The Handmaid's Tale: Utopia or Dystopia?

Abstract

This paper discusses the critically acclaimed fiction, The Handmaid's Tale. It evaluates whether the freedoms that the citizens of Gilead have lost are worth the freedoms they have purportedly gained. It argues that the women of Gilead have lost more than they gained, that the supposed freedoms gained in this world do not actually exist within Gilead, and that, based on this, Gilead is truly a dystopia.