The handmaids tale

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Author Biographical Information
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias award for Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award seven times, winning twice.

Setting: Historical Information
In this alternative future state, the democratic government has been overthrown and replaced by a totalitarian one. What makes Gilead so scary is that it still looks pretty much the same, but its government and society are totally alien from our own. Gilead seems to be without freedom or choice.

Genre
With its new social caste system, alternate view of the future, and abandonment of technology for primitive ceremonial systems.

Science Fiction or Speculative Fiction

Plot Summary
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead, a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. It was founded by a racist, male chauvinist, theocratic-organized military coup as an ideologically driven response to the pervasive ecological, physical and social degradation of the country. Beginning with a staged terrorist attack that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launched a revolution and suspended the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. Offred's initial meeting with Nick, they begin to rendezvous more frequently. Offred finds herself enjoying sex with Nick despite her indoctrination and her memories of her husband, and even goes as far as to divulge potentially dangerous information about her past. Through another handmaid, Ofglen, Offred learns of the Mayday resistance, an underground network with the intent of overthrowing Gilead. Shortly after Ofglen's disappearance the Commander's wife finds evidence of the relationship between Offred and the Commander, and Offred contemplates suicide. Before she is taken away, Nick tells her that the men are part of the Mayday resistance and that Offred must trust him. Offred does not know if Nick is truly a member of the Mayday resistance or if he is a government agent posing as one, and she does not know if going with the men will result in her escape or her capture. She enters the van with a final thought on her uncertain future.

Characters
Offred -The narrator and protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred belongs to the class of Handmaids

The Commander -The Commander is the head of the household where Offred works as a Handmaid. He initiates an unorthodox relationship with Offred, secretly playing Scrabble with her in his study at night.

Serena Joy - Commanders wife Serena worked in pre-Gilead days as a gospel singer, then as an anti-feminist activist and crusader for “traditional values.”

Moira -Offred’s best friend from college. Moira is a lesbian and a staunch feminist; she embodies female resourcefulness and independence.

Aunt Lydia -The Aunts are the class of women assigned to indoctrinate the Handmaids with the beliefs of the new society and make them accept their fates. Aunt Lydia works at the “Red Center,” the re education center where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids.

Author's Style
Atwood writes in an exact, vivid, and witty, style in both prose and poetry. Her writing is often unsparing in its gaze at pain and unfairness.

Setting
The setting is a country called the Republic of Gilead, which replaced the United States, in present times. Gilead is a run by a authoritarian and theocratic government whose aim is to return to "traditional values" by instituting repressive measures against women, minorities and political dissidents. Due to environmental degradation, many men and women have become infertile. For this reason, certain women have been selected as "handmaids" to conceive children with the country's most elite Commanders.

Themes
Women’s Bodies as Political Instruments -Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically decreased birthrates, the state’s entire structure, with its religious trappings and rigid political hierarchy, is built around a single goal: control of reproduction. The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete control of women’s bodies through their political subjugation. Women cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or independent and thereby undermine their husbands or the state.

Symbols
The Eyes- The Eyes of God are Gilead’s secret police. Both their name and their insignia, a winged eye, symbolize the eternal watchfulness of God and the totalitarian state.

A Palimpsest- A palimpsest is a document on which old writing has been scratched out, often leaving traces, and new writing put in its place; it can also be a document consisting of many layers of writing simply piled one on top of another.

Memorable Quotes
"Or I would help Rita make the bread, sinking my hands into that soft resistant warmth which is so much like flesh. I hunger to touch something, other than cloth or wood. I hunger to commit the act of touch." The narrator transmutes her "hunger" for something edible, bread, to what would really nourish her: touch, and, correspondingly, love. She wants to touch and be touched, to remind herself of her body and of the feelings that can develop from that sort of tactile sensation.

"What I feel towards them is blankness. What I feel is that I must not feel. What I feel is partly relief, because none of these men is Luke. Luke wasn't a doctor." The narrator's complex feelings here stem mostly from her relief she feels that there's no conclusive proof that the man she loves died that day. This specific relief overshadows other feelings, such as revulsion, perhaps.

"Anyways, they're doing it for us all, said Cora, or so they say. If I hadn't of got my tubes tied, it could have been me, say I was ten years younger. It's not that bad. It's not what you'd call hard work." Cora's comment reveals a problem built into this new society, which is the lack of respect between Martha’s and Handmaids, and the idea that the Handmaids have it easy.