The Handmaid's Tale critics

• Ketterer: Many of the features of Gilead are familiar to the reader of dystopian fiction
• Ketterer: A pendulum-swing away from present-day feminism
• Vevaina: The republic of Gilead justifies its sexist policies with the socio-biological theory of natural polygamy and legitimises its racist and sexist policies as having a Biblical precedent
• Beran: Offred's power is in language
• Gardener: If Offred is a sappy stand-in for Winston Smith, Gilead seems at times to be only a colouring book version of Oceania
• Ehreinreich: Gilead is a fortress of patriarchy
• Gray: Atwood's novel lacks the direct, chilling plausibility of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World
• Daniels: Every step, every mouthful of food, every move is observed, reported, circumvented or approved
• Givner: Just as the rulers of Gilead try to eliminate mirrors, the reflections of faces, so they attempt to erase names