by Megan Alexander

Created on: March 04, 2007   Last Updated: July 27, 2011

Key Passage: The Historical Notes

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale considers the importance of literature in communicating the human experience and discussing social justice. Historical fiction makes the events of history seem real; history becomes a complex narrative of human struggles, rather than a series of chronological dates. Atwood contrasts the emotional narrative of The Handmaid's Tale with the dialogue of a pompous academic conference in a postscript she titles "Historical Notes." In the "Historical Notes," Atwood attempts to use Professor Pieixoto's sexist and ignorant interpretation of the narrative to intentionally antagonize the reader in order to demonstrate that it is wrong to distance ourselves from social injustices. Atwood uses realism in the narrative to pull the reader into the story and persuade the reader to empathize with Offred. The "Historical Notes" affirm that everything in the book is similar to actual historical events, forcing the reader to acknowledge the reality of human suffering and the probability of the political situation in the novel. Pieixoto's dehumanizing interpretation of Offred's story parodies history's ignorance of individuals, particularly women. In the "Historical Notes," Atwood satirizes our conception of history as facts and figures, and emphasizes the importance of considering the stories and struggles of individuals.

One function of the "Historical Notes" is to make the reader aware of the probability of the events in the novel. Even the name of the conference site serves this purpose: "the University of Denay, Nunavit," or "deny none of it" (Bergmann 852). The novel illustrates the social injustices that human beings are capable of, and everything described in the novel is based on actual things that human beings have done in history. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Atwood said that "[she did] not put anything into [the novel] that human societies have not already done". Atwood wants to emphasize that The Handmaid's Tale is not just a story. At one point in the novel, Offred reflects on a documentary about a Nazi guard that she saw when she was a child and explains that to her "it was only a story. If it's only a story, it becomes less frightening" (Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale 181). Human beings often forget that history is about real events and real people. Atwood argues that it is important to acknowledge the horrors that real people have committed, so that we can recognize current and future injustices.

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