Description
In a dystopian near-future, the totalitarian and Christian fundamentalist government of Gilead rules the former United States amidst an ongoing civil war. Society is organized along a new, militarized, hierarchical regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism and newly-created social classes, in which women are brutally subjugated, and by law are not allowed to work, control money, or read. Widespread infertility due to warfare-induced environmental contamination has resulted in the conscription of the few remaining fertile women - called Handmaids, according to Biblical precedent - who are assigned to the homes of the ruling elite, where they must submit to ritualized sex with their male masters in order to become pregnant and bear children for those men and their wives. The main character, Offred (Moss), is the Handmaid assigned to the home of Gileadean Commander Fred Waterford (Fiennes) and his former-televangelist wife Serena Joy (Strahovski), and as such is subject to the strictest rules and constant scrutiny; an improper word or deed on her part can lead to her execution. Offred, who is named after her male master like all Handmaids, can remember the "time before", when she was married with a daughter and had her own name and identity, but all she can safely do now is follow the rules of Gilead in the hope that she can someday live free and reunite with her daughter. ( This was just a 'catch up' and/or description of the show, The Handmaidens Tale. )
Chapter One
