《使女的故事》：玛格丽特·阿特伍德谈权力、占有与政治起源

在美国，我们有两种反应。

In The States, we had two reactions.

一种是：哦，这种事情在这里永远不会发生。

One was, oh, that would never happen here.

另一方面，我们还剩多少时间？

And on the other hand, how long have we got?

所以指挥官，是的。

So the commander Yes.

他似乎是新共和国的创始人之一。

He seems to be one of the founders of the New Republic.

是的。

Yes.

奥芙雷德形容他像博物馆的保安或中西部的银行行长。

And Offred, she describes him as like a museum guard or a Midwestern bank president.

自从上世纪七十年代以来，我就一直在这么说。

I've been saying since the nineteen seventies.

在你出生之前。

Before you were born.

欢迎来到服务95读书会，我是杜阿·利帕。

Welcome to the Service ninety five Book Club with me, Dua Lipa.

说实话，阅读一直是我生命各个阶段的锚点，这个读书会是我分享这份喜悦的方式。

Honestly, reading has been an anchor through every phase of my life, and this book club is a way of sharing that joy.

每个月，我会推荐一本我钟爱的书，并与作者坐下来进行一场开放而真诚的对话，探讨书中的主题、人物和他们所创造的世界。

Every month, I'll spotlight a book I've loved and sit down with the author for an open and honest conversation about the themes, the characters, and the world they've created.

因为我已经有幸与许多杰出的作家交谈过，我将打开档案库，每月重新推出一本珍宝之作。

And because I've had the pleasure of speaking with so many brilliant writers already, I'll be opening the archive and bringing back one gem each month.

所以倒一杯酒，拿起你的书，我们开始吧。

So pour a glass, grab your book, and let's get into it.

今天，真是令人难以置信的时刻，我有幸邀请到玛格丽特·阿特伍德本人。

Today, in a real pinch me moment, I'm joined by none other than Margaret Atwood.

我们要讨论的是她具有划时代意义的小说《使女的故事》，这部作品几乎就在四十年前的今天首次出版。

We're talking about her game changing novel, The Handmaid's Tale, first published forty years ago almost to the day.

我认为，这部小说每年都在变得更加重要。

I think it's fair to say that this novel gains more significance with each passing year.

奥芙雷德和基列共和国的故事是一部惊悚小说，一部经典的女性主义文学作品，更重要的是，它向每一代新读者发出对极权统治的警示。

The story of Offred and the Republic of Gilead is a thriller, a classic work of feminist fiction, and perhaps most importantly, a warning against authoritarian rule for every new generation of readers.

我与玛格丽特的对话即将开始。

My chat with Margaret coming up.

嗨，玛格丽特。

Hey, Margaret.

你好。

Hello.

你怎么样？

How are you?

我很好。

I'm very well.

谢谢。

Thank you.

我简直不知道该如何表达，今天能与您交谈是多么大的荣幸。

I I I can't even begin to to tell you what an honor it is to to speak to you today.

我既紧张又兴奋。

I've been so nervous and and excited.

这真好。

Well, that's lovely.

我今天一直觉得自己得不停掐自己一下，才能相信这一切真的发生了。

I I feel like I've had to keep keep pinching myself today that it's actually it's actually happening.

我们今天要讨论的是《使女的故事》，这是二十世纪最具标志性的书籍之一。

We're here to talk about The Handmaid's Tale, which is one of the most iconic books of the twentieth century.

这本书对我来说真的具有深远的影响。

And this was really such a such a formative book for me.

我上中学时第一次读到它。

I first read it in secondary school.

它是我们课程的一部分，也是我从科索沃搬回来后读的第一本书。

It was part of the curriculum, and it was actually the first book I read when I just moved back from Kosovo.

当时，我觉得它非常反乌托邦。

And at the time, I felt that it was so dystopian.

别人告诉我它是反乌托邦的。

It was described to me as dystopian.

我想象它是一个反乌托邦的世界。

I imagined it as dystopian.

我15岁的时候，根本无法想象这样的情况会成为现实。

And I couldn't imagine at 15 years old that there was any danger of that becoming a reality.

而如今，我30岁再读这本书，在当今的环境下，它显得格外可怕。

Whereas now rereading it at 30 years old, in today's climate, it's it's quite it's quite terrifying.

我想，这次我重读《使女的故事》时，是和你那本杰出的回忆录《生命之书》一起读的，这本书本月刚刚出版。

I guess this most recent time that I that I reread The Handmaid's Tale, I read it alongside your incredible memoir, The Book of Lives, which is which is out this month.

我强烈推荐这样做，因为了解你写作时的处境、当时世界正在发生什么、你的写作生涯如何发展，以及你那非凡的童年，都令人着迷。

And I really, really recommend doing this because it was so fascinating to know where you were when you were writing it, you know, what was happening in the world, how your writing career evolved, and also about your pretty incredible childhood.

这本书给我带来了太多惊喜，我希望今天能聊到其中一些内容。

There was just so many so many surprises for me, and I hope we can touch on some of them today.

当然。

Absolutely.

我们开始吧？

Should we get started?

直接切入吧。

Plunge in.

你于1985年出版了《使女的故事》。

You published The Handmaid's Tale in 1985.

你说有些书会萦绕读者，而有些书则会萦绕作者。

And you said that some books haunt the reader and others haunt the writer.

《使女的故事》两者都做到了。

And The Handmaid's Tale has done both.

能多讲讲吗？

Tell me more about that.

嗯，我写它的时候是1985年。

Well, when I wrote it, it was 1985.

冷战仍在继续。

The Cold War was still on.

柏林墙依然存在。

The Berlin Wall was still up.

我当时在西柏林创作《使女的故事》。

And I was working on The Handmaid's Tale in West Berlin.

在那段时间里，我还访问了东德、捷克斯洛伐克和波兰，这些地方当时都属于东欧集团。

And during that stay I also visited East Germany, Czechoslovakia which was then, Poland which were all part of the East Bloc at that time.

因此，观察人们多么害怕与我这样的人交谈，对我来说非常有趣。

So, that was very interesting for me to note how worried people were about talking to a person such as myself.

在德国，东德人根本不会这样做。

So, in Germany they wouldn't do it at all in East Germany.

他们愿意和孩子交谈，但不会和成年人说话。

They would talk to children but not to grown ups.

孩子是安全的，可以说话。

Children were safe you could say.

所以捷克斯洛伐卡稍微开放一点，但你得去公园，因为人们很合理地担心自己的房间和汽车都被窃听了。

So Czechoslovakia was a little bit more open but you had to go into a park because people were quite rightly afraid that their rooms were bugged, their cars were bugged.

而在当今世界，随着更精密的监控工具出现，你得比那时更加小心。

And in today's world with even more refined surveillance tools, you would have to be even more careful than that.

当然，所有方面都是如此。

With everything, of course.

科尔那时就已经相当宽松了。

Colon was pretty loose even at that time.

我当时心想，如果事情开始崩塌，那首先会在波兰崩溃，事实也确实如此。

And I thought to myself if things start to crumble they're going to crumble in Poland first, which they did.

所以当时，也就是上世纪80年代中期，罗纳德·里根在1980年当选，对七十年代女权主义的反扑已经开始。

So at that time, we're talking the mid-80s, Ronald Reagan had been elected in 1980 and a pushback against seventies feminism had begun.

罗斯福在三十年代推行的新政也已经开始瓦解。

And the New Deal put in there by Roosevelt in the thirties had become and started to come unraveled.

但欧洲人并不愿意相信美国会走向其十七世纪神权政治的根源。

But people in Europe didn't want to think that The United States could ever go in the direction of its seventeenth century theocratic roots.

为什么呢？

Because why?

因为冷战仍在继续。

Because the Cold War was still on.

美国是自由世界的领袖。

The United States was the leader of the free world.

它是希望的灯塔。

It was the beacon of hope.

它代表着我们当时经常听到的那些民主美德。

It stood for all of those democratic virtues that we heard so much about at that time.

他们无法想象这样一个地方会走向极权主义专制国家。

And they couldn't imagine that such a place would ever go in the direction of a totalitarian authoritarian state.

能够想象这一点的人在北美。

The people who could imagine it were in North America.

当这本书出版时，加拿大人焦虑地问：这种情况会在这里发生吗？

The Canadians asked nervously when the book came out, could it happen here?

我说可能性更低。

And I said less likely.

你知道我们是个双语国家。

You know we're a two language country.

要让我们所有人都齐心协力朝一个方向走，难度更大。

It's harder to get us to all line up in one direction.

而且，无论如何，我的小说里需要一个让人们逃往的地方。

And anyway I needed a place in my novel for people to escape to.

但在美国，我们有两种反应。

But in The States we had two reactions.

一种是：哦，这绝不可能在这里发生。

One was, Oh that would never happen here.

你知道，这是世界领先的民主国家。

You know world's leading democracy.

不，不，不，不，不。

No no no no no no.

另一方面，我们还剩多少时间？

And on the other hand how long have we got?

对。

Right.

所以有些人看到了这种情况的发生。

So some people saw that happening.

另一些人则否认这种情况可能发生。

Other people denied that it could ever happen.

是的。

Yeah.

这一点真的很有趣，我想再多谈一点，因为我发现《生命之书》中关于《使女的故事》的三个起源故事非常引人入胜。

It's really interesting that and I I wanna touch a little bit more on that because I found the the three origin stories in Book of Lives about The Handmaid's Tale very fascinating.

但简单回溯一下，我不确定地球上还有多少人没读过《使女的故事》，或者至少没看过电视剧。

But just to just to kinda take it back, I'm not sure how many people there are remaining on Earth that haven't read The Handmaid's Tale or at least seen the TV series.

但对于那些还没看过的，我们先简单介绍一下背景。

But for those that haven't seen it, let's just set the scene a little bit.

在美国发生了一场叛乱。

And there's been a revolt in The US.

发生了一场权力攫取和政变。

There's been a power grab takeover.

完全正确。

Totally.

边境有些模糊不清。

There's like the borders are a bit unclear.

民主已被一个名为基列的极权宗教独裁政权取代。

Democracy has been replaced with a totalitarian religious dictatorship, which is known as Gilead.

在《生命之书》中，你提出了《使女的故事》的三个起源故事，我非常喜欢这一章。

In Book of Lives, you pose three origin stories for The Handmaid's Tale, and I absolutely love this chapter.

所以我想，我们一个一个来讨论它们。

So I thought, let's just let's go through them one by one.

我想你之前稍微提到过这一个。

And I guess you touched on this one a little bit.

第一个起源故事始于20世纪80年代初美国的政治局势。

The first one starts with the political situation in The US in the early nineteen eighties.

当时女性权利的具体情况如何？

What was specifically happening with women's rights at that time?

具体来说，那正是所谓的宗教右翼作为政治力量崛起的开端。

Specifically, that was the beginning of the rise of the so called religious right as a political force.

当时它开始显现出来。

It started to manifest itself then.

他们当时对女性的具体说法是，女性应该待在家里。

And what they were saying specifically about women was that they belonged in the home.

她们的唯一正当角色就是这一点，别无其他。

And their proper role was just that and only that.

她们应该局限于三件事。

And they should confine themselves to the three.

三个K。

The three Ks.

你以前听过这些吧。

You've heard these before.

孩子们在教堂里做饭。

Children cooking in church.

用英语说，是三个C。

In English, it's three C's.

用德语说，是三个K。

In German, it's three K's.

所以，就是这样。

So, yeah, like that.

所以，那就是他们的想法。

So, that was their idea.

我问自己一个问题：既然现在这些女性已经走出家门，有了工作、信用卡之类的东西，如果你要让她们全部回到家里，你打算怎么做？

My question to myself was if you're going to make all these women go back into the home now that they're out running around having jobs and credit cards and things like that, how are you going to do that?

而且，如果你想大规模推行，不只是在那种相对封闭的传统主妇圈子里，而是针对那些确实需要工作的女性，你就必须剥夺她们的其他选择。

And if you wanted to do it on a mass scale, not just in the rather sheltered tradwife area of life, if you're going to do it on a mass scale with women who actually have needed to work, you'll have to just deprive them of any other alternative.

所以我阴险地取消了他们所有的信用卡。

So, I rather sinisterly canceled all their credit cards.

很难想象，像八十年代发生的事情，甚至当我15岁的时候，我都无法想象这样的事会发生。

It's amazing to kind of see how things, you know, something that happened in the eighties, and even me, you know, when I was 15, I couldn't imagine something like that happening.

但现在你就会觉得，好吧，我们如今如此依赖数字支付，所有东西都绑定在卡片上。

And now you're kind of like, okay, we're so indebted digital and everything being on a card.

是的。

Yes.

如果这一切突然停止了，会发生什么？

What would happen if it just got turned off?

如果这一切突然停止了，会怎样？

What would happen if it Yeah.

如果这一切突然停止了，

What would happen if it

你就一分钱都没有了。

You wouldn't have any money.

如果你那时没有工作，也没有信用卡呢？

And if you then didn't have a job and you didn't have a credit card.

是的。

Yeah.

那接下来会发生什么？

What happens then?

那接下来会发生什么？

What happens then?

不管你愿不愿意，你都得回家了。

Well, back into the home you go, like it or not.

天哪。

Gosh.

还有起源故事呢。

And then origin story too.

你知道，这还涉及到类型问题。

You know, there is the genre question.

是的。

Yes.

因为我出生于1939年，青少年时期在1950年代，所以我读了很多科幻小说。

So because I was born in 1939 and was a teen in the 1950s, I read a lot of science fiction.

那是黄金时代之一。

It was one of the golden ages.

所以，我们假设它从H开始。

So let's say it starts with H.

G。

G.

威尔斯在十九世纪末开始，然后在1930年代的通俗杂志中蓬勃发展。

Wells in the late nineteenth century and then blossoms in the 1930s in pulp magazines.

雷·布拉德伯里就是在那里起步的，并在1950年代进一步发展。

That's where Ray Bradbury got his start and unfolds even further in the 1950s.

与此同时，我们还有乔治·奥威尔的《1984》，当然，我在年少易受影响的年龄、刚出版后不久就读了它。

And meanwhile, we've had nineteen eighty four by George Orwell, which of course I read at an impressionable age really just after it came out.

让我非常震惊。

Very shocking to me.

是的。

Yeah.

所以它给我留下了深刻的印象。

So it made a big impression on me.

我一直想写一部那种类型的作品，但觉得自己没有那个能力。

And I'd always wanted to write something in that genre but did not feel I had the chops to do it.

所以现在我要去做了。

So now I was gonna do it.

《1984》里有一个叫朱莉娅的角色。

And there's a character in in 1984 called Julia.

她是爱情线索中的女主角。

She's the love interest.

在情节的关键时刻，温斯顿·史密斯被政权折磨，他们打算让老鼠从他的眼睛里啃食。

And there comes a pivotal moment in the plot when when Winston Smith is being tortured by the regime and they're gonna have rats eaten out of his eyes.

就在那一刻，他崩溃了，说：‘去对付朱莉娅吧，别碰我。’这句话后来成了我们家的口头禅。

And that's when he breaks and he says, do it to Julia, not me, which became an expression in our household.

去对付朱莉娅吧。

Do it to Julia.

于是我想到，如果从朱莉娅的视角来写这样一个故事，会是什么样子呢？

So I thought, what would it be like to write a story like that from the point of view of Julia?

她会对这一切说些什么呢？

What would she have said about all of this?

是的。

Yeah.

这真的太不可思议了。

That's it's really incredible.

我其实两年前才第一次读完乔治·奥威尔的《噩梦》，那本书也给我留下了极其深刻的印象。

I I actually read George Orwell's Nightmare four maybe two years ago for the first time, and that really did leave such a wild impression on me too.

最后，第三个起源故事：清教徒。

And finally, origin story three, the the Puritans.

是的。

Yes.

十七世纪的英国清教徒运动，你就坐在这一切的发源地。

The seventeenth century of English Puritanism, which you're sitting right there in the country where all this began.

所以在十七世纪，议会派和保王派之间爆发了重大冲突。

So we have a big conflict in the seventeenth century between the parliamentarians and the monarchists.

你知道结果如何。

And you know how that turned out.

于是查理一世被砍了头，奥利弗·克伦威尔上台，建立了一个神权国家。

So off comes the head of Charles the first and in comes Oliver Cromwell and sets up a theocratic state.

是的。

Yes.

但随着时间推移，这个国家逐渐被他一人掌控。

Which increasingly as time went on became to be ruled basically by him.

但在那之前，一些清教徒团体预感到即将发生这一切，便决定离开，前往新大陆，建立上帝在人间的王国——一座山上的城，照亮所有民族的灯塔。

But before that happened and before a couple of groups of Puritans knew that this was going to happen, they decided to decamp and go to the New World and set up God's Kingdom on Earth, a city upon a hill, a light to all nations.

如果你觉得你以前听过这句话，那是因为它出现在罗纳德·里根的就职演说中。

And if you think you've heard that before, it was in Ronald Reagan's inauguration speech.

演说，没错。

Speech, right.

他知道他在做什么，但很多人并不明白他

He knew what he was doing but a lot of other people didn't know what he

我读《生命之书》时，对你那位半吊死的祖先感到无比震惊。

was One thing that I was absolutely gobsmacked when I read in Book of Lives about your ancestor, half hanged man.

是的。

Yes.

嗯，

Well

请跟我们讲讲她，以及她和使女们有什么关系。好的。

Please tell us about her and how she relates to the handmaids' Alright.

再往后一点，到了十七世纪末期，我们有了著名的塞勒姆女巫审判事件，我对这个事件做过一些详细研究。

A little bit further on in the seventeenth century and back towards the end of it, we have the well known Salem witchcraft episode, which I've studied in some detail.

那时清教徒感到担忧，因为事情进展不顺。

And that was when the Puritans were worried because the thing wasn't working out.

当这种情况发生，人们变得愤怒和恐惧时，总得找个人来承担责任。

And when that happens and people get angry and afraid there has to be some somebody to blame.

所以美国现在对移民和其他一些人就是这样做的。

So The United States is doing that to immigrants and various other people.

而十七世纪时，人们把矛头指向了女巫或所谓的女巫。

And the seventeenth century did it to witches or supposed witches.

所以如果事情不顺，他们已经驱逐了所有持有不同宗教信仰的人，那就不可能是这个原因。

So if things weren't weren't working out and they'd expelled all these people with different religious beliefs so it couldn't be that.

一定是内部的敌人。

It had to be the enemy within.

内部的敌人，所以一定是魔鬼在社区内部施展邪恶的伎俩。

The enemy within so it must be the devil working his wicked way within the community itself.

由于证据规则荒谬可笑，这些人确实接受了审判。

And since the rules of evidence were bonkers, these people did have trials.

证据规则是幽灵证据，意思是即使你躺在床上睡觉，有目击者证明你当时在睡觉，但另一个人却声称看到你四英里外捣弄他们的奶牛，这就意味着你可以在睡觉时投射出你的幽灵去作恶。

The rules of evidence were spectral evidence, which is if you're asleep in your bed and with witnesses, they've seen you asleep in your bed, but somebody else sees you four miles away messing with their cow, it means you can project your specter to go out and do evil things while you're asleep.

幽灵证据。

Spectral evidence.

这根本无法证伪。

There's no way of disproving it.

你不能说：‘不，我没有。’

You can't say, no I wasn't.

真的吗？

Wasn't there?

是的，是的。

Yeah, yeah.

还有另一种，也无法证伪。

And the other one, which there is no way of disproving

这是你的一面之词对别人的指控。

It's your word against someone else's.

没错。

Exactly.

触摸法则，即当一名被指控的女巫在法庭受审时，如果一名指控者——通常是少女——上前触碰她，随后发生歇斯底里的发作，这就证明被触碰的人是女巫。

The rule of touching, which is if there is an accused witch having her trial in the courtroom and one of the accusers who were teenage girls came and touched that person and then had a hysterical fit, it proved that the person being touched was a witch.

所以一旦你被这些规则指控，几乎就不可能脱身了。

So once you were accused under those rules, there was pretty much no way you're getting off.

除非你指认其他女巫，否则你就会被绞死。

And you would get hanged unless you accused other witches.

所以你可以想象这会产生什么样的影响。

So you can see what kind of effect that would have.

是的。

Yeah.

她，她，她，她，她，还有他。

Her, her, her, her, her, and him.

是的。

Yeah.

只是为了不被绞死。

Just to not just to not get hanged.

没错。

Exactly.

对。

Right.

你自己。

Yourself.

你明白了。

You got it.

是的。

Yeah.

所以那就是当时的情况。

So that was situation.

现在说半绞死的玛丽，她叫玛丽·韦伯斯特，而韦伯斯特是我祖母结婚前的姓氏。

Now half hanged Mary, his name was Mary Webster, and Webster was the last name of my grandmother before she got married.

她被带到了波士顿。

She got taken to Boston.

她被放了下来。

She got off.

她回到家乡后，镇上的人还是把她吊了起来。

She went back to her hometown and the townspeople strung her up anyway.

那时候还没有发明绞刑台，所以她的脖子并没有折断。

This is before the drop was invented, so her neck was not broken.

因此她被吊在右边。人们都来砍断绳子放她下来，结果第二天早上她还活着。

So she was hanging from her right They all came to cut down the body and she was still alive in the morning.

我想他们当时觉得，好吧，如果我们之前还不确定她是不是女巫，现在我们确信了，但我们决定就放她一马，他们确实这么做了。

And I guess they thought, well, if she if we didn't think she was a witch before that, we're convinced of it now, but we're just gonna leave her alone, which they did.

因此她被称为‘半吊死的玛丽’，因为她确实被吊过，但并没有达到预期的效果。

So she was known as half hanged Mary because she was hanged, but it didn't have the desired effect.

星期一的时候，祖母会说她是祖先；到了星期三，她又会反悔，因为这不太体面，对吧？

On Mondays, grandmother would say that she was an ancestor and on Wednesdays, she would backtrack because it wasn't very respectable, was it?

所以让我们说，确实存在家族联系，但是否我从玛丽那里继承了什么巫术基因，还有待商榷。

So let us say there's definitely a family connection, but whether I have any witchy genes from Mary is open to question.

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，也许以后我们可以聊聊你对占星术的热爱。

Well, maybe later on we can talk about your love of astrology.

这可能多少和那个有点关系。

Maybe that kind of goes into that a little bit.

我非常想和你聊聊你是如何创造出基列这个世界的。

I'd love I'd love to talk to to you about how you created the word of Gilead.

我们先从这个政权本身说起吧。

You know, let's start with with the regime itself.

它实际上建立了一种阶级制度。

It effectively adopts a class system.

你甚至可以称它为种姓制度。

You could even call it a caste system.

在每个阶级内部，女性都牢牢处于最底层。

And within each class, women are firmly at the bottom of it.

其目标是建立一个纯粹的白人异性恋社会。

And the aim is for this exclusively white heterosexual society.

所有违反规定的人已被流放他处或处决。

All transgressors have been exiled elsewhere or executed.

有指挥官，他们是统治阶级，还有他们的妻子（W大写）。

There are commanders who are the ruling class along with their wives with a capital w.

是的。

Yes.

发生过某种环境灾难，其影响之一是生育率急剧下降。

There has been some kind of environmental catastrophe, and one of the impacts is that the fertility rate has dropped dramatically.

你最近看过那些数据吗？

Have you looked at those statistics lately?

是的。

Yeah.

我其实不想看那些数据。

I don't wanna look at them really.

使女是被从家人身边分离出来的育龄女性，被分配给指挥官以实现生育目的。

The Handmaids are fertile women separated from their families and assigned to a commander for the purpose of reproducing.

这个故事由书名中的使女奥芙弗雷德讲述。

The story is told by Offred, the Handmaid of the title.

她最初在你脑海中是什么样子？你是如何为她取名的？

What form did she initially take in your imagination, and how did you land on her name?

她最初的形象几乎就是你现在看到的这样。

The form she took was pretty much the one you see.

她就是那样的人，事情就是那样发生的。

That's who she was, and that's what happened.

这种安排的合理性仅仅源于历史。

And the rationale for this arrangement is simply history.

我在这本书中写的每一件事，都曾在某个地方、某个时候被人做过。

I put nothing into this book that hadn't been done by some someone sometime somewhere.

在等级社会中，规则是顶层的男人拥有更多的女人。

So, in hierarchical societies the rule is that men at the top get more women.

有时候这些被称为后宫。

Sometimes those were called harems.

有时候则是类似摩门教的一夫多妻制，顶层的男人得到最理想的妻子，而底层的男人基本上被驱逐出去，是的。

And sometimes it was, you know, more Mormon polygamy in which the top guys got the most desirable wives and the bottom guys basically got expelled Yep.

因为女人数量不够分配。

Because there weren't enough to go around.

是的。

Yeah.

所以我对这种等级制度有很多历史参照。

So I I have a lot of reference for for this kind of hierarchical arrangement.

请注意，女仆至少在最初并不会被强行征召，除非你离了婚，而根据严格的教会法律，离婚会被视为通奸——这在西欧的相当长一段时间内都是如此，那时离婚是不可能的。

And notice that the handmaids you you don't get impressed into handmaidry at least at first unless you've gotten divorced, which according to strict church law would be considered adultery as it was for quite a few years in Western Europe, divorce was not possible.

所以这就留下了一些有过去生活经历的女性，她们突然变得身无分文、无业可就，最终沦为女仆，孩子也被夺走。

So so that leaves us with women with prior lives who suddenly find themselves without any money or job and then end up as as handmaids with their children taken away from them.

孩子被带走是一个非常古老且普遍的主题。

And children being taken away is a very old and widespread theme.

你刚刚在乌克兰又看到了这种情况。

You just saw it again in Ukraine.

所有这些孩子本质上都被绑架了。

All of these children being essentially kidnapped.

希特勒也这么做过。

Hitler did it too.

他绑架了金发的波兰儿童，把他们交给德国家庭，希望他们能长成金发的德国孩子。

He he kidnapped blonde Polish children, put them with German families, hoping they were hoping they would grow into blonde German children.

但这种情况发生过很多次，尤其是在40年代、50年代和60年代初，未婚母亲会被送进专门的机构，孩子一出生就被夺走，然后被送养。

But this has just happened a lot and it happened a lot with unwed mothers in the particularly 40s and 50s and early 60s where you were just sent to an unwed mother's home and your child was snatched away from you as soon as it was born and it was put out for adoption.

在某些情况下，甚至被卖掉。

In some cases sold.

所以，这就是等级制度。

So, that's the hierarchy.

最底层是经济型妻子。

At the bottom are the economy vibes.

这是一个口号泛滥的社会。

This is a very slogan saturated society.

这延续了美国人热衷为事物创造口号的习惯。

It's kept the American habit of inventing slogans for things.

所以经济型妻子必须承担所有这些职责。

So the economy wives have to do all the functions.

在上层家庭中，你有被称为玛莎的仆人，有使女，还有妻子。

In the top households, you have servants called Martha's and you have handmaids and you have wives.

但经济型妻子必须做所有这些事情。

But the economy wives have to do all those things.

那关于‘奥芙雷德’这个名字是怎么来的呢？

And what about landing on the name for Offred?

欧洲不同国家的父名命名体系。

The patronymic system for names in Europe, different countries in Europe.

有不同的标识符，但它们通常表示‘属于’或‘……的儿子’。

There's different signifiers, but they usually mean belonging to or son of.

比如安德森、约翰逊等等。

So, Anderson, Johnson, etc.

然后是法语的‘de’。

And then you have French, d e.

德语的‘von’。

German, fawn, v o n.

道恩。

Daun.

荷兰语，我觉得是‘van’。

Dutch, I think it's fen.

还有各种表示‘某人是某人的孩子’的词。

And various things meaning so and so is the child of such and such.

所以我直接写了‘of’这个词，它相当于‘de’或‘von’。

So I just wrote the word of, which is the equivalent of the d e or the fawn.

然后我写了一些男性名字。

And then I wrote a number of men's names.

其中最吸引我的是Auf Fred，用来给我的女主角命名。

And Auf Fred was the one that appealed to me the most for my heroine.

虽然我们还有其他女仆叫Auf Glenn之类的，你可以沿着男性名字的列表往下走，在前面加上Auf

Although we have other handmaids called things like Auf Glenn and, you know, go down the line of men's names and add an Auf in front of

然后再加一个Auf。

And then add an Auf.

这样就能得到一个女仆的名字。

That would give you a handmaid.

我喜欢Auf Fred，因为它隐藏了几个其他词语，包括red（红色），而红色正是她们服装的颜色。

So, I liked Auf Fred because it has a couple of other words concealed in it, including red, which is the name, the color of the outfit.

你将在一个叫做红中心的地方接受女仆训练。

And you learn to be a handmaid at something called the red center.

顺便说一句，这是一个非常圣经式的社会，被称为圣经式社会。

And by the way, this is very biblical, so called biblical society.

所以，他们不承认男性不育的问题。

So, they do not recognize male infertility.

如果你生不出孩子，那就是你的错。

If you're not having a baby, it's your fault.

是的。

Yep.

不是男人的错。

Not the men's

比如罗马尼亚的尼古拉·齐奥塞斯库，当他掌控这个东欧国家时，强制已婚女性必须生四个孩子。

part Well, at give you Nicolai Ceausescu of Romania who when he was in control of that East Bloc country mandated that married women had to have four children.

她们每个月都必须接受怀孕检查。

And they had to have pregnancy tests every month.

如果没怀孕，就得由她们自己来解释原因，你知道的？

And if they had not gotten pregnant, it was up to them to say why, you know?

不是男人的错。

Not not the guy.

是的。

Yeah.

需要一个理由。

To have a reason for it.

我不知道你能说什么。

I don't know what you would say.

嗯，我不知道。

Well, I don't know.

就是，你知道的，这次没成功。

It just, you know, didn't work this time.

我也觉得这特别有意思，因为她们被赋予的名字，比如‘Offred’或‘Offglen’，当你被分配到不同家庭时，这些名字就会改变，是的。

I also thought it was, you know, so interesting because even the names that they're given, like Offred or Offglen, you know, those would would change when she's assigned to a different Yes.

你知道，当她被调到另一个家庭时，另一个女仆就会成为‘Offred’，就像我们看到的‘Offglen’这个角色一样。

You know, then and a different handmaid will become Ofred as as we we see with the character Ofglen.

这些女性甚至不拥有自己的名字。

And these women don't even own their names.

不。

No.

你知道，她们的存在仅仅定义为与拥有她们的男人之间的关系。

You know, they're they're only defined in their in their relationship to the man that owns them.

没错。

That's right.

简直就是性奴隶，尽管这个术语从未被使用过。

Literally, like sex slaves, although that term is never used.

你知道，这真的很有意思。

You know, it's it was it was really interesting.

然后，你知道，正如你所说，女仆们其实没有选择。

And then, you know, the choice of that you said it's the the handmaids don't really have a choice.

要么成为女仆，要么去殖民地。

It's either become a handmaid or go to the colonies.

如果另一个选择是去那里铲除有毒废料并死在那里，那她们还是选择成为女仆。

And if that's the alternative, to go in and shovel toxic waste and die there, but then choose to become a handmaid.

而且，你知道，正因为做出了这个选择，她们还被玛莎们看不起。

And that, you know, also causes them to be looked down by the Martha's for making this choice.

总的来说，这是一个非常复杂的体系，再次说明了

It's all a very complex system overall that again just

没错。

Exactly.

要么让女性彼此对立，要么从根本上把她们置于食物链的最底层，对吧？

Either pits women against each other or constantly puts them at the bottom of the the food chain, essentially, you know?

是的。

Yes.

基列政权的起源故事很模糊，但确实有一些迹象表明它是如何扎根的。

The origin story of of the Gilead regime is, you know, sketchy, but but there are, you know, there are just signs of how it was able to take root.

你知道，《使女的故事》里有一段话一直深深印在我脑海里，但它根本不是最常被引用的场景。

You know, there's this passage in The Handmaid's Tale that's always really stayed with me, and it's not one of the most quoted scenes at all.

它实际上比那要微妙得多。

It's actually more much more subtle than that.

在奥芙雷德和所有女性失去工作、无法再接触银行账户之后，这无疑预示着更糟糕的事情即将来临。

And it's after Offred, and and all women, they've lost their jobs and, you know, they've lost access to their bank accounts and which, you know, I guess is a sign of things to come.

她的丈夫卢克正试图安慰她。

And her husband, Luke, is trying to comfort her.

事情是这样的，他说：这只是一份工作，他想安慰我。

And and it goes like this, and it goes, it's only a job, he said, trying to soothe me.

我说：那我的钱岂不是全归你了，而我还活着呢。

I guess you get all my money, I said, and I'm not even dead.

我本想开个玩笑，但说出来却显得阴森可怖。

I was trying to make a joke, but it came out macabre.

别说了，他说。

Hush, he said.

他正跪在地板上。

He was kneeling on the floor.

你知道的，我会一直照顾你的。

You know I'll always take care of you.

我想，他已经开始以居高临下的态度对待我了。

I thought, he's already starting to patronize me.

接着我想，你自己已经开始变得多疑了。

Then I thought, you're already starting to get paranoid.

过了一会儿，她说，他并不介意这样。

And a bit later, she says, he doesn't mind this.

我想，他根本一点都不介意。

I thought, he doesn't mind this at all.

也许他甚至还挺喜欢的。

Maybe he even likes it.

我们已经不再是彼此的了。

We're not each other's anymore.

相反，我成了他的。

Instead, I am his.

我总是会想起那段话，尤其是那段。

And I just I always think about that that passage in particular.