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Question

paying particular to the names and places mention. What do these names suggest about the twenty -second century social and political world Atwood imagines

Answer 1

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Biblical references
The primary biblical reference in The Handmaid's Tale is to the story of Rachel and Leah (Genesis 29:31–35; 30:1–24). While Leah was fertile and was blessed by God, Rachel was barren, meaning she could not have children. Rachel proceeds to compete in producing sons for her husband, by using her handmaids as property. Rachel takes immediate possession of the children produced by her handmaids. In the context of Atwood's book, the story is one of female competition, jealousy, and reproductive cruelty.

A similar story also exists in Genesis, where Sarah is infertile, and Hagar conceives on Sarah's behalf. The Sarah and Hagar story is considerably different from the Rachel and Leah story. This is mainly because of the active role played by Hagar, and Hagar's possession of her child. Due to Sarah's reproductive generosity, Sarah's fertility is restored by God at an advanced age. Atwood was aware of the similarity between these stories, and was using it to show the hypocrisy of Gileadean biblical interpretation: the biblical story showed a relationship between a wife and a handmaid which did not involve sexual and reproductive subjugation. Additionally, it was ultimately the choice of the wives in the Bible, whereas wives in Gilead (such as Serena Joy) are forced.


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Answer 2

Of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's dystopian, futuristic novel, New York Times editor Christopher Lehmann-Haupt warns, "It's a bleak world . . . how bleak and even terrifying we will not fully realize until the story's final pages."

Set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the novel presents a totalitarian theocracy that has forced a certain class of fertile women to produce babies for elite barren couples. These "handmaids," who are denied all rights and are severely beaten if they are uncooperative, are reduced to state property. Through the voice of Offred, a handmaid who mingles memories of her life before the revolution with her rebellious activities under the new regime, Atwood has created a terrifying future based on actual events.

The significance of The Handmaid's Tale caused Publishers Weekly to write that it "deserves an honored place on the small shelf of cautionary tales that have entered modern folklore--a place next to, and by no means inferior to, Brave New World and 1984."

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http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/science_fiction/handmaid.html