what year does the handmaid's tale take place
The Handmaid's Tale The novel is set in an indeterminate future, speculated to be around the year 2005,[13] with a fundamentalist theonomy ruling the territory of what had been the United States but is now the Republic of Gilead. Individuals are segregated by categories and dressed according to their social functions. The complex sumptuary laws (dress codes) play a key role in imposing social control within the new society and serve to distinguish people by sex, occupation, and caste.
The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's Tale is a 1985 dystopian novel[2] by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.[3][4] Set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian, Christian theonomy that has overthrown the United States government,[5] the novel explores themes of women in subjugation and the various means by which they gain individualism and independence. The novel's title echoes the component parts of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, which is a series of connected stories ("The Merchant's Tale", "The Parson's Tale", etc.).[6]