Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was not required reading in any of my high school English classes. This is really unfortunate. I just finished it last night, and I truly wish it had been required reading for me, particularly if had been assigned alongside Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, as Ms. Atwood's novel tackles many of the same topics dealing with religion and social class (although I am uncertain how keen my AP English Professor would have been to discuss feminism - even if we did read some Virginia Woolf). Ms. Atwood, however, is not shy about delving deeply into gender roles and feminism in her very multi-layered novel. I can't help but feel like The Handmaid's Tale was an onion, and every layer dragged you deeper into despair and pain, and at the core was fragility of human self-esteem. The novel was probably the best one I have read so far this year.

It reads like a cautionary tale describing what might happen if women allow themselves to be subjugated through social engine…