Context

• Setting - takes place in Cambridge, Massachusetts

  • Historical site of Salem witch trials in 1600s. Mirror mistreatment of women in Gilead
  • Same city that Harvard university is based. Ironic as Harvard is for liberal thought, freedom and acceptance, but in THT it is a site for salvagings, particutions and also the wall of dead people
• The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985
• Title - links to Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales'.

  • A tale is often fictional which throws doubt to Offred's authenticity
• The Scarlet Letter - written in 1850, set in puritan Massachusetts in 1600s

  • Main character is humiliated for having a child out of wedlock
  • She is forced to wear a red 'A' for adultery for the rest of her life
  • Red symbolises sin, linking to the Handmaid's uniform and shaming their sexuality
• 1984 - written in 1949, set in a totalitarian society

  • both authors use neologisms (new language/words)
  • constant threat of surveillance
  • use of violence to control the characters
  • both protagonists become victims of the regime and do whatever is needed for them to survive
• Berlin and Iran - THT was partially written in West Berlin and was published in 1985, 3 years before the Berlin wall fell

  • Iranian revolution led to women's rights being taken, as well as public stonings
• Ronald Reagan - President of the US from 1981-1989

  • promoted traditional family values, conservative beliefs and evangelical Christianity
  • his religion warns against the sins of homosexuality, abortion and divorce
  • Women would be seen as inferior to men, and used mainly for procreation
  • failing fertility rates in the US
• Puritan New England - aspired utopian society

  • maintained order through fear, intimidation, patriarchal rule and poor living conditions
  • Women were inferior to men. Lived a passive domestic life to remind them of the role god gave them
  • Functional clothing covering everything
  • Bear children and be a good wife
• Underground Femaleroad - mirrors underground network used to smuggle slaves into safe houses in early 1800s
• Abortion

  • Roe vs Wade
  • Abortion made legal in the US in 1973 however was overturned in some states in 2022