An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate “Handmaids” under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred’s persistent memories of life in the “time before” and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning.

This collection analyzes how their disciplines can add unique depth and context to many of the themes that are being mobilized in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and its screen adaptations. Contributors address how these themes apply to social issues and specific topics such as science and religion to the role of journalism in a democratic society.

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Literature - Comparative Literature, grade: 1,7, http://www.uni-jena.de/, language: English, abstract: Even in our contemporary society men and women are not equal, and social, political and economic discrimination based on gender exists, and there are several countries where women get oppressed and discriminated systematically by the regime. Only now, on the 24th of June 2018, did Saudi Arabia enact a law which annulled the prohibition of women driving. Thus, feminist movements are of great importance to finally achieve equality between the sexes. However, in our present society exist two extremes and both of them pose danger to this equalization. On the one hand, there are people who still do not take feminism and gender equality seriously and even override these social changes. This leads to the necessity of examining feminism and feminist criticism in literature to raise awareness that women are individual beings and no replaceable objects that should be dominated by men. On the other hand, radical feminism with radical beliefs to create a ‘women’s utopia’ can end up being used by anti-feminist organizations or even regimes for their own purposes. Therefore, it is important to examine how current feminist tendencies are criticized in literature by showing what they might lead to. This paper reads Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as a feminist dystopia which provides feminist criticism through the representation of women’s oppression and their display as ‘Others’ in the patriarchal society Gilead. It will be shown that Atwood simultaneously criticizes current feminist tendencies through satire to raise awareness of how radical utopian feminist dreams can end up in dystopias.

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER • ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S AND SHEREADS' BOOKS TO READ AFTER THE HANDMAID'S TALE “[An] electrifying debut.”—O, The Oprah Magazine “The real-life parallels will make you shiver.”—Cosmopolitan Set in a United States in which half the population has been silenced, Vox is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter. On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than one hundred words per day, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her. Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are not taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words each day, but now women have only one hundred to make themselves heard. For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice. This is just the beginning...not the end. One of Good Morning America's “Best Books to Bring to the Beach This Summer” One of PopSugar, Refinery29, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Real Simple, i09, and Amazon's Best Books to Read in August 2018

Ce recueil bilingue consacré à l'écrivain canadien Margaret Atwood, reconnue comme l'une des figures dominantes de la littérature d'expression anglaise, contient l'intervention qu'elle a prononcée à Rennes en novembre 1998 sur son roman The Handmaid's Tale (La Servante écarlate) et sur le genre auquel il appartient. Le roman, inscrit aux programmes 1999 du CAPES et de l'agrégation d'anglais, a été l'un des plus grands succès littéraires des années 80 aux États-Unis, au Canada et en Grande-Bre.