The Handmaid’s Tale

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood creates the new world of Gilead, which has arisen out of 1980s America, yet which is a future few people would find desirable. In creating Gilead Atwood warns us against taking our present freedoms for granted, as well as suggesting that we should be careful about how we allow our social, political and environmental world to develop. At first glance it seems as though Atwood has created a distressing dystopia; a worst case scenario in a society which endures totalitarian rule. However, Atwood provides hope and resistance in many subtle ways. She wonders where the balances lies and what are the costs of the safety this society provides. Throughout the novel Atwood depicts her major concerns with contemporary American society, in particular, the abuses of power through the use of propaganda and the loss of individual freedoms.

Propaganda in the novel concentrates mainly on women, as they are the elements of society that have lost the most due...