The Handmaid's Tale Themes

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In The Handmaid's Tale, nearly everyone's identity has been stripped away. Although the most powerful have more privileges than some of the others, ev...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) Children are precious, rare commodities in the world of The Handmaid's Tale. The production of children has become the Republic of Gilead's overarchin...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) The society outlined in The Handmaid's Tale honors and privileges first marriages to the extreme. Second wives with children are rounded up as the like...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In a sense, everyone is required to be passive in The Handmaid's Tale, but women have it worse because they no longer have any financial or social powe...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) Love is more remembered than practiced in The Handmaid's Tale. Even when the characters have feelings for each other, they try to fight them off becaus...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) Women aren't supposed to use their minds in the world of The Handmaid's Tale. They're forbidden from reading, working outside the home, or even spendin...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) There is a clear distinction between house and home in The Handmaid's Tale. Handmaids are placed in other people's homes, which to them are just houses...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) In the society of The Handmaid's Tale, even the powerful live very restricted lives, but the Handmaids, confined to their bedrooms except for sanctione...

(Click the themes infographic to download.) We never quite know what's true in The Handmaid's Tale; even when people state their names, they're lying. Throughout the book we're reminded that this...