Is 'The Handmaid's Tale' based on Real Life?

Despite being situated in a totalitarian dystopia, The Handmaid’s Tale is entirely science fiction.

The dystopian tale is steeped in political and religious history in almost every regard. The author, Margaret Atwood, has spoken extensively about how she got inspiration for the word of Gilead and the tragedies that took place there. More than thirty years after its publication, the book’s historical roots are one of the most significant factors why it still resonates with readers today. Numerous publications have praised the novel as being “timely” and “prescient”, meaning that the system of Gilead is strikingly comparable to current events. Some people, like Yvonne Strahovski, have even gone to the extent to say that Gilead, a dystopian society in which women are forbidden from reading, Handmaids are given names like “Offred” to identify them as male property, an dissenters are put to death, feels uncomfortably “close to home” in modern-day America. “The Handmaid’s Tale is scary because it’s true”, as one television critic put it. The novel acts as a portrait of human spirit imprisoned in a dehumanizing circumstance and a representation of the dismal, paranoid reality of dictatorship, The Handmaid’s Tale is compelling and potent. In Gilead, women and girls do not have access to the same education as their male counterparts - even to the extent that females are prohibited from reading at all. Educational inequality happens all around the world everyday, but in Tanzania this inequality is sanctioned by the law. For the last 59 years, Tanzania has had a discriminatory ban that denies pregnant school girls their right to education. In the last 8 years, this ban has been reinforced by various political pronouncements. It prohibits girls from accessing education, not just for the duration of their pregnancy but even after it too. In Tanzania, literacy rates have dropped over 20 percent in recent years and more than 55,000 girls have been banned from attending school because of pregnancy in the past decade alone. Survivors of sexual violence are being further traumatized by lawmakers who are making them pay for someone else’s crime with their futures.

The notion of using Handmaids to combat infertility was derived from a biblical tale.

In the novel, Handmaids are condemned to constitutionalized rape by high-ranking men known as Commanders, before being compelled to bear children by those same men. The Handmaids are then sent to another family in a new household, and the Wives and Commander nurture those kids. Gilead’s Rachel and Leah Centre, often known as the Red Centre, is where the Handmaids receive their training for their new societal duties.

The narrative of Rachel and her sister Leah, both of whom married the same man (Jacob), is referenced directly in the naming of The Centre from The Old Testament - a segment of the Bible. The biblical story is that the sister called Rachel was unable to conceive, while Leah had little problem doing so. Frustrated, Rachel offered Bilhah, her handmaiden, as a “receptacle” for Jacob to utilize in order for Rachel to have children with him.

Two boys were born to Bilhah, and Rachel named both of them. The narrative served as a source of inspiration for the creation of Gilead overall, as well as for the function of the Handmaid’s as “breeders.” Sons of Jacob is the name of the organization who conquered the American government and created Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel. When conversing, The Handmaid’s must say specific phrases to each other - as a way of drawing out the rebels. “Blessed be the fruit” and “May the Lord open” are also biblically derived. The Handmaid’s Tale frequently depicts this religious dialogue. Although the required greetings uttered by the Handmaids to one another and other Gileadean citizens have gained widespread recognition since the publication of the book, they really have Biblical roots. The phrases, which are a part of the Blessings of Obedience found in Deuteronomy 28, are designed to encourage abundance in devoted followers. According to the verse, who “heed the voice of the Lord, your God”, will be blessed. The New American Bible continues, “Blessed be the fruit of the womb,” and then says, “The Lord will open for you” (Deuteronomy 28:12).

The persecution of women in Gilead is partially inspired by a real-life “witch”.

The Salem Witch Trials and the demonization, threatening, and even murder of innocent women that occurred at that period, served as the basis for The Handmaid’s Tale, according to Atwood, who has made no secret of this. According to her, the narrative of Mary Webster, an inhabitant of New England in the 17th Century, had a particularly significant impact on the book. Prior to the Salem Witch Trials, Webster was at the center of one of the most notorious “witchcraft” instances. Locals in the little Puritan town of Hadley Massachusetts, rapidly came to the conclusion that a witch must be involved when a well-respected official and church leader grew ill. They decided on the conclusion that Webster was the perpetrator and intended to punish her by physically harming her and hanging her on a noose. She lived, but the details of her tale, which were published in 1689’s “Memorable Providences,” served as the catalyst for the Salem Witch Trials, which started in 1692. According to Atwood, who spoke to PRI’s The World, “The Handmaid’s Tale is dedicated to Mary Webster because she is an example of a female wrongly accused.” She went on to admit that “because they never actually managed to kill her”, “she is slightly a symbol of hope.” Webster was successful. Similarly, Atwood found precedent for public executions in global history. Leaders in Gilead frequently hang suspected traitors on a “Wall” in pain view in order to intimidate their people into obedience. Executions are occasionally expected to be carried out even by Handmaids (events called Prayvaganzas). These kinds of public executions used to be widespread everywhere, from Ancient Greece to 20th-Century America. The approach in The Handmaid's Tale has also been compared by Atwood in the past to words of 19th-Century literature that are based on actual occurrences. According to Atwood’s statement to the New York Times, “In Èmile Ola’s novel ‘Germinal’, which is based on actual 19th-Century coal-mining. Operations, the man running the company store is forcing sex upon the wives and daughters of the coal miners in order to sell them goods because they did not have any money. Therefore, when the women got the opportunity, they cut him apart and parade about with his genitalia on a pike, rather than his head. A similarity that links this event to Gilead is through the Prayvaganzas. The Handmaid’s are given a male “criminal” and are ordered to beat the man up - as a way of torture. The idea of the “Prayvaganza” was inspired by recent occurrences. The Indication Church of the United States is a religious movement in America, they are occasionally referred to as the “Moonies”. It started in the 1950s and became more well known in the 1960s. The “Moonies” saw a rapid expansion in the 1970s, before being embroiled in controversy over its doctrine, political activism, and the infertility of some of its members. It entails widespread marriages of complete strangers. In America, the group is still active today.

The Rise of Christian Right in The Handmaid’s Tale draws from American History.

Atwood drew on history, particularly the Puritan theocracy of the 17th Century in America and the political mood of the nation in the early 1980s, to picture the authoritarian society ruled by the fervently religious right in The Handmaid’s Tale. “America was not initially founded as an 18th-Century enlightenment republic. It was initially a 17th-Century theocracy. That tendency keeps bubbling up in America from time to time,” In an interview with Indigo in 2017, Atwood stated the propensity “keeps bubbling up in America from time to time.” She also cites Ronald Reagan's election as President and the nation's adoption of Christian Conservatism as inspiration for the book. Reagan was the first President to put up a constitutional amendment in 1981 that sought to reinstate organised prayer in classrooms. Reagan also maintained tight ties to evangelical political groups like the Moral Majority and Focus on the family throughout his campaign and presidency. These organisations’ brief ascent to power resulted in a feared restriction on women’s access to abortion. It’s important to note that despite the reversal of Roe V. Wade and other abortion-related laws, this specific theme from The Handmaid’s Tale is still relevant in contemporary culture. “Christian Reconstructionism,” a real-life pro-theocracy movement in America, was active from the 1970s until the turn of the century, but it remained a fringe movement opposed even by the majority of Christian conservatives. The Handmaid’s Tale is sometimes used to compare moves by the religious right to restrict abortion, although one can disagree with such restrictions without assuming that they amount to treating women as property. There are true theocracy believers in Gilead, even women, who embrace the subjugation of all females and the majority of men. Poland’s current and former prime ministers are women, as are the presidents of Ireland, two nations with almost complete restrictions on abortion. Which suggests a striking parallel between the Gileadean dictatorship and the regimes who hold authority in Ireland and Poland.