ity are allowed to marry, but they
are usually older and frequently
sterile; their wives have difficulty
conceiving, so a class of women
called Handmaids is established.
These healthy young women who
have all successfully borne chil-
dren in the past are responsible
for perpetuating the human race.
Following the biblical example of
Rachel and her handmaid Bilhah
in a bizarre extension of surro-
gate motherhood, a Handmaid
must serve her Commander and
his barren Wife as the vessel that
they hope will produce a child,
which then belongs to the Wife.
Government censorship forbids
women from writing or reading
anything (including the Bible),
holding property, or retaining
their own identity. There is no free
press; radio and television stations
broadcast only religious programs.
Money has disappeared. Credit
cards still exist, but women’s cards
have been summarily canceled. Unwomen (femi-
nists like the protagonist’s mother) are exiled to the
colonies, where they will clean up toxic waste until it
kills them. The novel concludes with an appendix
that reveals that the Republic of Gilead no longer ex-
ists: The entire narrative forming the bulk of the text
turns out to be a historical document being studied
by members of a later, presumably more enlight-
ened society.
Impact The Handmaid’s Taleoffered a satire on big-
otry, nightmarish political repression, and antifem-
inist ideals. Atwood denied that she was attacking
Christianity itself, claiming instead to trace a histori-
cal pattern of religious persecution within the
United States, as well as the extremism that caused
well-intentioned people to do terrible things. Al-
though the somewhat sanitized film version, released
in 1990, was not particularly well received, this con-
troversial novel was widely praised as a feminist ver-
sion of George Orwell’sNineteen Eighty-Four(1949).
Further Reading
Bloom, Harold, ed.Margaret Atwood’s “The Hand-
maid’s Tale.”Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. “Feminism’s Phantoms.”The
New Republic194, no. 11 (March 17, 1986): 33-35.
Howells, Coral Ann, ed.The Cambridge Companion to
Margaret Atwood. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2006.
Mohr, Dunja M.Worlds Apart: Dualism and Transgres-
sion in Contemporar y Female Dystopias. Jefferson,
N.C.: McFarland, 2005.
Troy, Gil.Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan In-
vented the 1980’s. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2005.
Joanne McCarthySee also Abortion; Air pollution; Biopesticides;
Conservatism in U.S. politics; Falwell, Jerry; Femi-
nism; Moral Majority; Religion and spirituality in the
United States; Robertson, Pat; Women’s rights.440 Handmaid’s Tale, The The Eighties in America
Margaret Atwood.(The Washington Post; reprinted by permission of the D.C. Pub-
lic Library)