The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood possesses characteristics and techniques of the dystopian tradition. The novel also falls under the totalitarian dystopia category, incorporating symbolism, characterisation, imagery and motif into its horrific storyline. A Dystopia, like a Utopia, is an imaginary place, but it is one that people of this world could not bear to live in. The dystopia Margaret Atwood created is a feminist dystopia because it has profound effect on females, and the people living in Gilead are ruled by Commanders and "The Eyes", which makes the text a totalitarian dystopia.
             A Totalitarian Dystopia is one that utilizes control over citizens, and demands total commitment from them, usually hiding behind a political ideology. It is usually ruled by a party and backed up by secret police and armed forces, resulting in citizens being closely monitored and any form of rebellion punished seriously. This is the exact situation in The Handmaid's Tale. In a Dystopia, citizens are in a state of paranoia; hence dystopias often becoming studies of survival. This story is about the survival of females in Gilead, namely a woman named Offred, who is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. This storyline, in dystopian tradition, is purely about survival, and living with the everyday torment of life as a Handmaid.
             Dystopias do not depict society at the present time, but instead reflect the nightmarish features of it, and the horrific possibility that what is occurring in actual society, could eventuate into the world the dystopia creates.
             The Handmaid's Tale clearly holds this dystopian quality. It was written in the early 1980's, after the election of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, and durin...