116 pages • 3 hours read
Margaret AtwoodA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The world of Gilead demonstrates how an authoritarian society is set up to promote social control of its citizens. When the citizens of a country are accustomed to the possession of civil rights, mandated and protected by its legal system, the removal of those rights must happen in a brutal and systematic way. As seen in Aunt Lydia’s story, the former elites of the previous society must be either coopted or murdered. The leaders must establish a new set of elites, with new sets of rules and rituals. To maintain control of women in the new Gilead regime, the leaders separate groups by function. Thus, Wives are the privileged consorts of the Commanders, Handmaids will produce children if the Wives do not, and Marthas will function as the domestic help, to elevate the status of Wives. Over these classes of women, Aunts will function as the institutional authority and source of ruthless discipline. The Commanders are thus free to concentrate on the consolidation of their own power and the waging of war to maintain or grow the nation’s borders. To give lesser males a function and purpose, the leaders establish classes of Guardians, Eyes, and Angels.
This system of governance and social control remains ripe for destruction from within and without.
By Margaret Atwood
Alias Grace
Margaret Atwood
Backdrop Addresses Cowboy
Margaret Atwood
Cat's Eye
Margaret Atwood
Death By Landscape
Margaret Atwood
Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare's The Tempest Retold
Margaret Atwood
Happy Endings
Margaret Atwood
Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
Margaret Atwood
Lady Oracle
Margaret Atwood
Life Before Man
Margaret Atwood
MaddAddam
Margaret Atwood
Oryx and Crake
Margaret Atwood
Rape Fantasies
Margaret Atwood
Siren Song
Margaret Atwood
Stone Mattress
Margaret Atwood
Surfacing
Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood
The Circle Game
Margaret Atwood
The Edible Woman
Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood
The Heart Goes Last
Margaret Atwood