Real Life Events Context

Página 1

The Handmaid's Tale isn't fiction anymore

Abortion Laws

More than 40% of women around the world aged 15-44 live in a country where abortion is highly restricted according to research by the Guttmacher Institute. El Salvador, Chile, Nicaragua, Vatican City and Malta do not allow it under any circumstances.

On 14th May 2019, 25 white men- all Republican members of the Alabama senates - voted to criminalise abortion at any stage of pregnancy even if that pregnancy was the consequence of rape or incest.

Enforced Surrogacy and adoption

Offred and her fellow handmaids are forced to bear children for the families they are 'owned' by. Any healthy babies that are born are then raised by the wives of the men that the handmaids are systematically raped by.

Similar practices have occurred in multiple Western nations just as a few decades ago, with the effects continuing to the present day.

In Australia as recently as the 70s, indigenous children were lawfully stolen form their homes and place in religious institutions or foster out to white families.

The Magdalene laundries in Ireland which saw young girls punished for their "immortality" by being forced into slave-like conditions. The babies they bore were taken away from them and placed with adoptive families all over the world with 2000 alone being shipped across to the USA

Sharia Law

Saudia Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan operating Sharia law women were blamed for their own rape- links to the Red centre and how Aunt Lydia blames Janine for her rape at the age of 14.

17th century American Puritan Theocracy

In Gilead, the government rules in the name of God, which is why they continuously reference the fact that they are "under His eye"

Nowadays, the US is founded on the idea of democracy with public electing officials to make laws and government decisions.

Atwood explains: "America was not initially founded as an 18th-century enlightenment republic. It was essentially a 17th-century theocracy

The Yellow Bands Of Nazi Germany

Women of Gilead are forced to wear outfits which identify their roles and rights.

It is a staunch reminder of the horrors of Nazi Germany, in which the Jews would have to wear a yellow band around their arm, which sported a star of David. This was used to separate the Jewish from those who were not Jewish. It also served as a reminder to the Jews that they hand no rights under German law.

The Holocaust

Many parallels can be drawn between the novel and the holocaust. Large groups of people are sent to work in concentration camps were they will most certainly die, for example, and neighbours are encouraged to inform upon their friends.

Just as the Jews were reduced to numbers, handmaids lose their names and are known only as of the property of their Commanders.

The Commanders of the Faithful order the execution of people who committed "gender treachery"

The novel also see women rounded up and subjected to invasive test and scan to determine whether or not they are fertile- much as the Jews were sorted into two groups: those who could work and those who could not. They were sent to work in Ghettos and those who could not be sent to their deaths in the concentration camps.

This is similar to the women of Gilead if they are fertile, then they are given the duty of producing a health bay and if not they were sent to the colonies