Acrobat

U2's song "Acrobat" can be directly related to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale through certain parts of the lyrics of the song. One of the refrains that stood out to me was:

"What are we going to do now it's all been said
No new ideas in the house and every book has been read"

I thought this piece of the lyrics was relative to the novel because in the Republic of Gilead of The Handmaid's Tale, the social order is set in stone, and seemingly immovable. It is reverting back to older times, denying the introduction of new ideals and system arrangement, keeping anyone from changing the societal norms of the Republic. The significance of the books in this novel is also relevant to the song because the only book that is permitted to be read is the Bible, and only men are allowed to read from it. Because the same book is being read over and over, there are no new ideas in the "house", or the government, and the society is becoming restricted in its effectiveness. Although the society began with possibly good intentions, it is clear that the redundancy of the same parts of the same stories of the Bible is wearing on the members of Gilead.