talking toy soldier. New countries, new planets, new companions, new adventures: Gulliver has had a busy afterlife.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Cook has received funds from the British Academy, the Levehulme Trust and the AHRC.</span></em></p>Even now, 350 years after his birth, the great Irish satirist Jonathan Swift remains as sharp and relevant as ever.Daniel Cook, Senior Lecturer in English, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/818262017-09-07T20:13:24Z2017-09-07T20:13:24ZThe Handmaid’s Tale and counting sperm: are fertility rates actually declining?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182915/original/file-20170822-3770-h9wijs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is this actually a possible future?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://m.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/videoplayer/vi1312929305?ref_=m_tt_ov_vi">Screenshot, IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the release of a new TV series based on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and a recent study claiming male sperm count is decreasing globally, fertility is in the spotlight. Many want to know if the dystopian future Atwood created in which the world has largely become infertile, is in fact possible. And are we on our way there already?</p>
<h2>What this latest study found</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/doi/10.1093/humupd/dmx022/4035689/Temporal-trends-in-sperm-count-a-systematic-review">recent paper</a> that <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-26/sperm-concentrations-in-western-men-declined-over-40yrs-study/8743020">hit headlines</a> all <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/25/health/sperm-counts-declining-study/index.html">over the world</a> highlighted the issue of declining sperm numbers in Western men. </p>
<p>The study is a meta-analysis, which gathers together similar studies and combines the results. Each of the studies in the analysis has different men assessed at different times by different researchers. This means, as a whole, it is not as powerful as a study examining the same men over time. And many of the individual studies assessed have their own problems.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-when-does-fertility-decline-21383">Health Check: when does fertility decline? </a>
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<h2>So is fertility actually declining?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/doi/10.1093/humupd/dmx022/4035689/Temporal-trends-in-sperm-count-a-systematic-review">current estimate</a> is that Western men produce 50 million sperm per millilitre in an ejaculate, which is lower than previously. However, only one sperm is needed to fertilise an egg, so 50 million sperm per ml suggests human males don’t have a problem just yet. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9777833">There are data indicating</a> that from below 40 million sperm per ml there is a linear relationship between sperm numbers and probability of pregnancy. The <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19934213">World Health Organisation (WHO)</a> suggests 15 million per ml sperm is a minimum to be considered fertile. The minimum is based on men who have successfully fathered a child in the last 12 months. By definition, 5% of the men with numbers below 15 million per ml will still be able to reproduce.</p>
<p>For females the issue that needs to be understood is that there is already a small window of time women are fertile, and this is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2732">decreasing as women are more educated</a> and career-focused. </p>
<p>Women have their highest number of eggs when they are still a fetus in their mother’s womb. About one sixth of the eggs are left at birth and by puberty the number is 500,000 eggs or less. From puberty until 37 years of age there is a steady decline from 500,000 to 25,000 eggs. After 37 years, the rate of decline increases and by menopause (average age of 51 in the US) <a href="http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(13)03464-X/pdf">only 1,000 eggs remain</a>. It’s important to realise these are average numbers and there is no guarantee a woman will have 25,000 eggs at 37. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185016/original/file-20170907-8347-12n4ut6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Male sperm numbers show males do not have a fertility problem, but declining numbers could signify health problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>The other issue is quality. Chromosomal issues (such as Down’s syndrome - where a person has three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two) increase with maternal age. IVF is seen as a way of rescuing fertility, but the success rate of <a href="http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(13)03464-X/pdf">41.5% is for women younger than 35</a>, and measures pregnancies, not live births. By 40 years old, that success rate is 22% and by <a href="http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(13)03464-X/pdf">43 years it’s 5%</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-causes-womens-fertility-to-decline-with-age-22253">Explainer: what causes women's fertility to decline with age?</a>
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</em>
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<p>In short, the situation for women is not great, but the numbers are not changing with time (estimates of fertility from 1600 to 1950 <a href="http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(13)03464-X/pdf">don’t differ</a>). </p>
<h2>What is affecting fertility today?</h2>
<p>The key determinant in women’s fertility is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2732">education</a> - not individuals’ education but that of the community as a whole. If your community becomes educated, your fertility declines, as women become educated and less likely to have children in their youth. </p>
<p>Choosing to delay having a child is not the only issue. Lifestyle choices matter. We know <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-017-0242-4">smoking, alcohol and obesity</a> all affect the number and quality of eggs a woman has. As a female has all the eggs she will ever have when she is in her mother’s womb, the mother smoking will affect those eggs. <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129557656">Smoking in pregnancy is declining slowly</a> (from 15% in 2009 to 11% in 2014) but is still very high in the Indigenous population (45%).</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-womens-eggs-run-out-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-57660">Why women's eggs run out and what can be done about it</a>
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<p>Smoking and alcohol are said to be major factors contributing to male sperm numbers but the evidence is limited by the nature of the studies. The effects of obesity and stress have the clearest evidence. For example, increased levels of anxiety and stress <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028213001416">have been associated with lower sperm count</a>. Life stress (defined as two or more stressful events in the last 12 months) has been found to have an effect, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028214003811">but not job stress</a>.</p>
<p>For men, the numbers themselves represent a blunt measure of fertility. It’s the quality of the sperm produced that’s of concern. The WHO minimum is that only 4% of male sperm need to be of good appearance to be considered fertile. It’s not really possible for us to be able to tell which of many factors may be influencing sperm appearance.</p>
<h2>Problems with studying fertility</h2>
<p>While we can talk about what research says on fertility, there are a few inherent problems with researching in this field. Most of the data we have on sperm count come from two sources: men attending an infertility clinic, and those undergoing a medical prior to military service. The first is restricted to those who likely already have a problem. The second is limited to one age group.</p>
<p>Meta-analyses, which combine the results from lots of studies, are limited to those all using the same tools and approaches so they can be compared. As a result, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0302283816300690?via%3Dihub">a large meta-analysis that suggested</a> smoking is detrimental was limited to men attending an infertility clinic, which would indicate many of them are likely to be infertile anyway. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24893607">Another big study used conscripts in the US and Europe</a> but failed to find an association between fertility and alcohol consumption. This is because it only assessed the alcohol consumed the week prior to the medical - and most recruits probably wouldn’t be out drinking in the days leading up to their medical.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185017/original/file-20170907-8347-28p0iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Studying one small subset of the community isn’t a good cross-section of what’s happening in society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>So could we become extinct?</h2>
<p>The reproduction rate is below that required for total population replacement in <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_02.pdf">the US</a>, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3301.0Main%20Features42013">Australia</a>, and many other countries. But the human population in total is still growing as it ages.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/most-men-dont-realise-age-is-a-factor-in-their-fertility-too-67785">Most men don't realise age is a factor in their fertility too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The start of this millennium also represented the time when births for women aged 30-34 overtook those in the 25-29 age group, and the 35-39 age group overtook the 20-24 age group. Teenage pregnancy (15-19 years) is <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3301.0Main%20Features42013">now level with older mums</a> (40-44) in Australia. </p>
<p>The quality of the sperm and egg is more important than the numbers. While we are still investigating what quality means to future generations, we do know that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4059337/">infertility represents a predictor of increased death rates</a>. Men diagnosed with infertility <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028215020877?via%3Dihub">had a higher risk of developing diabetes</a>, ischaemic heart disease, alcohol abuse and drug abuse.</p>
<p>Ultimately it’s not a numbers game but a quality game. This is true not just for the chances of having a child but having a healthy child. More immediately, fertility is a predictor of general health. While it does not appear that we are going to be extinct soon (at least not through reproductive failure), sperm quality could be a signal of wider health problems and should be investigated further.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81826/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaun Roman has received funding from CSIRO, the National Health & Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The release of TV program The Handmaid’s Tale and a study on male sperm numbers have left some worried about the future of human fertility.Shaun Roman, Senior Lecturer, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/804332017-07-05T13:58:30Z2017-07-05T13:58:30ZWhy women are dressing up as Margaret Atwood’s Handmaids<p>Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale has remained popular since its publication in 1985. It has been translated into dozens of languages, made into a film in 1990, and even became a ballet and an opera. It is read in schools the world over. Most recently, there has been a new wave of interest in the dystopian story thanks to the TV adaptation by MGM and Hulu.</p>
<p>However, it isn’t the adaptation alone that has caused this popularity, the novel has seen a reported <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/02/07/513957906/margaret-atwoods-the-handmaids-tale-soars-to-top-of-amazon-bestseller-list">200%</a> increase in sales since Donald Trump was elected as US president.</p>
<p>The series takes place in the fictional nation state of Gilead (established in North America after an uprising has overthrown the US government and murdered the US president and Congress). There, a Christian theocracy has dealt with a global fertility crisis by enslaving fertile women. They are systematically raped by high-ranking officials in order to bear children for the new nation. Filmed during the 2016 election race, the <a href="https://www.wmagazine.com/story/handmaids-tale-hulu-margaret-atwood-elisabeth-moss">cast and crew has since spoken</a> about how political events gave a whole new weight to the series.</p>
<p>And since the series has been aired, it has fed back into politics. Women have been dressing as handmaids to express their anger, frustration and dissent in a relatable and visually striking way. By dressing in these instantly recognisable costumes the handmaids have been bearing witness to federal and state attempts to limit women’s reproductive choices.</p>
<p>While there are some clear differences between Atwood’s Gilead and Trump’s current US administration (for one, climate change is a government priority in Gilead), increasing threats to women’s reproductive rights in the US have led protestors to adopt the message and aesthetic of The Handmaid’s Tale.</p>
<p>Placards have been spotted at anti-Trump protests bearing slogans such as “The Handmaid’s Tale is not an instruction manual” and “Make Margaret Atwood fiction again”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"861990069065875457"}"></div></p>
<p>Women brought up in certain communities in the US have also been <a href="https://theestablishment.co/i-grew-up-in-a-fundamentalist-cult-the-handmaids-tale-was-my-reality-fae2f77263d9">drawing similarities</a> between their experiences and The Handmaid’s Tale. One described a movement called Quiverfull, which raises women to be “helpmeets”, their purpose being to meet the needs of their husbands. The group is preparing for “<a href="https://www.autostraddle.com/i-was-trained-for-the-culture-wars-in-home-school-awaiting-someone-like-mike-pence-as-a-messiah-367057/">the culture wars</a>”, when they think they will have to uphold far-right evangelical christian values against attack. For these women, Atwood’s Gilead feels all-too familiar.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html">Atwood herself has stated</a> that far from being an imagined alternate universe, her book draws on real historical laws that have subjugated women and valued their childbearing abilities above all else. She calls the book “speculative fiction” rather than “science fiction”.</p>
<p>But the world depicted by The Handmaid’s Tale is feeling <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-handmaids-tale-is-being-transformed-from-fantasy-into-fact-77837?sa=google&sq=handmaid%27s+tale&sr=2">less and less speculative</a>. Particularly troubling examples include Senate bills in <a href="https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA132-SB-145">Ohio</a> and <a href="https://rewire.news/legislative-tracker/law/texas-dismemberment-abortion-ban-sb-415/">Texas</a> that would restrict women’s right to an abortion. These bills would effectively ban a safe and effective medical procedure in the second trimester and allow doctors to withhold information on the health of the foetus. </p>
<p>To protest these bills women dressed as handmaids and entered the Ohio and Texas senates. They stayed in character, walking the halls and listening to the debates in silence. The women were not asked to leave.</p>
<p>Trump has <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-signs-law-aimed-at-cutting-abortion-funding-a7683786.html">signed legislation</a> allowing states to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, a family planning organisation that also provides abortions. The availability of abortions in the US is already at a historic low. While Trump was previously pro-choice, he has <a href="http://www.refinery29.uk/2017/01/135307/donald-trump-abortion-quotes">declared himself pro-life since 2011</a>.</p>
<h2>A visual spectacle</h2>
<p>The striking aesthetic of the handmaids has clear visual appeal for protesters. Clothes signify a woman’s status in Gilead and the women singled out for their fertility are dressed in flowing red cloaks with large white bonnets to cover their hair and blinker them to the outside world. The series’ costume designer Ane Crabtree wanted the handmaids to look like “<a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/handmaids-tale-costumes-how-they-came-together.html">walking wombs</a>”.</p>
<p>Atwood has explained the symbolism of the handmaid’s clothing saying “the handmaids wear red, from the blood of parturition, but also from Mary Magdalene. Also, red is easier to see if you happen to be fleeing”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BWFTJ0zAaqY/?tagged=handmaidstale//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js\"","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>When the protesting handmaids turned up at the Texas and Ohio Senates in their shocking red robes and white bonnets, they brought the bills being debated inside into public consciousness.</p>
<p>It’s not just protesters who are aware of the power of such imagery. Joseph Fiennes, who plays a powerful commander in Gilead and is the owner of the series’ protagonist, Offred (played by Elizabeth Moss) has said that when he saw images of women dressed as handmaids <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-st-handmaids-tale-elisabeth-moss-joseph-fiennes-emmys-20170517-htmlstory.html">"my jaw was on the ground”</a>. Moss herself said that it’s “an image that stands so clearly for feminism and women’s rights. I don’t know many costumes or outfits in literature that someone could wear into an assembly and you immediately know why they’re there and what side they’re on.”</p>
<p>All the handmaid protests so far have taken place in the US. But with the anti-choice Democratic Unionist Party now holding the balance of power in the UK parliament – and with restrictive abortion laws in Ireland and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-battle-over-abortion-rights-in-poland-is-not-over-66652">Poland</a> – it perhaps won’t be long before handmaids start appearing in other countries. The picture is even starker <a href="http://worldabortionlaws.com/">outside Europe</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the protests, restrictive laws are becoming reality. The Ohio governor has agreed to <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/12/what_does_ohios_new_20-week_ab.html">ban</a> abortions after 20 weeks and the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-bill-would-allow-obs-to-withhold-information-from-pregnant-women_us_58b85e8de4b01fc1bde6b9fc">Texan Bill</a> has moved onto the state senate for a vote.</p>
<p>The real-life handmaids are our reminder of what is at stake. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-37645942/atwood-handmaid-s-tale-has-become-a-meme-in-us-politics">Atwood</a> has noted that the handmaids protest because “somebody has to tell the Republicans the Handmaid’s Tale is not a blueprint”.</p>
<p>As women’s rights continue to be threatened, we may see more handmaids cropping up – warning us not to sleepwalk into Gilead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cordelia Freeman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Troupes of women in flowing red capes are turning up all over the US to remind us that reproductive rights are under threat.Cordelia Freeman, Teaching Associate in Human Geography, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750622017-04-12T20:12:52Z2017-04-12T20:12:52ZGuide to the Classics: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale<p>In 1985, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, struck a chord with readers concerned about the conservative turn in US politics under President Ronald Reagan. The New Christian Right was leading the backlash against ‘60s and '70s feminism. Three decades later, the novel’s enduring popularity suggests that such concerns have never fully abated. </p>
<p>Earlier this year the book returned to bestseller lists, which Atwood attributed in part to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/11/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-sales-trump">concerns about the election of President Trump</a>. In March, women donned the novel’s iconic red robes to <a href="http://www.avclub.com/article/women-don-handmaids-tale-robes-protest-texas-abort-252463">protest bills proposed in the US</a> that would infringe on fertility rights. </p>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale has been the subject of numerous adaptations, including a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/">1990 film</a> starring Natasha Richardson, as well as an opera, radio play, ballet and stage play. Most recently, the novel has been adapted into a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/">10-part television series</a> starring Elisabeth Moss, to be released by Hulu this month.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163074/original/image-20170329-1681-n233fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Book cover for Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abe Books, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dystopian fiction, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, imagines a society worse than our own. While Atwood herself has called the novel an “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html?_r=0">anti-prediction</a>”, it stands as a warning about where our own society might end up if individuals and communities fail to address similar dystopian tendencies in the present. </p>
<h2>A world gone mad</h2>
<p>Atwood’s novel can be seen as a response to the 1980s backlash against the hard-fought gains women had secured in the 1960s and 1970s including increased participation in formerly male-dominated occupations, increased access to higher education, and the legalisation of abortion. Her interest in women’s experiences under a totalitarian regime distinguishes The Handmaid’s Tale from other classic dystopian fiction such as Aldous Huxley’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5129.Brave_New_World">Brave New World</a> (1932) and George Orwell’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5470.1984">1984</a> (1949).</p>
<p>In The Handmaid’s Tale, set in the near-future, air and land pollution have led to a dramatic rise in sterility and babies being born with extreme physical abnormalities. A radical Christian conservative movement has staged a coup, shooting the US President and Congress and placing the blame on Islamic fanatics. This justifies declaring a state of emergency, suspending the constitution and censoring newspapers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163075/original/image-20170329-1656-14jpp7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elisabeth Moss as Offred in the upcoming television series of The Handmaid’s Tale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MGM Television, imdb.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The radicals establish a Republic of Gilead in what was formerly Cambridge, Massachusetts. The theocratic military dictatorship uses the Old Testament and falling Caucasian birth rate to justify the extreme curtailment of women’s freedoms. Denied paid employment and the right to own property, women’s destiny is now determined by their reproductive potential, and assigned to several categories. </p>
<p>The Handmaids are women whose ovaries are still viable. Many have already proven their worth as “breeders” by giving birth to a healthy child. Reduced to their biological function, symbolised by the red habits they are forced to wear, Handmaids exist purely as breeding vessels. Each is the property of a male Commander, emphasised by their names. The narrator, Offred, is literally the property “of Fred.” </p>
<p>The Handmaids’ survival depends on conceiving a child. Denying the possibility that it is the men who are infertile, Handmaids who fail to conceive are shipped to the Colonies with other “Unwomen” to clean up toxic waste until they sicken and die.</p>
<p>Men who progress high enough in the hierarchy of Gilead are also assigned Wives (who wear blue) and Marthas (who wear green). Marthas, named after a Biblical character, serve as housemaids and cooks. Wives, who are usually sterile, enjoy a higher social status than both the Handmaids and the Marthas, but their lives are still subject to extreme restrictions including the ban on female literacy.</p>
<h2>Resistance: female voices and memories</h2>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale is narrated by Offred, whose descriptions of her life as a Handmaid in Gilead are interspersed with memories of her previous life with her husband and daughter. Caught attempting to escape to Canada, Offred (we never discover her true name) was sent for re-education at the Handmaid Training Centre, and her memories are dominated by mourning for her lost family.</p>
<p>Despite such memories threatening to plunge her into despair, Offred recognises the crucial role they play in preventing her from completely succumbing to the control and demands of the new social system. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163077/original/image-20170329-1649-gqk8cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Faye Dunaway (Serena Joy) and Natasha Richardson (Offred) in the 1990 film version of The Handmaid’s Tale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bioskop Film, imdb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The male leaders of Gilead want women to forget their past freedoms, but Offred’s memories remind her that a different way of life is possible, and her loss and longing keeps alive her desire to resist the system that tore her family and identity away from her. Her memories of her Women’s liberation mother and feminist friend Moira are also crucial, inspiring Offred to her own small acts of resistance.</p>
<p>This makes The Handmaid’s Tale an example of a critical dystopia. As well as showing us how problems in the present can lead to a dark future, it also, crucially, insists that change is possible.</p>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale includes an organised resistance movement which fights Gilead and smuggles escaped Handmaids and other subversives into Canada via an Underground Femaleroad (a nod to the <a href="https://www.cmich.edu/library/clarke/AccessMaterials/Bibliographies/UndergroundRailroad/Pages/default.aspx">Underground Railroad</a> by which runaway black slaves escaped north in the early 19th century).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bVNL6jX9Mm0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Royal Winnipeg Ballet perform The Handmaid’s Tale.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Offred herself is not a particularly active member of the organisation, though she does benefit from their intervention when her life is in danger. Nevertheless, she demonstrates her own form of resistance by seeking both knowledge and a voice in a system that would deny women either. Despite the best efforts of the Gilead elite to disempower women by segregating and silencing them, The Handmaid’s Tale celebrates the potential for female community and communication. </p>
<p>Such communication can have lethal consequences. The women’s determination to be heard, even if only in whispers, is a celebration of courage in the most extreme of circumstances. Finding a mock-Latin message, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” (“don’t let the bastards grind you down”) scratched in her cupboard by the Commander’s previous Handmaid, Offred reflects:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It pleases me to think I’m communing with her, this unknown woman … It pleases me to know that her taboo message made it through, to at least one other person. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163079/original/image-20170329-1637-1dngchz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natasha Richardson as Offred (1990).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bioskop Film, imdb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The power of female storytelling is a central theme of the novel. Trapped in Gilead where women are prohibited from reading and writing, Offred nevertheless constructs her story in her mind. By imagining someone listening, she clings to the hope of a different world, a different life: “By telling you anything at all I’m at least believing in you, I believe you’re there, I believe you into being.”</p>
<p>By reading The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood is making us a party to Offred’s resistance, emphasising our own responsibility to hear her words and heed her warnings.</p>
<h2>Reconstructing the past</h2>
<p>The Handmaid’s Tale does not end in Offred’s voice. Instead, in a section titled “Historical Notes”, we are told that audio recordings of Offred’s story have been discovered two centuries later. These recordings are the focus of the Twelfth Symposium of Gileadean Studies; and a partial transcript of the proceedings forms the last word in the novel. </p>
<p>On the one hand the “Historical Notes” are reassuring and inspiring, suggesting that Offred made it out of Gilead, at least long enough to commit her memories to record, and revealing that the Republic of Gilead has long ago ceased to exist.</p>
<p>But the section also stands as a warning. Offred’s story is transcribed, annotated and published by two male academics, who refuse to give her story the status of official history and dismiss it as “crumbs”. </p>
<p>Offred herself acknowledged in her narrative that any historical account – including her own – can only ever be a partial reconstruction, even if the narrator has personally experienced the events: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavours in the air or on the tongue, half-colours, too many. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Atwood emphasises that “official” versions of history are just as much a reconstruction. More importantly, they tend to dismiss women’s experiences and silence women’s voices in favour of so-called objective facts and figures. Offred’s voice is once again subjected to male control and critique. </p>
<p>The Professors’ weak puns and mockery at Offred’s expense, along with their reluctance to condemn those who oppressed such women, jar with Offred’s traumatic account of her struggle to survive in Gilead. </p>
<p>It’s a sting in the tail that asks us to think critically about the way women throughout history have been silenced, limited and consigned to the margins in numerous ways. Perhaps it is this insight that still speaks to so many readers, female and male alike, in the 21st century.</p>
<p><em>All quotations from the novel are from The Handmaid’s Tale published by Vintage Books in 2010.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Wight does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With a new TV series based on the novel - and its bleak vision of women’s rights - The Handmaid’s Tale is riding a new wave of popularity.Linda Wight, Senior Lecturer, Literature and Screen Studies, Federation University AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/721352017-02-03T11:55:33Z2017-02-03T11:55:33ZWhat are the Orwellian dystopias of the 21st century?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155449/original/image-20170203-14027-plmo90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Savitsky Stanislav/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fictional metaphors matter, and in the battle to safeguard our civil liberties few metaphors matter more than George Orwell’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/1984-1443">1984</a>. Although first published almost 70 years ago, the lasting salience of this most archetypal dystopia is undeniable. </p>
<p>In the week after Edward Snowden’s revelations of US government mass surveillance were first revealed, sales of the novel rocketed by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10115599/Sales-of-Orwells-1984-rocket-in-wake-of-US-Prism-surveillance-scandal.html">6,000%</a>. A year later, in Thailand, 1984 became a <a href="https://theconversation.com/third-hunger-games-film-poses-biggest-protest-threat-yet-to-thai-government-34501">symbol of resistance</a> to government repression, and was promptly banned. And following Trump’s inauguration and the conspicuously Orwellian admission by one of his chief strategists, Kellyanne Conway, that his administration trades in “alternative facts”, 1984 once again leapt to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/2017-isnt-1984-its-stranger-than-orwell-imagined-71971">top of the bestseller list</a>.</p>
<p>Orwell is ingrained in the West’s political lexicon. “Big Brother”, “Newspeak” and “DoubleThink” are now bywords for totalitarianism and political mendacity. But doesn’t every crystal ball have a shelf life, even the most prescient?</p>
<p>Orwell conceived his imaginary surveillance state of Oceania before personal computing, before the information revolution, before CCTV, before 24-hour news cycles, before reality television. As pointed out by <a href="https://theconversation.com/2017-isnt-1984-its-stranger-than-orwell-imagined-71971">John Broich</a>, surveillance and political repression today is far more complex than in Orwell’s time, and far more technologically sophisticated. </p>
<p>For one thing, it is no longer just Big Brother that is watching you. Alongside governments, corporations like Facebook and Google also collect our data and use it to profile us, and we all collect data on each other every time we scroll our social media walls. But if 1984 is anachronistic, an analogue vision applied to a digital age, then what about more contemporary fictions? Who are the digital dystopians, the George Orwells of the present day?</p>
<p>Here are five suggestions:</p>
<h2>Super Sad True Love Story</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155447/original/image-20170203-14020-oglkql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155447/original/image-20170203-14020-oglkql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155447/original/image-20170203-14020-oglkql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155447/original/image-20170203-14020-oglkql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155447/original/image-20170203-14020-oglkql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155447/original/image-20170203-14020-oglkql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155447/original/image-20170203-14020-oglkql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>In this 2010 novel “there is no need for a Big Brother”, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrlaqvH6bzU,">notes its author</a>, Gary Shteyngart, “because everyone’s been deputised to chronicle their lives at all times”. <a href="http://supersadtruelovestory.com/">Super Sad True Love Story</a>’s citizens of 2030s New York are transfixed by their “äppäräti” (which are basically smartphones) that collect and transmit torrents of personal data. Everything from <a href="http://www.webmd.boots.com/cholesterol-management/guide/triglycerides">triglyceride</a> levels to intimate sexual predilections are openly broadcast to anyone – which is everyone – who owns an äppäräti.</p>
<p>While “Big Brother” still exists in the Trump-like guise of Defence Secretary Rubenstein, who oversees numerous acts of severe government repression in the novel, Shteyngart reserves his most biting satire for the way in which our own incessant sharing and insatiable consumption of data, along with the banalisation of our cultural life that ensues, implicates us all in the erosion of privacy and our civil liberties.</p>
<h2>The Circle</h2>
<p>Soon to be released as a <a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/news/tom-hanks-emma-watson-the-circle-first-trailer-1201934776/">major motion picture</a> starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, Dave Eggers’s novel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/09/circle-dave-eggers-review">The Circle</a> (2013) blames the loss of privacy on the messianic utopianism of Silicon Valley. </p>
<p>The titular “Circle” is basically Google, a giant tech-corporation that rolls out a series of invasive technologies that promise to make the world fitter, happier, healthier, more rational and less corrupt by eradicating privacy. Eggers’ satire of techno-utopianists like <a href="https://www.wired.com/1996/12/fftransparent/">David Brin</a>, who in the 1990s lauded the impending emergence of “the transparent society”, offers a warning, as Margaret Attwood put it in <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/11/21/eggers-circle-when-privacy-is-theft/">her review of his novel</a> that “we can be led down the primrose path much more blindly by our good intentions than our bad ones”.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zH0E69gtQtI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>LoveStar</h2>
<p>Along with its surrealist imagery that conjures Norse mythology, what is remarkable about Icelandic novelist Andri Magnason’s <a href="http://www.andrimagnason.com/books/lovestar/">LoveStar</a> is its prescience. First published in 2002 (before smartphones and social media), though not translated into English until a decade later, Lovestar foresees a world of hyperconnectivity in which the previously sacred (read private) domains of love, death and religion have all been colonised by a global tech corporation. Its algorithms now determine even the most intimate human interactions.</p>
<h2>Black Mirror</h2>
<p>Dystopian imaginings are no longer just the preserve of literature. Recent award-winning films such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/">Ex Machina</a> (2015) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Her</a> (2013) render vivid speculative worlds in which our inner life is exposed by technology. But one of the most pertinent excavations of the social consequences of contemporary technology appeared on the small screen, not in cinemas: Charlie Brooker’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/">Black Mirror</a>.</p>
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</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13379204/black-mirror-season-3-episode-1-nosedive-recap">first episode</a> of the most recent series in particular echoes Shteyngart’s parable of a world in which we are all reduced to a constantly fluctuating metric – friends, colleagues and strangers rate each social interaction. This metric is then be used to sort us into categories and grant or deny us access to goods, services and public spaces. Think the idea of an aggregate “social credit” score is fantasy? China’s proposed <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34592186">Sesame Credit</a> scheme, whereby every citizen will be awarded a “social credit” score, suggests that science fiction increasingly resembles documentary.</p>
<h2>Inside</h2>
<p>Another medium that has successfully updated the Orwellian tradition for a digital age is video games. Playdead’s award-winning Indy platformer <a href="http://playdead.com/inside/">Inside</a> (2016) is one of the best examples of a recent interactive dystopia. Video games don’t just imagine surveillance, but force the player to experience it. </p>
<p>In Inside you play a young nameless boy, and your progression through the game is largely determined by evading or conforming to the surveillance gaze. In one of the most chilling moments in the game you are forced to walk in step with a line of zombie-like figures, whose movements are conditioned by the watchful eyes of CCTV. Few narratives better evoke the philosopher Michel Foucault’s metaphor of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/23/panopticon-digital-surveillance-jeremy-bentham">panoptic prison</a>, in which our behaviour is disciplined by the surveillance gaze, than Inside.</p>
<p><em>Simon Willmetts is also curator of <a href="http://www.digitaldystopias.com">Digital Dystopias</a>, the Hull UK City of Culture festival which uses culture as a means to explore the ways in which technology is transforming society.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Willmetts receives funding from the UK Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC) for a project entitled "The Common Good: The Ethics and Rights of Cyber Security". He is also curator of the Hull 2017 UK City of Culture Festival "Digital Dystopias", which explores the impact of technology upon society through dystopias. </span></em></p>Every crystal ball has a shelf life, even the most prescient.Simon Willmetts, Lecturer in American Studies, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641562016-10-20T19:16:51Z2016-10-20T19:16:51ZFriday essay: why literary celebrity is a double-edged sword<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142285/original/image-20161019-20333-u5msmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A wax model of Ernest Hemingway at Madame Tussauds in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anton_Ivanov/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1967, French theorist Roland Barthes famously <a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/barthes.death.pdf">declared</a> the metaphorical “death of the author” in his essay of the same name. Barthes rejected the Romantic idea of the author as a unique figure of genius. Still, despite his best efforts, this romantic notion of the heroic, solitary wordsmith lives on today. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1319.html">Medieval times</a>, authors were seen as nothing more than craftsmen. But the Romantic poets – Byron, Coleridge, Blake, Shelley – singled out the writer as a figure of “spontaneous creativity”. As academic Clara Tuite <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/210888">has noted</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Romantic period saw the birth of the literary celebrity, a figure distinguishable from the merely famous author by his or her status as a cultural commodity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This Romantic writer was seen as either a solitary hero, a tragic artist, a melancholy genius - or all three. In the centuries since, famous authors have been both celebrated and panned, adored and ridiculed. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lord Byron (1788-1824), engraved by H.Robinson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Georgios Kollidas</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since Romantic times, we have often expected writers to be detached from the trappings of celebrity culture, aligning their integrity with an anti-commercial attitude. There is, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Star_Authors.html?id=QFcqYIHCfgAC">argues author Joe Moran</a>, a “nostalgia for some kind of transcendent, anti-economic, creative element in a secular, debased, commercialised culture” that we commonly attach to writers.
Indeed theorist Lorraine York <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Literary_Celebrity_in_Canada.html?id=_5HhaFex8BsC&redir_esc=y">has asked</a> if we can even use words like “fame” and “celebrity” to describe writers, “those notorious privacy-seeking, solitary scribblers”. </p>
<p>One of the first to question the idea of literary celebrity was the 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who found his own fame something of a burden.
More recently, authors such as Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, and Dave Eggers have struggled with the desire for popularity and credibility. In today’s internet culture, reaction to a famous writer’s actions or utterances is quick and merciless. Next week, a new author will be thrust into the media spotlight, with the announcement of <a href="http://themanbookerprize.com/fiction">the Booker Prize winner</a>. </p>
<p>Yet interestingly, discussions about the difficulties of being a famous writer rarely include women. The notion of the solitary genius is usually attached to men. A notable exception is the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante – who is famous, ironically, precisely because of her reluctance to engage with literary celebrity. Ferrante writes under a pseudonym, in her words, to “liberate myself from the anxiety of notoriety”. </p>
<p>Ferrante’s recent unmasking by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/03/elena-ferrante-anita-raja-unmasking-publisher-outing-my-brilliant-friend">a literary journalist</a> has unleashed a torrent of condemnation. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"784869671145054208"}"></div></p>
<p>The extent to which her true identity has been picked over shows how our society craves constant closure, often at the expense of creativity and imagination. As Michel Foucault once <a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/foucault.author.pdf">noted</a>, literary anonymity is “of interest only as a puzzle to be solved”. </p>
<p>Such is the nature of contemporary celebrity culture that many cannot tolerate the idea of writers who prefer anonymity over fame. So those such as Thomas Pynchon, J.D. Salinger and Ferrante, who have evaded the limelight, have been scrutinised as much for their personal lives as their actual works. </p>
<h2>A short history of famous (male) writers</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Russian stamp showing Charles Dickens on his 150th birth anniversary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olga Popova / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The 19th century writers Charles Dickens (hero of the working class) and Mark Twain (America’s most beloved humourist), were plagued with aspects of their fame. While Dickens was often criticised for appealing to the lower classes, Twain <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Celebrity.html">likened</a> celebrities to clowns. Celebrity, he said, “is what a boy or a youth longs for more than for any other thing. He would be a clown in a circus […] he would sell himself to Satan, in order to attract attention and be talked about and envied”.</p>
<p>Yet Dickens and Twain also enjoyed their fame. Dickens was renowned for engaging his audiences at public lectures; Twain also went on speaking tours. </p>
<p>If we fast forward half a century or so, we come to Ernest Hemingway – another author who felt imprisoned by his fame. As theorist Leo Braudy <a href="http://leobraudy.com/the-frenzy-of-renown-fame-and-its-history/">puts it</a>, Hemingway was caught between “his genius and its publicity”. In an undated writing fragment, Hemingway <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/%22Glow-in-the-dark+authors%3A%22+Hemingway's+celebrity+and+legacy+in+under...-a0246955529">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have reached the point where we are ruled by photographers and agents of publishers and writing is no longer of any importance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He also called fellow writer F. Scott Fitzgerald a “hack” for writing Hollywood screenplays.</p>
<p>Yet Hemingway nevertheless helped promote the “Hemingway myth”, built around ideals of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7096913-all-man">masculinity</a> and genius. He was frequently photographed outdoors, fishing and hunting, or attending bullfights. </p>
<p>Then there was Norman Mailer, the pugnacious, Jewish author of The Naked and the Dead and Advertisements for Myself. In 1960, Mailer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/arts/adele-mailer-artist-who-married-norman-mailer-dies-at-90.html?_r=0">stabbed and seriously wounded his then-wife, Adele Morales</a> with a pen-knife at a drunken party. (After pleading guilty to a charge of third-degree assault, he received a suspended sentence.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Mailer receives an Austrian decoration for science and art in 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leonard Foeger/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mailer cultivated a public persona that certainly boosted his fame, but did little for his literary reputation. Many critics accused him of wasting his talents by shamelessly promoting himself; he did frequent TV interviews, including a particularly notorious <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw">appearance</a> on The Dick Cavett Show, where he and Gore Vidal famously butted heads over Mailer’s public profile and ego. </p>
<p>Indeed, Mailer once <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005907&content=reviews">called himself</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>a node in a new electronic landscape of celebrity, personality and status.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Theorist John Cawelti suggests that unlike Hemingway, who lived out to the end an ambiguous conflict between celebrity and art, Mailer “tried to make his public performances themselves into a kind of artistic exploration”. Mailer frequently wrote about himself in the third-person, in an effort to “perform” himself as a character. </p>
<p>Interestingly, at the same time as all this was happening, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/jd-salinger-9470070">J.D. Salinger</a>, author of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5107.The_Catcher_in_the_Rye">The Catcher in the Rye</a>, famously was living as a recluse. </p>
<h2>Franzen and Oprah</h2>
<p>In 2001, Oprah Winfrey put Jonathan Franzen’s sprawling family saga <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3805.The_Corrections?from_search=true">The Corrections</a> on her <a href="https://static.oprah.com/images/o2/201608/201608-obc-complete-list-01a.pdf">book club list</a>, encouraging her audience to read it. Franzen was invited onto Oprah’s show. He declined, <a href="http://www.powells.com/blog/interviews/jonathan-franzen-uncorrected/">saying</a> he didn’t want his novel placed alongside “schmaltzy, one-dimensional [books]”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wolf Gang/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Franzen was widely panned for being a snob. Andre Dubus III, for instance, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/books/oprah-gaffe-by-franzen-draws-ire-and-sales.html?pagewanted=all">criticised</a> Franzen’s assumption that “high art is not for the masses, that they won’t understand it and don’t deserve it”. </p>
<p>Media scholar Ian Collinson <a href="https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/everyday-readers-reading-popular-culture-ian-collinson/">sees</a> Franzen’s reaction as a symbolic attempt to separate the television celebrity from the novel, an act of “cultural decontamination”. Franzen, he writes, feared his position within the high-art tradition “would be compromised if his novel were subject to such blatant commercialism”.</p>
<p>Yet nine years later, Franzen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/16/oprah-winfrey-jonathan-franzen-freedom">apologised</a> to Oprah. He was again invited onto her show, this time to promote his 2010 book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7905092-freedom">Freedom</a>. He did not refuse a second time. Ironically, many criticised Franzen for succumbing to the allure of popularity. The old assumptions regarding the incompatibility of literature and celebrity resurfaced, with one critic, Macy Halford, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/franzen-meets-oprah">suggesting</a> that “Oprah and Franzen are not terribly compatible personalities”. </p>
<p>This whole saga attests to what Tessa Roynon <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/american-literature/cambridge-introduction-toni-morrison-1">has called</a> the “damned if you don’t, damned if you do” mentality of literary celebrity. Authors are often seen as having to choose between respectability amongst fewer critics, or widespread popularity at the expense of their reputations. (<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/06/literary-celebrity">One article</a> about a speech Franzen gave to students in 2011 was memorably titled, “Touching the hem of Mr Franzen’s garment.”)
Like Mailer, Franzen’s career has been marred by the troubled union between mass media presence and desire for literary acceptance. </p>
<h2>Celebrity and Sincerity: Wallace and Eggers</h2>
<p>One of Franzen’s peers, the late David Foster Wallace, was an author in the Romantic mould; he is associated with the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/sincerity-not-irony-is-our-ages-ethos/265466/">“New Sincerity”</a> literary movement, and his 1996 novel <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6759.Infinite_Jest?from_search=true">Infinite Jest</a> has been judged by many as a work of genius. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hand-drawn tribute to David Foster Wallace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Rhodes/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2008, Wallace took his own life. Before his death, Wallace was known to have suffered from depression, and he projected an image of the melancholy genius. His opinion of celebrity was less than favourable. His widow Karen Green once <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/10/karen-green-david-foster-wallace-interview">noted</a> in an interview that all of the media attention given to Wallace “turns him into a celebrity writer dude, which I think would have made him wince”.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/16/reviews/wallace-v-profile.html">1996 New York Times piece</a>, Wallace claimed that the “hoopla” of celebrity made him want to become a recluse. The cult of celebrity was something he consistently mocked in his work, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/365145-the-paradoxical-intercourse-of-audience-and-celebrity-the-suppressed-awareness-that">calling</a> celebrities “symbols of themselves” rather than real people. As with Rousseau and Salinger, the logic went that Wallace “deserved his celebrity”, journalist Megan Garber <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/david-foster-wallace-the-end-of-the-tour/400928/">writes</a>, specifically because he had not sought it.</p>
<p>Dave Eggers is also part of the “New Sincerity” movement. A writer of serious, sentimental fiction, his books include his debut memoir <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4953.A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius?from_search=true">A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius</a>, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4952.What_Is_the_What?from_search=true">What is the What?</a>, the fictionalised story of the life of Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng. Eggers also opened the writing centre <a href="http://826valencia.org/about/">Valencia 826</a> in San Francisco, which helps children develop their writing skills (and inspired the <a href="http://www.sydneystoryfactory.org.au/our-inspiration/">Sydney Story Factory</a> and Melbourne’s <a href="http://www.100storybuilding.org.au/">100 Story Building</a>.)</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dave Eggers in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elliot Margolies/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early in his career, Eggers often spoke of wanting to retreat into anonymity. Instead, he <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">seized</a> the reins of literary celebrity. Some then accused him of hypocrisy – in criticising fame while also inviting it. He has also been criticised for “excessive sincerity”, while journalist David Kirkpatrick <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/books/ambivalent-writer-turns-his-memoir-upside-down-denouncing-profits-publishers.html">called</a> Eggers “agonizingly ambivalent”. </p>
<p>Journalist James Sullivan <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Eggers-Surprised-By-Success-Author-to-read-from-2935959.php">notes</a> that Eggers</p>
<blockquote>
<p>treats his celebrity like a gold lamé suit: It’s amusing, absurd and, in his mind, not quite appropriate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, in her reading of Eggers’ 2003 book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4954.You_Shall_Know_Our_Velocity_?from_search=true">You Shall Know Our Velocity</a>, Caroline Hamilton <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">suggests</a> that the central characters “resemble the credibility-obsessed younger Eggers torn between longing for celebrity and legitimacy”. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.armchairnews.com/freelance/eggers.html">2000 email interview</a>, Eggers referred to himself as a sellout for having sold many books and appeared in various magazines. As Hamilton <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">writes</a>, the term sellout has less to do with wealth, and more to do with “the popularity that comes with it”.
Celebrity, then, remains a problem for those authors wishing to appear genuine and serious. </p>
<h2>Where are all the women?</h2>
<p>It is striking that female authors are, for the most part, excluded from all these agonised discussions about inner turmoil and perceived loss of prestige. This suggests that women are not often thought of as having substantial reputations in the first place. </p>
<p>Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, for instance, has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jw0Fu8nhOc">frequently appeared</a> on Oprah’s program to discuss her complex, poetically written, novels. In contrast to Franzen, however, Morrison’s credibility was never seen to be compromised in doing so. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toni Morrison after being awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philippe Wojazer/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the number of talented women writing today for large audiences – Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, Joan Didion, and Toni Morrison just to name a few – critics do not often think of female authors as having the kinds of monumental reputations that their male peers possess. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero">The Byronic hero</a>, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/5771776/Remembering_Hemingway_The_Endurance_of_the_Hemingway_Myth">the Hemingway legend</a>, and the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/09/13/behind_the_david_foster_wallace_myth/">Foster Wallace genius</a> are larger-than-life men. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Margaret Atwood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Blinch/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women are seldom discussed in such a way – with the possible exception of Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. Yet this may actually be a blessing for them. Avoiding the expectations that go along with literary celebrity can be an advantage. Female authors may be better able to breach certain boundaries – of genre, style, content – in ways that certain male authors cannot. </p>
<p>Ferrante, for instance, said she explicitly needed anonymity to write honestly. While some may see it as a bizarre sort of compliment to her that she is so intriguing that an Italian journalist spent weeks combing financial and property records to unmask her, she surely deserved the right to her privacy to focus on her own work. </p>
<p>Some of the most interesting genre-defying authors writing today are women such as Morrison, Atwood, and Emily St. John Mandel. Perhaps, then, female authors can more seamlessly defy stringent boundaries that continue to define the literary world when they are not hailed as heroic geniuses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan Lyons does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bob Dylan is now a literary celebrity. And next week, the Booker Prize judges will anoint another. The tag is still chiefly attached to men but women authors shouldn’t despair: fame and good writing can be uneasy bedfellows.Siobhan Lyons, Tutor in Media and Cultural Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.