A Handmaid pieces together the fragments of her story and tells it to us.

Her life in America changed overnight in 2024 when, triggered partly by a low birth-rate caused by an environmental crisis, fundamentalists established a religious dictatorship known as the Republic of Gilead. Women were denied the right to work, possess property, or read and write. Furthermore, all fertile women of child-bearing age who were in breach of new marriage laws were forcibly separated from their families and sent to indoctrination centres, run by ‘Aunts’. There the women became Handmaids, to be posted to privileged childless households and ritually impregnated by the husband in the presence of his wife. If a Handmaid had not produced a child after three postings, she was sent to the colonies to clear up radiation spills.

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