The Handmaid's Tale - Course Introduction

Imagine the most awful, dystopian future you can imagine—complete with a deranged and totalitarian government, an underclass of women-turned-brooding mares, and no Wi-Fi.

The world depicted in The Handmaid's Tale is all that, and worse. Protagonist Offred loses her husband, her daughter, her freedom, and her very identity (protip: "Offred" ain't her real name) when the American government collapses and is taken over by a creepy, hyper-religious regime called the Republic of Gilead. And Offred becomes the property of a rich and powerful man, duty-bound to provide him a child. Like we said, broodmare.

The most eerie part of all? You can reassure yourself that The Hunger Games or The Giver would never really happen…but The Handmaid's Tale has too many parallels with the real world to just write off as just another fictional dystopia.

That's Margaret Atwood for you—always with the cautionary tales masked as science fiction.

---