US and Israel are more ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ than ‘The Testaments’

One of the biggest cultural phenomena during the first Trump term was the release of the televised series of Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.

Published in 1985, the dystopian novel describes an America of the future called Gilead ruled by an elite male cadre of Christian religious fanatics. Through panopticon-type surveillance and the threatened and actual violence of the secret police called the “eyes of God,” the regime devotes its energy to breaking the will of previously independent women who collaborate at risk of their lives to help women like themselves, or their children, to democratic Canada via a Harriet Tubman-like underground network.

One such child is Baby Nicole, whose story - along with that of her half-sister - is at the centre of The Testaments, the literary sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, now a TV adaptation on Netflix.

In The Testaments, Atwood softens the unrelenting torture and desperation of the handmaid whose pre-Gilead name was June, by placing the femicidal catastrophe of Gilead safely in the past, when a handful of brave and determined women risk their lives to achieve this happy ever after. 

But while The Testaments is an enjoyable antidote to the unrelentingly dark dystopia of Gilead, there is nothing redemptive or post-apocalyptic about the actual United States currently darkening our newsfeeds.