Although it was written in 1985, there are many selections from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale that still read as unsettlingly relevant in our post-election America. For example: “It could be old clips; it could be faked. But I watch it anyway, hoping to be able to read beneath it. Any news, now, is better than none.” Or “This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”
The world Atwood created for her novel feels current, so much so that when Hulu released a trailer for its adaptation of the dystopian classic, some conservatives believed it was created in response to Donald Trump’s presidential win. Since the first five episodes were released, viewers have continued to comment on how timely this particular story is, a cautionary tale that feels especially prescient at a time when reproductive rights are being threatened, politicians call pregnant women “hosts,” and sexual assault and domestic abuse can qualify as “pre-existing conditions” that affect your insurance coverage.
Yet after 32 years and various incarnations — as a film (1990), an opera (2000), and a play (2015) — it seems less timely than timeless, a horrifying story that generation after generation seems doomed to find unsettlingly truthful and relatable. The Handmaid’s Tale veers away from the traditional Big Question of science fiction, “Could this really happen?” and toward the nauseating conclusion that it may, to some degree, have already started.