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In Margaret Atwood's near-future novel,
"The Handmaid's Tale,"

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a Christian fundamentalist regime
called the Republic of Gilead

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has staged a military coup
and established a theocratic government

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in the United States.

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The regime theoretically 
restricts everyone,

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but in practice a few men have structured
Gilead so they have all the power,

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especially over women.

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The Handmaid's Tale is what Atwood calls
speculative fiction,

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meaning it theorizes 
about possible futures.

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This is a fundamental characteristic

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shared by both utopian 
and dystopian texts.

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The possible futures in Atwood's novels
are usually negative, or dystopian,

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where the actions of a small group
have destroyed society as we know it.

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Utopian and dystopian writing
tends to parallel political trends.

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Utopian writing frequently depicts
an idealized society

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that the author puts forth as a blueprint
to strive toward.

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Dystopias, on the other hand,

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are not necessarily predictions 
of apocalyptic futures,

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but rather warnings about the ways
in which societies can set themselves

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on the path to destruction.

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The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985,
when many conservative groups

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attacked the gains made 
by the second-wave feminist movement.

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This movement had been advocating greater
social and legal equality for women

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since the early 1960s.

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The Handmaid's Tale imagines a future
in which the conservative

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counter-movement gains 
the upper hand

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and not only demolishes the progress
women had made toward equality,

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but makes women completely 
subservient to men.

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Gilead divides women in the regime
into distinct social classes

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based upon their function
as status symbols for men.

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Even their clothing is color-coded.

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Women are no longer allowed to read

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or move about freely in public,

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and fertile women are subject
to state-engineered rape

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in order to give birth to children
for the regime.

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Although The Handmaid's Tale
is set in the future,

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one of Atwood's self-imposed
rules in writing it

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was that she wouldn't use any event


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or practice that hadn't already 
happened in human history.

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The book is set 
in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

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a city that during 
the American colonial period

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had been ruled by the theocratic Puritans.

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In many ways, the Republic of Gilead
resembles the strict rules

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that were present in Puritan society:

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rigid moral codes,

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modest clothing,

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banishment of dissenters,

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and regulation of every aspect 
of people's lives and relationships.

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For Atwood, the parallels 
to Massachusett's Puritans

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were personal as well as theoretical.

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She spent several years studying
the Puritans at Harvard

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and she's possibly descended from
Mary Webster,

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a Puritan woman accused
of witchcraft who survived her hanging.

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Atwood is a master storyteller.

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The details of Gilead, 
which we've only skimmed the surface of,

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slowly come into focus through the eyes
of its characters,

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mainly the novel's protagonist Offred,

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a handmaid in the household 
of a commander.

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Before the coup that established Gilead,

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Offred had a husband, a child, a job,
and a normal, middle-class American life.

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But when the fundamentalist regime
comes into power,

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Offred is denied her identity,

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separated from her family,

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and reduced to being, in Offred's words,

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"a two-legged womb for increasing 
Gilead's waning population."

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She initially accepts the loss 
of her fundamental human rights

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in the name of stabilizing 
the new government.

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But state control soon extends
into attempts to control the language,

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behavior,

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and thoughts of herself
and other individuals.

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Early on, Offred says,

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"I wait. I compose myself.

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My self is a thing I must compose, 
as one composes a speech."

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She likens language 
to the formulation of identity.

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Her words also acknowledge 
the possibility of resistance,

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and it's resistance, the actions of people
who dare to break the political,

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intellectual,

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and sexual rules,

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that drives the plot 
of the Handmaid's Tale.

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Ultimately, the novel's exploration
of the consequences of complacency,

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and how power can be wielded unfairly,

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makes Atwood's chilling vision
of a dystopian regime ever relevant.