another one of those books

I was a little surprised to read the last chapter and get to the end and find out that this is yet another book without closure. These books really annoy me. They tell a story and leave you hanging without any closure or finality to the story. Maybe Atwood wanted us to make the ending up ourselves, or maybe she was to lazy to make an ending herself. Another possibility would be opening the door for a sequel but "A Handmaid's Tale" does not seem like a series book and I'd be very surprised if there is a sequel. The afterward did clear some things up however and confirmed my assumption that the Handmaid's were named after their commanders (Ofwarren Of -Warren, Ofglen Of-Glen, Offred Of-Fred). It's pretty interesting how Offred isn't even focused on escaping on the end and seems obsessed with Nick. I'm surprised they never got caught. I wonder how he felt about their whole relationship and It'd be interesting to see his perspective.

As Moira is describing her story and what happened after she left the Red Center, I made a couple connections to our history. The "Femaleroad" seems very similar to the Underground Railroad which was used in the South to help blacks escape slavery. There are checkpoints and different steps along the road to try and get the people out of an area. Also both the Femaleroad and the Underground Railroad operated illegally. The citizens escaping through the Undeground Railroad both choose to flee because they were greatly oppressed or unhappy with the society they were living in. It also seems very hypocritical that they have a place for many of the things which are forbidden to happen such as: wearing revealing clothing, wearing makeup and smoking. This just makes the society seem much more corrupt and hypocritical. How can the leaders of the society disobey their own rules and what message would this send to the rest of the population.

I am beginning to hate this society more and more. All of the restrictions and limitations on the people first of all, and the overall misery of all of the inhabitants. Also the women, as stated by the Commander, are supposedly only supposed to perform their biological task, giving birth. Otherwise they are supposed to remain silent. They continue to stress how much better off all the women are when really most of them have a worse life than they did before. It also disgusts me to think that they disregard love completely. The Aunt's say to forget about it and the Commander said he read about it in a magazine. I would hate to have an arranged marriage like they have in Gilead. You would just be stuck with a random person for the rest of your life and have no say in the matter. Actually this is a common practice in some societies in the world. I believe they justify it by saying "the parents know what is best for the children" and "they will grow to love each other". I personally would prefer to be able to choose who I am married to and not leave it to chance.

finally..

Whew.. things are finally starting to pick up in the story. First the scrabble games and the awkward situation with the Commander and now the new friend that she can talk to in Ofglen. It is very scary, however, to think that either the Commander or Ofglen may be acting. The Commander seems genuine but it's possible that Ofglen is a spy. Not very likely though. I doubt there are even that many spies in the society. The government uses that as a good ploy, to keep everyone antisocial on to better contain and control people. I know I would be very paranoid if you never knew if anyone you met was a spy looking for one wrong move. I guess it's better just to go for it though rather than continuing to live the way she is living. I knew the Commander was going to start have feelings for her. It was bound to happen.

hmm

These last few chapters have really stirred things up and created some excitement. I was glad to hear that Moira escaped and got away from that dreadful place. She had a very well thought out plan and it worked. I'm surprised more of the girls don't rebel or try to escape.

I was very surprised when the Commander asked to see Offred, since it is so obviously forbidden. You would also think, since he holds such a high position, that he would want to enforce the laws and abide by them. However, I could also see how the Commander might want some excitement it his life since the society seems so dull and dreary. I thought it was really random that he chose to play scrabble, a game that was probably the worst they could play. Offred seems to be treading on thin ice here.. one wrong step and she's off to the colonies.. whatever that means.

why?

I was wondering why they would even want to create a society like the one in The Handmaid's Tale. It seems so restrictive and almost all of the characters seem miserable and tense all of the time. Nobody, besides Nick, seems to be enjoying themselves at all. How did this come to happen? Why would anyone want this? I certainly would not want to live here. There is hardly any freedom and everyone has their set role in society with little flexibility. It seems to me a society like this would only form under extreme conditions. I bet people were panicking when the radiation began to effect fertility rates in the U.S. Many people then turned to religion as a solution to their problem since they had no other choice. They are now forced to encourage and protect the pregnancy on the handmaids because fertility is bad and children are highly valued. When people think they are in danger they panic and give up much of their rights as seen in many occasions in world history.

Thinking About Logan's Run

I was thinking a bit about Logan's Run
and had a few questions:
Why did they have to live in the bubble world when the "Sanctuary" seemed to exist outside?
Why were they forced to be "renewed" at age 30?

I have some speculations to the answers to these but am not sure at all. I think they choose to live in the bubble just to maintain better control over the population. Also they are free from weather hazards. They probably tell people it is dangerous outside to dissuade them from leaving which would weaken their society. They most likely are forced to be renewed as a sort of population control since it would seem like they have plenty of children. Therefore there is no older generation and they do not need to use resources to support it. I guess they are trading a short pleasureful and fun-filled life for a longer less party-like life. They have so much less responsibility in this system and don't even care who their children are or who they have sex with.

Silver Lining

I think there are a few themes in The Left Hand of Darkness. The most obvious one i noticed was her exaggeration of the male pronoun, "he", to the point of over using it. I think Le Guin definitely is trying to send a message here that our society is centered around the male gender. I think she also may believe the male gender dominates our society and wants to point that put so people will be obliged to change that.

Another theme i noticed was the theme of the silver lining. Estraven's character illustrates this on numerous occasions as well as Genly. Estraven, when he first met Genly was exiled because he helped Genly. Genly also achieved his mission at the cost of losing his closest friend: Estraven. This comes back to the Yin and Yang which is another theme of the story. Light cannot exist without dark, bad without good, questions without answers, rich without poor and gender without inequality?

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Estraven seems to be in quite a pickle now and has no where to go, at least that we know of. He has been exiled from Karthide, and is now a fugitive in Orgoreyn. I don't see how the Orgoreyn authorities could not connect the disappearance of Estraven and the escape of Genly. I think Estraven is hoping to leave Gethan and possibly be an ambassador of some sort or just a tourist on other worlds. He seems to be one of the only Gethanians interested in the Ekumen and what they have to offer. If I were Estraven, I would have no idea what to do once Genly reaches Karthide. I would probably either go into hiding, and stay in contact with Genly or just tag along with him. Estraven seems not to care any more for his own well being and appears to be working for a higher cause than his survival. I guess, Estraven could go and stay with his former Kemmer brother because he would most likely take him in yet Estraven shows no sings of wanting to do so.

A World Apart?

How different is our society from Orgoreyn's? Is it better or worse?

Besides the whole gender topic, Orgoreyn seems to be a much more censored and controlled society than ours. Estraven mentions that there was no mention of Genly arriving on the radio and, most likely, not many, if any, of the common folk know that he is in Orgoreyn. Our society is practically run by the media and news stations, although there is still some secrecy. I do believe that we would have treated an alien life form in a very similar way, even if it looked very similar to us. People are very scared of the unknown and they would want to know everything they could about the extraterrestrial, with or without its consent.

I believe out society is better, but maybe not as productive. I mainly believe it is better because we enjoy many more rights and liberties than the Orgota. The Orgota seems to be much more productive and efficient but at the expense of their people's freedom. Our society is not perfect, however, and I despise the "every man for himself" mentality of free market capitalism.

The grass is always greener on the other side...

Is is beginning to look like Orgoreyn is not as perfect as we assumed after all. There seem to be so many factions, rules, and regulations and hardly anything is really how it appears. The diner conversation made this very apparent. Everyone seems to be working for their own personal motives and nobody seems to be genuinely working for the good of the domain. Genly somewhat realizes this when he says on pg 147:

" and yet each of them lacked some quality, some dimension of being; and they failed to convince. They were not quite solid. "

This seems to complicate Genly's job significantly because now he is being used as a political tool and could very easily attract enemies. I would be very scared if I were in his position ( although I probably would not have taken the job in the first place). HE is getting too involved with the affairs of Gethen and should remain neutral and stick to his task.

Sticks and Stones

While reading Left Hand of Darkness, i noticed, a couple times, the mention of the ansible as a method of communication. The main character also mentions that, on his journey, he traveled close to the speed of light and could return to try another generation. These two concepts are fascinating to me. I remember reading in another science fiction novel, Ender's Games, about a device called an ansible which could transmit instantaneous communication, disregarding distance. In Ender's Game, this was breakthrough and monumental technology which defied the laws of physics. The society was able to obtain this technology from an alien species which used it to communicate telepathically. Space travel was also a common theme in the Ender's Game series and allowed the main character to spend only thirty years in space as thousands of years passed on his home planet. Unfortunately, I feel both of these technologies are impossible for humans to attain, or at least not any time in the near future. I was mystified by the fact that the Gethan people saw no interest in learning about any of the foreign technology brought to the planet by Genly. This seems odd because it is usually human nature to try and learn more and adapt to our environment but the Gethans seem too isolated and foreign. So much of the Gethan's behavior seems inhuman to me that i wonder whether they can really be classified as the same race as ourselves.