Context

• Atwood grew up in rural Canada as her father was an entomologist which likely inspired themes of nature in handmaids tale such as the nuclear war that lead to the creation of Gilead that polluted the earth as "the air got too full, once, of chemicals, rays, radiation, the water swarmed with toxic molecules"
• While at university, Atwood studied puritarianism which likely inspired the totalitarian and theocratic Gilead
• Handmaids tale was written in 1984 while Atwood was living in West Berlin during the Cold War
• Handmaids tale is a piece of speculative fiction that examined how, in Atwoods own words, "change could be as fast as lightning" and a world in which the rights of women are stripped beyond recognition could happen at any moment
• Atwoods work is greatly influenced by second wave feminism, with feminist protests that are characteristic of the second wave appearing in the novel which consist of women "burning books" before offering Offred if she'd like to "burn one" symbolising how any progress made by the feminist movement could be stripped away by the state at any time
• In Hebrew Gilead means "eternal happiness" showing the effect religion has on the formation of Gilead
• The Novel was written 5 years after the Iranian revolution and the fall of the Iranian totalitarian dictatorship which likely inspired events of the novel