Why Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" is more disturbing in ways the 'Blood Child' could never compare.

     While I am not incredibly far into A Handmaid's Tale, I still have a good idea of the themes within this book from public knowledge, and some internet articles. So far, what I am seeing is that the world that Offred lives in is just a condensed version of the many horrors that women have faced at the hand of an oppressive patriarchal society, both past in present. In fact, Margaret Atwood meant that to be the case. The Handmaid's tale is different from most other science fiction or speculative fiction novels, because everything within it is possible with our current state of humanity and technology. Bloodchild is disturbing in it's easy comparison to sexual assault and slavery, but it is more removed from our reality in comparison to The Handmaid's Tale in it's alien-ness. This novel is the horror story to the modern American women who enjoys her freedoms, but at the same time realizes their fragility and how easy the can be taken away, especially in a digital age where bank accounts can be erased, or in a time when legislation limiting women's reproductive freedom is far from universally contested.
          While Margaret Atwood, is definitely not a person who usually supports the men and how they treat women in and outside this novel, she is also wise to make the point that the oppression of equality for women can also be perpetuated by the female gender. As a women in this modern age, it can be so frustrating to see other women whole heatedly spiting each other, whether it be for religiosity, political gain in a man's world, or simple jealousy. In this story, Atwood shows us a societal system made by men to hinder women of all statues, largely by turning them against one another and separating them into conflicting castes; it is it historical tale as old as time. While there are different allowances for each type of women, even the women who let the power and jealousy go to their head, the one thing they all have in common is that their existence is on the terms of a man or many men.
         The themes, such as oppression, sexual assault, and slavery, are similar between the two stories. One deals in a more abstract, gory version of these themes, while the Handmaid's tale is hauntingly more relateable to the modern day woman.