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“You’re not going to cheer when we come to the terror,” Margaret Atwood told a University of Arkansas audience on Tuesday, drawing applause for comparing today’s political climate to the French Revolution.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” author joined the University of Arkansas’ Distinguished Lectures Committee on April 14 for “a conversation on literature, power, and the future.”
The conversation was moderated by University of Arkansas student Addie Jones, who asked questions concerning the writer’s process, “The Handmaid’s Tale’s” resurgence, “reproductive justice,” and other topics in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 1,100.
“It is the kind of book that you write hoping that it will become obsolete,” Atwood said when asked about her book’s “refusal to become historical.”
“Before 2016, there were people who dressed up as handmaids, but it was usually at Halloween,” she said of the infamous red head-to-toe gowns some women don in her book.
She added the current trend of using the costumes as a political statement began in Texas as far as she knows.
A group of women staged a sit-in at the Texas legislature, where “a bunch of men in dark suits, just like the ones in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ movie, were passing laws about something they didn’t understand at all, namely women’s bodies,” she said.
She argued more people would have children if they could actually afford it: “If you really want people to have more kids, don’t make these negative laws. Why don’t you make some positive laws?”
And she criticized lawmakers for “acting as if you care about babies.”
Jones asked about what she described as an “unfortunate reality,” noting Arkansas “is a state that has been at the center of major book banning and library censorship debates in recent years.”
Atwood said every society has banned something, and that “we all have our line.”
“Probably your line and my line would begin with books that extol sex with children. I think we’d probably say that is not something we wish to have in the library.”
“So we have those lists, and everyone has them,” she added. “It’s a question of where you’re drawing the line. Like, what are you banning, why are you banning it, and in what way are you banning it?”
Atwood also expressed skepticism, adding, “I don’t know how they think everybody’s going to preserve a pure mind, what with the internet.”
Atwood also shared how she hears from readers around the world, sometimes from unexpected audiences. Recalling one message, she said, “Hello, I’m 10 and I just read ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’” She paused, looked at the audience, and responded with a simple, “Uh oh.”
Atwood also joked about the criticism she receives.
“Who do I get attacked by? Just about everybody at one time or another. I usually get more attacked from the left than from the right. … Why is that? Because they probably actually read.”
The audience burst into applause, prompting her to clarify, “Or they probably actually read my books.”
On the topic of intense political polarization, Atwood said, “I don’t think it’s wonderful that the United States seems to be losing its position as world leader, because I don’t think that what’s going to come next is going to be preferable.”
“So unfortunately,” she added, “that is the moment in which we find ourselves, and just to cheer you up, the astrologists say that we are now at a moment in which the stars are in the same position they were in at the time of the French Revolution.”
The Distinguished Lectures Committee selects dynamic and pertinent speakers to bring to the University of Arkansas campus. Past events include Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, conservationist Jane Goodall, the 14th Dalai Lama, and former President George H. W. Bush.
Sammi Montgomery serves as the committee’s student chair. She told The College Fix the event had been in the works since late last year.
“The committee presents a group of speakers they each believe will benefit students, and we then vote on who we believe would create an impact on students’ university experience,” she said.
The budget and speaker availability also play a role in deciding. Montgomery said the budget for these events comes from the university’s “Programs Allocation Board, which is funded by the Student Activity Fee.”
MORE: U. Arkansas cancels race-related lectures over concerns about state law
