english handmaids tale A03 context

• In 1979, Baptist minister Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, mobilising Christian and Republican support
• The New Right was strong in the south-eastern and south-central areas of the country known as 'Bible Belt' America, with evangelical Christianity being popular
• Prominent women activists associated with the movement included Phyllis Schlafly, who mobilised women to support right-wing policies on gender and family issues
• In 1983, 'The New Right at Harvard' was published, edited by Howard Phillips, possibly influencing Atwood's choice of Harvard University as the 'heartland' of Gilead
• "Televangelism" is a style of religious broadcasting associated with conservative Protestantism and the Religious Right
• A typical televangelism broadcast includes a sermon, music, and singing to evoke fear, repentance, conversion, and dedication to supporting the ministry
• Offred's and the other Handmaids' fate stresses the hypocrisy of a regime that pretends to be based on religious and godly principles, but in “reality” is a system that controls and suppresses its citizens, especially women, and treats women and dissidents as objects. It is a place that claims to function on the basis of Christianity but that in fact lacks spirituality and morality. Instead it is based on terror and fear, which is justified by the archaic patriarchal language of the Old Testament. The Word of the Bible is distorted and used as an instrument for the control of society.
• written by Margaret Atwood in 1984 and published in 1985.