Offread says in the novel “context is all”. During the time when the book was written or being planned, the reality of a totalitarian rule in the Soviet empire was very much a reality. She was living in West Berlin, circled by the East Berlin side of the Soviet part of Germany, also known as the “iron curtain”. She describes the feeling of being spied, the oblique ways people conveyed information which certainly will have an influence on the novel. Furthermore the repurposed buildings also added an influence. Being born in the 1939, she had experience WW2 and thus understands how quickly everything can change.

 

The novel brings the nature of totalitarian thinking, focuses on surveillance and terror.  However Gliead was a theocracy, brining it back to the Puritans traditions. Set in the same place as well (New England) as the link with the red dress code. America was founded by religious extremisms, some of these discourse has not gone away.

 

The novel highlights Serena joy, a previous singer. This is Atwood’s way of showing how ultra right wing ideas, combined with religious extremist is very much a totalitarian rule and soon can lead to a horrors of such rule. Can lead to a situation like Gilead.

 

Anything can happen under certain circumstances. The novel serves as a warning.