Josh W. Blog 4
As I read the chapters assigned for Monday, the more I thought that even though this was supposed to be set in the future with the government being completely totalitarian, every time Offred made reference to the past or the chapter was a flashback, I thought how impossible this situation was no matter how powerful and all seeing the government was. Atwood writes very well and she sinks into the skin of Offred, bringing an extremely emotional touch to her interior monologues and feelings towards the environment around her but I don't know why she would in good conscience make the history in the novel so impossible to accept. There is fantasy and their is realistic fiction and she is trying to combine the two that result in something that is not fantastic and not realistic. By looking at the world today, even if a total national breakdown occurred, people would instinctively fight an authoritative take over no matter what they were promising. Its like keeping all the technology but turning back the clock on every social advancement in America 200 years. It just seems that this society comes too close to a parallel of of the movies "Death Race 2000" or "Rollerball". Another strange occurrence in this society is all the temptations Offred encounters as a part to keep the people in check. Times when Nick the Guardian tries to talk to her or touch her and when the doctor offers to sleep with her in so she can have a baby. From what I see, only women are tempted to break the law and in a somewhat paradoxical fashion, they must disobey the men who offer so they can be subservient to them and the government which took away the women's rights in the first place. Again I have to ask how can this society exist even in a literary universe when people are given chances to rebel against one small part of authority and by doing that, conform to the larger part of the authority? And by writing it this way, Atwood has taken away part of the indescribable thing that gets readers to forget they are reading. As I was reading, I kept thinking of how this future was less likely to happen in 20th century America than David Carradine racing across the country in a weapon loaded Chevrolet Corvette in order to kill the President. However, I am interested in seeing where Offred ends up within this society whether or not its realistic.