Book Report to the Class on A HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood. May want to add more about the themes and take out some of the plot description.

Essay by GlitzandsparklezHigh School, 11th gradeA, March 2003

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Margaret Atwood, born in Ontario in 1939, has written several books, not just The Handmaid's Tale. Her most acclaimed novels were The Edible Women, which was her first novel, and was published in 1969 to wide acclaim, and The Blind Assassin, which won Great Britain's Booker Prize for Literature in the year 2000. However, her most widely known book is The Handmaid's Tale, which was published in 1986 and quickly became a best seller. It is now a staple of high school and college reading lists.

The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near future in the fictional Republic of Gilead, which is started after "they shot the [US] president and machine gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency." Immediately after this catastrophe the Constitution was suspended, newspapers were censored or shut down, and roadblocks appeared. Soon, all women lost their jobs, their bank accounts were frozen, and they found themselves forced into what was called service, but what was practically slavery.

(Read page describing how she felt and about the "other" army)

The setting, or the Republic of Gilead, is very important in showing how and why things happened the way that they did, and why Offred, the main character, behaves, thinks, and acts the way that she does.

The Handmaid's Tale covers Offred's time with her Commander, which was less than a year. However, throughout the story, Offred has several flashbacks that reveal what happened to her in her past.

Offred was a married woman with a young daughter when the Republic of Gilead came into being. Since her husband had been divorced before marrying her, her marriage was considered void. She and her husband tried to escape into Canada, but they were caught. Her husband and child were taken away...