Handmaid's Tales I

"This is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusions. For example, I explore a number of conservative opinions still held by many--such as a woman's place is in the home. And also certain feminist pronouncements--women prefer the company of other women, for example. Take these beliefs to their logical ends and see what happens."

From what I've read of this text so far, this statement seems to hold very true. The setting of the book is an obscure society in which women seem to be held hostage. The women have very few rights and are treated more as property than individuals. They live in a society dominated by men, serving to the "commander". To further de-individualize the women they are assigned different solid colors to wear to represent their "roles" in society. This is to say that an individual is only thought of as that role, such as a handmaid, and will never amount to anything else. This type of society sounds terrible. I have never really thought of taking these stereotypes to a logical level, or to implement them fully in society. Women have these sort of preconceived roles from history, but modern society is trying to break away them. It is not reassuring to read this text which has effectively stripped everything we are working to break away from in modern day. The course title, between shadow and light would fit well for this book. I interpret this to mean the shadow is the ideals or stereotypes we view women as following, and the light is the actual implementation of their roles in society. I think in the real world, the shadow is dying down, and the light is allowing women more and more equality. In this book however, the shadow is strong, it is ALL women can be, and the light takes these values to the extreme.