The dystopian world of the Handmaid’s tale 2/2

ENTITLE Blog presents two reflections on the dystopian world of the Handmaid’s tale. In the second contribution, Joel Foramitti comments on the different ways that gender, exploitation and nature play out in the politics of the Handmaid’s tale.

The huge success of Hulu’s 2017 web television series, the ‘Handmaid’s tale’ (receiving widespread critical acclaim and eight Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Drama Series) brought back to attention Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel of the same name. The book and the series are situated in a not so far future, where the theocracy of Gilead has established itself in parts of Eastern USA after a Second American Civil War. A group of fertile women in Gilead, called “Handmaids”, is forced into sexual and childbearing servitude. The chilling parallels with USA in the Trump era did not escape viewers or critics, pronounced in the TV series with a visual aesthetic that made the dystopia…