Margaret Atwood set out to depict a society in the future, one that in her eyes had characteristics that needed to be solved from the present. This novel is dystopian in nature which presents a dysfunctional society in the future as seen in the eyes of the author. It is however instrumental to note that most of the works of fiction that are set in the future, are actually meant

Not only do the handmaids have no privacy; they sleep with their masters under the watchful eye of the wives. Their days are segmented and scheduled. Women lack autonomy and their bodies belong not to them but to the oppressors. One of the most poignant reminders of the low position of women in Gilead society is the invasive and coercive medical examination required for all handmaids. "When I'm naked

Freibert; "The custom of using the handmaid for progeny permeated Israelite history and custom" (Domville, 2006). Legal documents that date back to the 15th Century BC support biblical records of that practice, Domville continues. In another scholarly article in the University of Toronto Quarterly (Neuman, 2006), the writer explains that Atwood, and outspoken feminist from Canada, insisted after publishing the book that she, Atwood, "invented nothing" in her descriptions of

Gender as Prison At first reading, Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale seem to have little to do with each other except for the very general fact that both novels have elements of social and political commentary in them. But, while the world's portrayed in these books are fundamentally different from each other, a closer reading suggests important intersections and congruences in the novels around the subject

The Commander (whose last handmaid hung herself in the bedroom) begins to meet with Offred after his wife goes to sleep. One evening, she finds he has brought her sexually revealing clothing with makeup and he takes her to a speakeasy, staffed by prostitutes. It is there she meets Moira again, who is working there. Moira tells Offred that she saw Offred's mother in a movie where she had been sent to one of the

They are encountered in the workplace, in the home, in every facet of life. Women have made advances toward the equality they seek only to encounter a backlash in the form of religious fundamentalism, claims of reverse discrimination by males, and hostility from a public that thinks the women's movement has won everything it wanted and should thus now be silent. Both the needs of women today and the