“The Handmaid’s Tale” is a dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood, published in 1985. It depicts a totalitarian society called Gilead, where women have been stripped of their rights and reduced to reproductive vessels.

  • The book is set in a future United States where a religious group has taken control of the government and imposed strict gender roles and social hierarchy.
  • The story follows Offred, a Handmaid assigned to a high-ranking government official for the purpose of bearing a child for him and his infertile wife.
  • The book explores the ways in which women are controlled and oppressed in this society, through strict dress codes, curfews, and limited freedom of movement.
  • It also explores the psychological toll of this oppression on women’s mental health and sense of self.
  • The book raises questions about the nature of power, resistance, and complicity in oppressive systems.
  • It also critiques the use of religion as a tool of oppression and control.
  • The book’s ending is ambiguous, leaving open the possibility of resistance and rebellion against the regime.