Social Criticism In Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel that tells the story of a women and her struggles to survive in a totalitarian regime, presented in the first person narrative. The story takes place in a fictitious world called Gilead, where a dictatorship rules the people through oppression, fear and strict religious guidelines. Atwood wrote this dystopian novel as a social commentary in which she argues that all events included in her story are all real events that have occured in history at one point or another. In her Letter to the Reader, Atwood writes, “The thing to remember is that there is nothing new about the society depicted in the Handmaid’s Tale except the time and place. All of the things that I have written about have- as noted in the “Historical Notes” at the end- been done before, more than once.” There is plenty of truth in Atwood’s words and many of us would agree with her idea that “if it happened once then it can happen again,” which she also writes in her Letter to the Reader. Yet, I don’t believe this to be completely true. Humans have made many mistakes in history that have killed or oppressed many people, yet we live in a better world then we ever have, which concludes that we have learned from many of our mistakes. Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale is out date and therefore it’s relevancy is as well. The tale is a huge exaggeration meant to entertain and warn rather than to believe. In addition when held up to my current situation to see relation would be completely overlooking and underestimating the freedoms and liberties that I have today.
It is true that there have been several examples in our world that can be paralleled to this fictitious tale and dystopia. But many of those examples just aren’t pertin...

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...ately a totalitarian future, but to forestall one. The less "right" he was, the better job he had done. Similarly, we may safely conclude that Atwood has no desire to prove an oracle; assuming, however, that her purpose is more than merely to entertain ("jolly good yarn").” I believe this and in addition that Atwood writes this as a warning to society, that this is what could happen if... But with all of the awful things that have, are and will continue to happen in the world we have to believe that we are moving in a positive direction and that we are living in a better world than we ever have before. In my particular situation, as an American, living in a democracy gives fellow americans and I a chance. With democratic foundation, we have room for the public voice and self-correction. We will never be perfect but hope is the flame that I believe is still burning.