HMT context

• Around when did Atwood write the Handmaid's Tale?

  the mid-80s.
• Where did Atwood write the novel?

  Berlin and Alabama.
• In what year was HT published?

  1986.
• What kind of dystopia does Atwood present in the novel?

  Novels in this genre present imagined worlds and societies that are not ideals, but instead are terrifying or restrictive. Atwood's novel offers a strongly feminist vision of dystopia.
• What was going on in politics around the time Atwood wrote HT?

  She wrote it shortly after the elections of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, during a period of conservative revival in the West partly fueled by a strong, well-organised movement of religious conservatives who criticised what they perceived as the excesses of the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s. The growing power of this "religious right" heightened feminist fears that the gains women had made in previous decades would be reversed.
• How does Atwood explore women's rights in the novel?

  In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood explores the consequences of a reversal of women's rights. In the novel's nightmare world of Gilead, a group of conservative religious extremists has taken power and turned the sexual revolution on its head. Feminists argued for liberation from traditional gender roles, but Gilead is a society founded on a "return to traditional values" and gender roles, and on the subjugation of women by men. What feminists considered the great triumphs of the 1970s—namely, widespread access to contraception, the legalisation of abortion, and the increasing political influence of female voters—have all been undone. Women in Gilead are not only forbidden to vote, they are forbidden to read or write.
• What environmental dangers does Atwood explore in HT?

  Atwood's novel paints a picture of a world undone by pollution and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears about declining birthrates, the dangers of nuclear power, and environmental degradation.
• Although Atwood wrote HT as a work of fiction, what does she say of its real-life significance?


  "There's nothing in the book that hasn't already happened."
• What is the medical catastrophe that became known in the early 1980s which Atwood could have drawn on for the novel?

  One of the real catastrophes is the epidemic - now a pandemic - of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). This is a disease which is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (or HIV). Millions of people have contracted AIDS, especially in Africa, and millions have died from it. It is most frequently spread by sexual activity. In the USA it was first recognised and HIV identified in the early 1980s, shortly before Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale.
• What large nuclear plant accident occurred just before Atwood wrote the novel?

  Pieixoto also refers to nuclear-plant accidents. Probably the most serious of these in America prior to Atwood's writing of The Handmaid's Tale was the Three Mile Island plant incident in 1979. Although no-one in the vicinity was killed or injured, many doubts have been raised about adverse effects on the environment and on human and animal health.
• How does the idea of polygamy link to ideas in the novel?

  Pieixoto later refers to the use of Handmaids as a form of 'simultaneous polygamy' like that practised 'in the .. state of Utah'. Here Atwood is referring to the real, and still flourishing group, known as the Mormons - or, to give the proper name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  
  

  This movement began in the US in the nineteenth century, when Joseph Smith claimed to have had revealed to him, by an angel, the Book of Mormon. The Mormon Church has worldwide membership but has its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah.

  
  

  Some Mormons encouraged polygamy, especially after their second president, Brigham Young, endorsed it in 1852, but it is now practised much more rarely.
• In what 7 ways was Hitler's rise to power similar to Gilead?

  Hitler promised his followers a new Germany with a stress on family values. However, this rapidly turned into oppression of any who did not share his vision and the slaughter of those who were not of the 'pure' Aryan race he demanded

  He encouraged the fanatical adulation of the young through the Hitler Youth movement - a situation echoed in Atwood's Gilead when she writes in chapter 4 of the Guardians of the Faith that: 'The young ones are often the most dangerous, the most fanatical'

  Books that were considered to have any seditious or undesirable content were burned by the Nazis. Gilead too has severe restrictions on literature and indeed on literacy

  In Hitler's 'Third Reich' people were encouraged to betray any perceived lapses in others, even close family members, just as in chapter 41 of The Handmaid's Tale Offred realises that Nick might betray her and it is therefore 'foolhardy' to trust him

  In order to brainwash his countrymen into accepting the genocide of Jews and gypsies, Hitler described these groups as 'Untermenschen' - less than human. In chapter 30 Offred realises that 'This is what you have to do before you kill... You have to create an it'

  Even before Hitler set up the death-camps in which millions were slaughtered, Jews were required to wear the distinguishing badge of a yellow star. The same badge would be affixed to the body of a hanged Jew in Gilead, according to Offred in chapter 31

  Perhaps most poignantly, children of 'undesirables' in Hitler's Germany were forcibly removed from their parents, to be adopted by loyal Nazis, reminding us of Offred's lost daughter.
• How does Gilead compare to the Taliban?

  Some of Atwood's ideas about repressive laws in Gilead may be influenced by her observation of some Islamic societies and fundamentalist groups. Such groups wish to see strict Islamic attitudes imposed universally, including segregation of the sexes, very modest dress for women and a ban on dancing. Perhaps more notorious in the Western world is the Taliban, an extreme Islamic fundamentalist group which became particularly powerful in Afghanistan about ten years after the publication of The Handmaid's Tale. Taliban views include:

  
  

  A refusal to allow girls to be educated

  Insistence on women being fully covered, including the face, by a head-to-toe veil or burqa

  The imposition of brutal sentences, such as amputation and public stoning to death, for what are perceived as breaches of Sharia Law.

  
  

  Echoes of the attitudes and methods of such fundamentalist groups can be seen in the strict dress codes imposed in Gilead and the public punishments and executions which Offred witnesses. She notes in chapter 42 that reading would be punished by having 'only a hand cut off'.

  
  

  Punishments such as flogging and amputation are still inflicted under Sharia law in Sudan and in Saudi Arabia, where currently women are not supposed to drive cars or to travel without being escorted by a male relative. Atwood's feminism makes her particularly hostile to such attitudes, which she observed at first hand in Afghanistan during her world tour in 1978.
• How does the escape of black slaves from the USA to Canada relate to HT?

  The plight of the slaves led sympathisers in the north of the USA to help those fleeing their cruel masters and brutal existence, and an escape route to Canada, known as the Underground Railroad, was created. Attempts to escape, and the help given fleeing slaves by Quakers, were vividly depicted in Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel published in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

  
  

  In The Handmaid's Tale, the Underground Railroad becomes the Underground Femaleroad, a feminist version of the slaves' escape route - mocked in the Historical Notes section by Pieixoto as 'The Underground Frailroad'. In chapter 38 Moira describes how, with the help of Quakers working with the Underground Femaleroad, she nearly reached the Canadian border.

  
  

  Also, being a Handmaid or a Martha is a form of slavery. The Handmaids are technically owned by the Commanders. Like slaves, they are separated from their birth families, and escaped Handmaids are severely physically punished.

  
  

  The cultural aspect of slavery is shown in the relocation of the 'Children of Ham', and the declining Caucasian birth rate.
• How do pre-20th century ideas about women link to the ideas conveyed in HT?

  The majority of the population could not read (but in HT, most books were banned and women were not allowed to read).

  In the eyes of the law, women were considered men's property.

  Procreation was vital to survival because of the high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy.

  Society had more strict values which were agreed on.

  Racism was much more blatant.
• Which Puritan ideas where used in Gilead?

  Puritanism is the historical religious influence in Gilead, and the rise of fundamentalism is a contemporary religious influence in the US.

  
  

  Fundamentalists promote traditional family values, and are adamantly against abortion and homosexuality.

  Some fundamentalists have formed para-military militias. The rise of the political right in the US is reflected in the capitalist nature of the Commanders.