Margaret Atwood has been called a visionary, especially when it comes to her famously dystopian 1985 book The Handmaid’s Tale and the recent rollback of reproductive rights in the US – but the popular Canadian author says her predictive powers failed her ahead of last week’s US election, which handed Donald Trump another win in the White House.
“I searched. I prayed: ‘Oh God, make it sunshine,'” she said to laughter Tuesday night at a forum hosted by the Alberta Teachers Association, Calgary Catholic Local 55 and Calgary Public Local 38, “but it was dark everywhere.”
Calgary’s Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, which seats more than 2,500, was nearly full for the discussion with Atwood on “democracy, public education and the common good.” She is scheduled to speak Wednesday at an event hosted by the Edmonton Public Library about “the importance of freedom of expression.”
Atwood said she is reluctant to make blanket statements about what moves the American people because there are very different histories and sensibilities in each region.
“You have to think about how other people think,” she said.
“I think some people would shoot themselves in the foot rather than have a woman leader.”
But she said the population is also less polarized than many think.
The presidential race was like a “multiple-choice questionnaire with only two options,” while most people have “mixed sets of values.” Republicans prevailed in winning the presidency, but at the same time ballot initiatives affirming abortion rights passed in several states.
Atwood may have neglected to predict the election results, but she said she has some speculation now that they are determined.
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“Watch what’s going on inside the White House… We have a lot of people with very big egos, supported by two billionaires who also have big egos and don’t like each other,” she said.
“I think the bookmakers will start writing the book on how long Donald Trump will last, because is he really necessary for these billionaires anymore? And on the other hand, is it necessary for him? Who will win?”
She also predicts that “you’ll hear a lot more talk about the classroom than we have since the 1940s.”
Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022, overturning half a century of federally protected abortion rights, Atwood wrote in Atlantic Magazine she didn’t mean Gilead, the totalitarian state in The Handmaid’s Taleto become a reality.
The Handmaid’s Talehas since been adapted into a TV series on Hulu starring Elisabeth Moss, set in the near future in what is now the United States. It is ruled by religious fundamentalists, and suffers from environmental disasters and low birth rates.
Women are treated as property, and some are forced to become “servants” – their sole purpose being to bear children for wealthy, infertile husbands. The maids are distinguished by extremely modest red clothing and white cone-shaped hoods that obscure their peripheral vision.
She told the forum Tuesday that her thoughts are… The Handmaid’s Tale It did not come from her mind, but was inspired by discussions among the religious right.
“It’s not the clothes, it’s the basic principles,” she joked.
“Everything in the book either happened or was happening somewhere, at some point. Because otherwise, people would say, ‘It’s really weird.’”
The event director asked Atwood if people should be afraid.
“I don’t think we should be afraid at all, and I don’t mean that there’s nothing terrible happening,” she replied.
“I mean, fear makes you weak.”
I was also asked if there was any comfort to be found in Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
“That’s what makes people abandon vigilance — ‘It’s going to be all right, and I don’t have to do anything because it’s bending toward justice on its own,'” Atwood answered.
“This is not real. There is no yellow brick road.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
