The Handmaid’s Tale (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Margaret Atwood
- First Published: 1985
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The future
- Setting: The fictional Gilead
- Principal Characters: Offred, The Commander, Serena Joy, Nick, Luke, Moira, Ofglen
- 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 Story:
Sometime in the past, Protestant fundamentalists assassinated the president and the Congress and set up a theocratic regime called the Republic of Gilead. In this totalitarian state, women were under the domination of men. They could not hold jobs, own property, or have bank accounts in their own names. Nor were they allowed to read or write. Forced into the role of Handmaid, Offred was stripped of her own name and called by her master’s name, preceded by “of.”
Pollution and nuclear accidents made sterility a problem in Gilead (though officially only...
[The entire page is 2176 words long]
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