What Will Happen to Hannah in 'The Handmaid's Tale'?
Warning: This post contains spoilers for 'The Handmaid's Tale' season five episode eight, 'Motherland' and Margaret Atwood's novel The Testaments.Blessed be the Fruit Loops!Margaret Atwood mastered the art of description decades ago. Using the five senses, metaphors, and monologues, she transports us into the minds of her characters, while bringing intangible thoughts and feelings to life. When Hulu decided to adapt her books into a television series, they developed their own toolkit, and borrowed some of her techniques, hoping to reproduce that effect. They used facial expressions, pauses between words, and camera tricks, and they created a fully immersive narrative--one that could almost convince us that we were in June's position, moving back and forth, staring up at the ceiling, while Fred performed the ceremony, confined to her room, slowly going mad. We felt every single thing she felt, and we absorbed every second of it, almost to the point where we couldn't take it anymore. Many fans had to leave the series behind, simply because it was too difficult to watch. They loved it, but walking in June's shoes was torture.During that torment, one thing kept her alive and sane: her daughter Hannah. June believed that if she could just find Hannah and rescue her, everything would be OK. She'd spend hours dreaming about their trip to the aquarium--jellyfish swimming through the water--and the morning they made pancakes with chocolate chips, and she held on to that, using it to get her through, even as she was enslaved, beaten, and violated. When the pain is just too much, all hope is lost and your world becomes tainted by something as horrific as Gilead, you need a reason to live. Without that, you'll just throw yourself over a cliff; you'll say something wrong or act out, and you'll be killed or sent to the colonies. In an environment that strict, obedience has to be bearable, and Hannah made it bearable.
