Thoughts on The Handmaid's Tale

Speculative fiction happens to be my most favourite genre to read, mainly because they offer ideas that are so unique because within the genre, the limit reaches beyond the sky so the authors can take the story wherever they want. One thing that speculative fiction can do very well is create a plausible dystopia as a warning of what the world could be like in the future. Being able to do this through literature I think is a very powerful thing. Although it may not influence every reader to actively do something to prevent the dystopia depicted in the book from happening, it can influence the way people see the world they live in and appreciate it for what it is.

The society of Gilead, the setting of the novel, seems so far from reality that it seems unlikely that the world could ever come to that. It was interesting to find out that Atwood based every aspect of her novel on current events and proved to me that Gilead could well and truly be a possibility. She says that “there is nothing new about the society depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale except the time and place” and also that “there isn't anything in the book not based on something that has already happened in history or in another country”. Current religious extremist movements in America, the increase of male sterility and chemical pollution are among the things the novel is based upon and which suggests what the world could come to if these continue to escalate. In the novel, the President is assassinated (which is blamed on Muslim terrorists) and the military take over the country and rule it according to the Bible. First, rights and possessions are taken away from women and a social hierarchy is established, similar to hierarchies present in medieval times. Unsustainable disposal of toxic waste (something that is currently happening in America) has polluted the water and the environment, has caused infertility to spread across the country. Infertility is another thing that is currently on the rise as well as a decrease in birth rates in Scandinavian countries and Romania. Atwood suggests that the practices in her novel like ‘farming’ women as handmaids to increase the population and ruling the country as a theocrasy could be the conclusions people could arrive at to solve these current issues.

The novel greatly presents these conclusions as inhumane and immoral as society has become a living nightmare. The novel definitely made me grateful that I don’t live in such a society like the one depicted in the novel as theocratic societies do exist in the world like Iran. It also really made me think about how easily our rights can be taken away and about what solutions our governments may implement to solve issues and how much consideration of our way of life they will put into making those decisions.