TV vs Book: The Handmaid’s Tale

I’m going to preface this by saying that I just finished the first season of the Handmaid’s Tale and I’m currently watching the second. This will only be about the first season. As I am typing, I am watching the second episode of the second season. It’s kind of crazy, but let me just say….

Spoilers. For the book at least. You’re probably wondering, “How can she spoil the book but not the TV show?” and that would be a valid question. Just don’t keep reading if you want to go into either of these blind. If you want to read about the book without being spoiled, you can find my review here.

Alright.

I enjoy all mediums of storytelling. I am not pretentious enough to believe that books are the best medium to tell a story. You can find stories in every medium of entertainment and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Video games, comic books, graphic novels, books, television shows, and movies all tell a story and they all rely on different mechanics to make it work. Respect the difference and you’ll likely find you enjoy a greater variety of storytelling.

Don’t do what I did and forget about the benefits of different mediums.

I was so angry after finishing the first episode of the Handmaid’s Tale. I was so incredibly angry I almost stopped watching.

In the book, the narrator does not have a name. This adds so much to the plot. While reading the Handmaid’s Tale, there’s a certain style of narration that is a little peculiar. Throughout the book, you can’t really pinpoint why. She’s known as Offred and that’s it. At the end of the book, you discover the book was told as a series of tapes that were being analyzed by a professor years later.

The fact that Offred has no name in the book greatly emphasizes how ignored, repressed, and disregarded women were during Gileadian society. I thought it was a perfect way to emphasize this.

At the end of the first episode of the TV show, Offred proclaims that her name is June.

I was upset. I ranted to my brother. I compared and contrasted the book. He got sick of me. Then I realized the TV show has greater flexibility. The TV show wants to give a voice to women, to provide hope.

So I calmed down, sat back down, and sucked it up.

I love the series.

Don’t go into it the way I did, thinking it’s going to be really similar to the book, because it’s not. The core beliefs are the same. The major plot points are the same. However, due to the way the first season ended and left room for the subsequent seasons to build, there was more there. It left room for greater development upon what was founded in the book.

For example, Luke and Hannah play bigger roles in the TV show. Did you read the book and wonder what happened to Luke and her daughter, Hannah? Well, the series tells you. And its awesome. The plot isn’t the only thing that differs between the book and the series.

The characters are different in the TV show.

Offred, or June, is very passive in the book. The training Gilead put her through broke her and made her ninety percent subservient. June in the TV show has a stronger will and she’s more stubborn than her literary counterpart. June does have her moments in the show where she displays weaknesses that parallel struggles highlighted in the book, but she always comes out on the other side. She’s always fighting.

Nick is further fleshed out in the TV show. Since we are not limited to June’s POV, we get to see certain sides of him that we didn’t get to see in the book. At the end of the book, the reader is still unable to tell whether or not Nick is an Eye. The TV show elaborates on this dilemma. It does take away from some of the mystery the book did so well, but it makes you ask, “What’s next?”

In addition to this, the Commander and Serena are both younger in the TV show. This adds tension. There’s this idea of respect for the elderly that would have made it hard to nail subservience as hard as the TV show did. How can one be treated so poorly by someone who is their own age? It makes the idea of a handmaid that much more frightening and disturbing.

Aunt Lydia plays a larger, more prominent role in the TV show. In my review of the book I state that the Aunts are given a false sense of power due to the position they are in. Rather than simply being a part of the flashbacks, the TV show takes Aunt Lydia and moves her from this one-dimensional character to a keeper of the handmaids. She functions as a guardian to these “girls” and makes sure she calls them that too. She disciplines them. She escorts between postings. I’m curious to see what she is being put through to make sure the handmaids do not rebel.

I know it sounds like I’m saying the TV show is more fleshed out than the book. I’m not. The TV show has greater freedom because it is able to show scenes from other characters’ POVs without detracting from the overall message of the story. A scene from Nick in the book would have ruined the overall message of it being a series of tapes told by a handmaid.

Speaking of disturbing, I would also like to highlight that this show is not for the faint-hearted. Reading about something is one thing. Watching Offred lay between Serena Joy’s legs as the Commander inseminates her is a completely different thing. I was uncomfortable. My brother left the room. Be mindful and aware of your own boundaries.

I highly recommend the book.

I also highly recommend the TV show. Another episode has passed in the time it has taken me to write this and I’m eager to keep watching. I love that I’m learning more about Gilead and the world outside of Gilead.

Margaret Atwood, the author of the book, also cowrote this series. It must have been exciting to be able to maneuver the story within a new medium while still maintaining the overall message of sexual repression and strength of women.

I’m eager to see where it goes.