The Handmaid's Tale, Intro to

The Handmaid's Tale
A classic, award-winning, dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood, focusing on the severe limitation of women's rights.

Set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian state [think Stalin] that has overthrown the United States government.
The novel focuses on the journey of the handmaid Offred. Her name derives from the possessive form "of Fred"; handmaids are forbidden to use their birth names and must echo the male, or master, whom they serve.

The Handmaid's Tale explores themes of women in subjugation [brought under control] in a patriarchal society [Elder men rule.] and the various means by which these women attempt to gain individualism [a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control].

The Handmaid's Tale is structured into two parts: The night sections are solely about Offred, the other sections (shopping, waiting room, household) describe the possible life of every handmaid.
Offred often retells the events leading up to the fall of women's rights and the current details of the life which she now lives.

~~~~~~

Summary of first chapters (no spoilers)
Beginning with a staged attack that killed the president and most of Congress, a radical political group calling itself the "Sons of Jacob", exploiting religious ideology closely resembling some traits of Christian fundamentalism (or evangelicalism), launches a revolution. 

• The United States Constitution is suspended, 
• newspapers are censored,
•  and what was formerly the United States of America changes drastically into a military dictatorship known as the Republic of Gilead.

The new regime takes over all pre-existing religious groups; and reorganises society along a new militarised model of Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism.

• Above all, the biggest change is the severe limitation of women's rights, making them unable to:
• hold property, 
• handle money, 
• as well as forbidding them from reading or writing.

In this era of declining birth rates due to increasing infertility brought about by environmental pollution and radiation, a woman called Offred is one of those few women with healthy reproductive systems.
Hence she is forcibly assigned to produce children for the ruling class of men "Commanders", and is known as a "Handmaid".

• Women are classed socially and follow a strict dress code: 
• Commanders' Wives in blue
• Handmaids in red
• Aunts, who train the Handmaids, in brown
• Marthas (cooks and maids) in green, 
• Econowives, who handle domestic things, in stripes,
• Young and unmarried girls in white.

 Commander's Wife                     Handmaid                                   Aunt        

~~~~~~

In 2018, Margaret Atwood announced that a sequel novel, The Testaments, will be published in 2019.