Why Is The Handmaid's Tale A Dystopia

In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Gilead, which has replaced the United States of America, is a dystopia. In fact, the degradation of the environment with a huge impact on humans’ health and their ability to reproduce; the low birth rates and the shrinking of the population has weakened the government. Taking advantage of the situation, a group of radicals Christians has seized the power through a coup and installed a totalitarian regime. In Gilead, women are deprived of almost every right they once had in the United States; they are not allowed to read, talk without permission and cannot even think about working. They are reduced to the reproductive function and are only valued if they can still give birth. What happens to women in Gilead is what can happen in a society if the people in charge are left with too much power over the rest of the population.

In fact, whether they are wives or servants, called Marthas, their situation is often just slightly different from those of the handmaids. Men in Gilead had no consideration for women in general and specifically for handmaids. The latest are women who have been brainwashed, conditioned to obey and stripped off their original names to be assigned new ones related to the name of the commander they will serve. The Gilead society is apparently very religious and all the laws seems to be inspired by holy texts. In the same time, high ranked officials like the commander regularly visit places packed with alcohol and prostitutes like “Jezebel”. This tells us a lot about their level of hypocrisy. A big lesson that we can take from this novel is that the fight never stops; it does not matter how big and powerful is the opponent, we should be able to find a way to fight back when we feel that something wrong is