Handmaids Tale Comparison Between Movie and Book
Maria IB English 05/31/12 How do the scenes, of both the book and movie, of The Handmaid´s Tale made changes for their own benefit? The Handmaid´s Tale book by the Canadian Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel, science fiction first published in 1985. It won so many prizes such as the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Nebula Award, among others, that this novel was adapted to the big screen. The movie adaptation, named the same as the book, was directed by Volker Schlondorff and made in 1990. As every book with its corresponding movie adaptation they have differences and similarities, in the Handmaid´s Tale we can observe those in the arrangement of the scenes and changes in the scenes itself. We will now analyze those changes. There are three main changes in the scenes: the one in which the commander is killed, the one in which the names of the characters are provided and lastly the scene of sex. To begin with we will start with what seems to be the most crucial difference in the last scene. As we know in the book the commander does not die, whereas in the movie the commander is killed by Offred. In one hand the commander in the book, at the end, when Offred is taken away he remains almost incriminating himself; and in the movie Offred goes to the commander for some help and then she kills him. The fact that in the movie we see that the commander want to kill himself and in the book Offred kills him is very unwise since we see throughout the book and play that Offred is not even capable of harming herself, so even less she is capable of letting someone else harm itself, in this case the commander. And not only for that reason I believe is unwise but furthermore because by having Offred killing the commander the screen players took away her innocence. Especially because in the book Offred was already accepting the Gilead society and therefore not getting in any issue, so when she is taken away we can see that she re gains her hope. Whereas in the movie by