Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale Novel and Film Essay

Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale: Novel and Film The Handmaids Tale, a science-fiction novel written by Margaret Atwood, focuses on womens rights and what could happen to them in the future. This novel was later made into a movie in 1990. As with most cases of books made into movies, there are some similarities and differences between the novel and the film. Overall the film tends to stay on the same track as the book with a few minor details changed, and only two major differences. Atwood sets the story not too far into the future, and the women have lost almost all of their rights. The original government was overthrown and taken over by Christian religious fundamentalists that believed that society was corrupt and women†¦show more content†¦An example of this is the chapter/scene of the district Salvaging. The Salvaging is an event only allowed for women to attend, because it involves crimes committed by or towards women. At this certain Salvaging, three women were being hanged for reasons unknown. Atwood uses graphic descriptions such as The three bodies hang there, even with the white sacks over their heads looking curiously stretched, like chickens strung up by the necks in a meatshop window...(277) to give a horrific picture in the readers mind of what happened. The movie changes the scene slightly in that there is only one hanging. The Handmaid in the movie is hung for seduction of a doctor. The director of the film makes this scene very tense when Aunt Lydia asks, Why is she punished? All the handmaids answer in unison while bowing For our sins! For our sins, and by showing the Handmaids pull the rope to hang the convicted woman. Both the movie and the film proceed to the Particicution. The handmaids make a circle around a man who was convicted of rape of two women, one was pregnant and the baby died (279). Atwood describes how all the handmaids surge forward, like a crowd at a rock concert in the former time,(279) and kill the man. The movie follows along with the picture Atwood gives accurately. Another part of the book that the film shadows almost exactly is theShow MoreRelatedjourneys in handmaids tale1334 Words   |  6 Pagesexperience, not from the destination itself. This statement is supported by both Margaret Atwood’s fictional dystopian novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and Oliver Stone’s crime fiction film ‘Natural Born Killers’. Through the use of multiple techniques Atwood makes it clear that the protagonist Offred undertakes inner and imaginative journeys during the course of the novel and learns from them. Likewise, Stone uses an array of film techniques to convey both physical and inner journeys. Both texts are formedRead MoreThe Significance Of Feminism In The Handmaids Tale991 Words   |  4 Pagestook for granted. 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