The Handmaid’s Tale (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Margaret Atwood
- First Published: 1985
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Dystopian fiction, Near future and distant future fiction
- Subjects: Dictators, Freedom, United States or Americans, Power, personal or social, Sexism, Sex or sexuality, Gender roles, Self, Slavery or slaves, Revolutions, Future, Twenty-first century, Prostitution or prostitutes, Religion, Feminism, Oppression, Women, Conservatism, Infertility, Childbirth, Totalitarianism, Women’s rights
- Locales: Gilead
The parting “Historical Notes” clarify this tale’s supposed genesis as a series of cassette tapes found in a footlocker along the Femaleroad in Maine. Similar to the Underground Railroad that spirited slaves from the South to safety in Canada over 150 years earlier, this Underground Femaleroad led women out of their theological and social bondage in America to a free life in Europe. Now, these tapes have been transcribed and authenticated, with the results of this effort being presented to the “Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies” in 2195.
As a thirty-three-year-old...
[The entire page is 787 words long]
