The Handmaid’s Tale (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Margaret Atwood
- First Published: 1985
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—feminist
- Time of Work: The early twenty-first century
- Setting: Gilead, in what was once the United States
- 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 Plot
In the late 1980’s, an ultraconservative religious group toppled the U.S. government and established a totalitarian regime called Gilead. The leadership is strictly Christian in nature and ruthlessly fascist in practice. Using the former society’s plummeting birth rates as an excuse, the Gilead leaders force women into restricted roles in society, with little freedom or power. Couples in the upper classes who are without children are assigned Handmaids, who essentially are legal concubines intended to bear their hosts’ children. These Handmaids are fertile women...
[The entire page is 1501 words long]
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