Essay Sample on Retaining Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' in Graphic Novel Form

Introduction

Renee Nault in "The Handmaid's Tale" uses her experience as an artist to choose only the striking elements in the original book by Margaret Atwood which helps to maintain the books plot in the graphic novel. Nault makes it easy for readers to follow through the book and makes it more appealing to students who are enticed by the graphics to read the book. Nault retains the details of the scenes as they are in the original book by Atwood which plays a significant role in retaining relevancy as well as magnifying the scenes in the book to be more vivid in the mind of the reader (Mulvey, 1989). The brutality towards women in the book is expressed clearly in graphic form, which helps to promote the relevance of the book as it puts forward a feminine theme (Atwood & Nault, 2019). This essay will assess the graphic novel on "The Handmaid's Tale" to establish its suitability as an academic text as well as how gender, race, class, and sexuality are expressed by Renee Nault in the graphical novel.

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Surprises in the Text

It is surprising that Nault has been able to maintain the original novel by Atwood context and themes which are even enhanced in the graphical copy, which uses artistic elements to put across the themes more vividly. The graphical novel text encourages one to create visual images from the text read which magnify the intensity of the themes and aspects that could have been overlooked in Atwood's text which was not accompanied by visual images of the events in the book (Mulvey, 1989). Surprisingly, Nault only addressed the key themes that capture the essence of the original book which makes the graphical novel of "The Handmaid's Tale" interesting and easy to read within a short time while ensuring that the reader can be able to capture the main themes of the original novel (Atwood & Nault, 2019). Besides, it is also interesting to note that Nault was able to shift the content from abstract to literal aspects of the original novel. Besides, the graphical novelization helps Nault to show the different internal monologues of the characters, an element that could not be possible in the original Atwood's novel (Atwood & Nault, 2019). What most important is that visual symbolism is used largely in the graphical novel, which reduces the amount of text that is required to express the individual themes. This was achieved in the graphical novelization because Nault was able to show the character state of mind beyond what the novel achieved through main character perspective. However, the most surprising aspect is that reading the graphical novel is that it seems like it is about current events which make the graphical novel very relevant.

Gender, Sexuality, and Class

The major themes represented in "The Handmaid's Tale" graphical novel version highly match the themes that were originally in the book by Atwood in which they are more magnified with visual images in the graphical novel (Atwood & Nault, 2019). The primary theme is the objectification of women as a tool in which they are not given similar opportunities and position as those of men. This theme is vividly explored in the graphical novel by Nault, where the violence and abuse of women in the Republic of Gilead are visualized more vividly which beats the text ability to express the theme of women abused by men. The graphical visual representation in the novel shows a woman who is being held down by another woman as she is abused by a man (Mulvey, 1989). The graphical novel uses color to differentiate different castes of women in the Republic of Gilead which is instrumental in creating a visual representation of how women were classified based on their function in the society and the classification is used as a tool of control which limits the ability to transcend one's class (Atwood & Nault, 2019). The horrific hangings used in the graphical novel are very vivid, an aspect that is used to create fear on women of Gilead of what could befall those that fail to maintain their social status in the country. Nault uses the colors that Atwood used to establish the distinct roles of women in Gilead as a storytelling device in which they identify the social position of the women in the graphical representations which is key in understanding the overall meaning in "The Handmaid's Tale" which makes it reader-friendly. Besides, the most striking aspect of the graphical novelization of Atwood book is the ability of Nault to retain Atwood's words which were already in the book which helps to maintain the emotional aspect that Atwood aimed at from the original book.

Nault uses the character inner monologue to repackage the humor and scenes which are demeaning to women (Atwood & Nault, 2019). Foreshadowing is used in the graphic novel to show the current situation faced by women today in many global societies where the society is divided in terms of the gender and social function between different people. The handmaid's role in the society of Gilead is vividly represented and visualized in the graphical novel, which makes it more effective (Mulvey, 1989). The graphical representation of Offred having sex with the commander while Selina holds her hands. The inner monologue by Offred helps Nault to create the irony of the story in which despite being born by a feminist mother Offred does not escape the cruel hands of men and the system which makes it possible and legal for such gender-based crimes and victimization of women to occur (Atwood & Nault, 2019). However, the most striking theme is the betrayal of women where Selina and other women in her caste take advantage of the Handmaids by allowing their husbands to use them and take away their children as their own.

The system is completely cruel and oppressive to women in which in the case when a Handmaid fails to get pregnant even if the commander is infertile, the woman takes the blame. Men in the medical profession use such scenarios as an advantage to abuse women who are afraid of their masters (Ketterer, 1989). The commander, on the other hand, gives Offred privileges of reading and playing scrabble which are not allowed for women. In return, the commander demands a kiss from Offred. Selina uses blackmail to ensure that she makes the commander happy by proposing to Offred to have sex with Nick and have a baby in return; she will be given a picture of her lost daughter.

Short Comings of Nault's Graphical Novelization of "The Handmaid's Tale"

In the graphical novelization, one of the significant aspects to disagree with is Nault's decision to use only white characters which can be identified by the color used to paint the characters. This shows significant racial bias and lack of representation of all the races, which is not the actual representation of a true society. Nault should have used different races to rewrite the graphical novelization of Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."

Conclusion

The Handmaid's tale inspires women on taking feministic actions in fighting their oppression by men. Atwood, in addition, uses Offred's mother and Moira who are both fighting sexism in dissimilar ways. As Offred advocates for the disputes and difficulties facing the modern-day feminism, her mother was an activist who advocated for females' sexuality and effectual abortions and Moira on the other hand, was a feminist who even wished for a world without men. Atwood shows the importance of women standing their grounds in advocating for gender equality. Although the society is filled with oppression to women, the narrator uses her story to endow herself to break loose from slavery and air her voice out. Feminism is, therefore, an effective approach used in addressing gender equality by encouraging women to get their voice heard, and via this, females get to attain freedom from being subordinate. Feminism has contemporarily enabled women to make progress in attaining gender equality, for instance, economic independence. The Handmaid's tale purposes on expounding on gender discrimination, objectification, and oppression by the current patriarchal societies by majorly and effectively using the feminist approach. The Handmaid's tale, therefore, is a dystopian tale that majorly reflects daily life in the world we live in. In Gilead, women are portrayed as being progressively intimidated and depreciated such that their value is bound with their husbands. Atwood uses a feminist approach to show how society dehumanizes women with men owning all the power and women being servants is more visualized by the graphics that Nault uses. She uses Offred, a handmaid, this itself gave power to a female in a novel about the male-dominated society. Feminism is further depicted by Offred's mother, who is a feminist and participates in protests and demonstrations against female discrimination. Through her narrations of daily life happenings in Gilead contrasting to the pre-Gilead life, Atwood uses Offred to show that the challenges she is facing are partly consequences of her refusal to revolt against the oppressors some of whom are women.

References

Atwood, M, & Nault, R. (2019). The Handmaid's Tale (Graphic Novelization) New York: Doubleday.

Ketterer, D. (1989). Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: A Contextual Dystopia. Science Fiction Studies, 16(2), 209-217. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4239936?origin=JSTOR-pdf

Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In Visual and other pleasures (pp. 14-26). Palgrave Macmillan, London. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-19798-9_3