I think the most viscerally affecting passage in HT was at the very end of chapter 28, near the end of the narrator's description of the fundamentalist takeover in the time before. In it, Luke responds to the narrator losing her job and all her rights without really blinking an eye. He still wants to make love, and can't understand why the narrator doesn't want to. He says "We still have..." and she finishes "We still have each other."
That's entirely not the point. Luke clearly doesn't understand his wife, or respect her abilities, or have any sense of what his entire nation has lost by denying fully half of its population the ability to productively contribute. I know it's an entirely irrational reaction, but I can't help but be personally offended by the way that Luke just rolls over while his wife's humanity is taken away. I think that betrayal is worse than any other described in the book, and the fact that a man so blithely commits it is, I believe, a direct insult to men. It is that kind of anti-male bullshit that has given me a knee-jerk negative response to feminism, and I believe weakens the movement as a whole.
Rant over.
I do find it interesting that you move that quickly from irritation with Luke's behavior toward his wife to irritation with Atwood for constructing an anti-male representation. Arguably, she's representing a serious, if now dated, reality: many, many women who began to develop careers outside the home in the 1960s and 1970s were faced with husbands and children who weren't just unsupportive but indeed actively hostile to such careers, seeing women's careers as taking them away from their proper focus on the family (a phrase that might suggest that there are still to this day organizations and power structures that understand a woman's place to be at home). It seems to me hardly unreasonable to imagine a scenario in which such a husband might fail to see the broader cultural implications of his wife's disenfranchisement, being instead happy that she'll be safely back within the family fold.
Preface: I started off with one opinion, and ended confused. Bear with me.
You're right. I didn't see Luke as a representation of what men *were* like, and instead saw "the time before" and his representation of a male as much more current.
I would like to say this: Insofar as this book is trying to be timeless, by not mentioning the era or historical events, and pushing technology to the outskirts of the story, I think that Atwood's comment on men, through Luke, is meant to be timeless as well. Men may have grown since the time when models like Luke were easy to come by, but I think that Atwood's comment is more about the fundamental nature of men than about men in her time in particular.
You're right that Luke is just a character, and that I should not pin Atwood's philosophy on him. But that excuse can only go so far. Luke, technically, does redeem himself by trying to bring his family out (and fails, of course, since it is far too late), but I think that his character up to that point is entirely without merit or distinction. In the context of the points that the rest of the novel makes, and the systematic inaction of all men in his position in the country, I think Atwood's philosophy can be read into Luke's actions.
But then again, I don't know anything more about Atwood than "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Oryx and Crake." She may be my ideal feminist, who knows. I guess what really pisses me off is the portrayal of the man to which the narrator is closest as a patronizing, inappropriately horny, utterly insensitive prick. And the narrator just sits there and takes it. In theory, in "the time before" she had some say in her relationship, she loved this man, and yet she just sits there.
Before you mention it, it is also interesting that I criticize the narrator for being weak, while simultaneously criticizing Atwood for making Luke a dick. Apparently when a character is male and a jerk, it's the author's fault, but when a character is female and overly passive, it's all the character's fault.
Clearly I have some thinking to do. Thank you.
Atwood's stance towards the whole gender-role issue still seems hazy to me, and these ideas only make me more confused and thoughtful at the same time...
Atwood wrote a book that suggests women having an oppressed role in future society. Although I think unlikely, it is possible she might agree with such a society....but the way she portrays Offred kinda disagrees with this. On the other hand, she might be trying to spark a pro-feminism attitude in her readers. Or, she might simply be trying to keep an image of the characters in our minds...such that we at least have something to go off of to decide our own thoughts on gender roles.
In any case, her true motives for the novel are not 100% clear...but I am lead to believe she is trying to spark awareness of the topic of gender more than anything.
I agree with The Count that the passage is offensive to males. While I see your point Professor on the different views of men back then, it still is a bad representation. The part that irks me the most is that it's not as if Luke just voiced his agreement with the new rules, but rather was portrayed as being completely oblivious to his wife's feelings. I mean come on, the girl just lost her job, and quite a bit more, and he asks "what's wrong?" after she doesn't want to have sex with him that night? It seems to say that even the nice, sweet men like Luke deep down only care about having sex, and have no sense of what others are feeling. Seriously, no one is going to not know what is wrong with his wife in that moment.
I also agree that the main problem with feminism is that it is often interpreted as "anti-male" rather than "pro-female", and things like this only reinforce that thought.
I'm going to have to join in with the two arguing against Atwood's representation of men. While I agree that sure, it isn't unimaginable that a husband might be happy to have a wife back in the household rather than out in the work force, in terms of considering cultural repercussions, a singular occurrence would have few if any true ramifications, and I see this as the main case in which a husband may be somewhat untroubled by this, but were it to be a wide-sweeping trend of female job- and right-loss as it is in the book, most would wonder what the hell is going on, and recognize that there is something thoroughly unjust about such an occurrence. I do believe we have achieved near if not complete gender equality and consciousness of equal rights in our modern times (granted I recognize lingering inequity in salaries and some roles, but society is much better in these regards than ever before), and that feminists are trying to raise hell over how men hold them back when in actuality most of society will accept them as equal. And it most certainly disgusts me how men are often portrayed as strictly sexual beings with little other thought. When Offred passes the guardians near the beginning of the novel and sways her hips, she is certain that "They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little...I hope they get hard at the sight of us and have to rub themselves against the painted barriers." (22) Atwood portrays these guards as little more than horny sentries trying to catch a glimpse of a woman, as beings with little thought aside from sex, when it is her protagonist who instigates sexual tension and antagonizes these men, who are just trying to do their jobs.
Yes, Luke's response is horrifying. However, there's some value to viewing it in its broader context. This is part of a very small section of the tale illustrating how this horrorland came about, and is one of very few direct descriptions of individual reactions to the tumult preceding the orderly republic of Gilead. Atwood's conception of the development of Gilead emphasizes the torpor and confusion of the public in the face of literally unbelievable developments in government. Luke's reaction is an incredibly viscerally effective demonstration of how this reaction looks in an individual. I know it's effective because of how upsetting everyone on this thread finds it. And a population overcome by accidie and rationalization in the face of atrocities against humanity and liberty? I'd argue that that's not only believable, but of significant modern relevance.
I find it interesting that there's so much outcry against Luke's reaction, and so little about the narrator's subsequent complacent move toward more household work. Everyone's insensitive here, most everyone's lazy and fearful. I hope that all of the men on this forum incensed by Margaret Atwood's feminism would do better than Luke, but I don't think too many people looking outside of the comfort of Claremont Colleges academia and activism would find it that difficult to believe that many men, and women too, would do the same.
Captain vK, to your point on male sexuality, I would point out that the narrator is clearly aware, and even ashamed, of her own cruelty. You're taking that passage out of context. She's discussing how these men have no sexual outlets, which is, in fact, a consideration of the issues of this sexist regime's negative impact on men. Besides, if men have become purely sexual objects for a woman who's only value to society is as an active receptor of semen, why is it on their behalf that you're outraged.
As to your assertion that "we have achieved near if not complete gender equality"... I disagree, strongly, but that's not the point. Even if I did agree, near isn't enough, and complacency in the face of near is still contributing to continuing injustice.
"...feminists are trying to raise hell over how men hold them back when in actuality most of society will accept them as equal." If I may rephrase your general sentiment slightly, it appears that you're saying that feminists are being unnecessarily strident in the face of imagined injustice. Or, if I may paraphrase one step further, you're calling feminists hysterical bitches. This is also a construction in which women are being granted equality on men's terms, by "most of society", which you're conflating with men. Just some things to think about before you continue complaining about men being wronged.