Margaret Atwodd

How successful is Margaret Atwood in establishing a fictional world in the opening of ‚The Handmaid’s Tale’?

In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, Atwood explores the consequences of a reversal of women’s rights. The Novel tells the story of Gilead, an not existing town, where a group of conservative religious extremists turn a world upside down by putting each women into a special role. Its is written in the not so distance future and is narraoted in first-person perspective of a woman who is an Handmaid, one of the only women who’s job is to produce children. We never get to know her real name, she is always called as Offred, her commanders name, who owns her.

After starting the Novel you do not understand anything. It starts with the thoughts of the main character, Offred. She uses names and terms we do not know, such as ‘Aunts’, ‘Commander’s’, ‘Marthas’. While focusing more on the text, you slowly start to understand what the terms mean and how the situation...