You Are Here: The Handmaid’s Tale as Graphic Novel

Since the publication of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, this narrative, described in terms ranging from provocative, startling, and prophetic to simply terrifying, has spread from text to film to television and now to graphic novel. In this chapter I discuss artist Renée Nault’s graphic adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale (2018) and the various strategies she uses in order to bring “the terrifying reality of Gilead to vivid life like never before” (Amazon.com). Part of my analysis will also involve looking at the intersection between the spread of Atwood’s work of speculative fiction and the varying degrees of “real-ness” or “reality” between text and activists who now dress like handmaids in political protest, thereby invoking the progression of adaptations of the disturbing tale and its integration into everyday lives.