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Canadian feminist author Margaret Atwood's work has long served as the inspiration for the American television adaptation The Handmaid's Tale, its first episode having been aired in 2017. The story primarily takes place in Gilead, a future society ruled by a powerful religious authority. Women are not allowed to work, read, or make choices here; they have no rights. Fertile women are forced to have children and work as "Handmaids" in affluent households,
The Handmaid's Tale also uses the Bible to support Gilead's cruel policies. The dictatorship manipulates its teachings to subjugate women, particularly Handmaids.
More about the Bible in The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood's novel served as the inspiration for the television show The Handmaid's Tale. In the world it portrays, Gilead, women have no rights whatsoever. They are not allowed to go to school, read, or write. The rules are purely religious in origin, and men have complete authority.
Gilead women have a variety of responsibilities. Wives stay at home with their husbands, Marthas cook and clean, and handmaids bear children. Aunts, however, are not all the same. Only they have the authority to read and write. The Handmaids learn from their aunts how to act in Gilead.
Aunts are allowed to read because the leaders of Gilead require them to do essential tasks and they study the Bible, write reports, and train other women. They are trusted to help maintain control. That is why they are given greater freedom than other women, despite the fact that Gilead continues to treat them unfairly.
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Even strong women like Serena Joy face punishment for reading. In one instance, she reads the Bible and receives physical punishment. This demonstrates that reading is only allowed for Aunts. All other women, regardless of their social rank, are not permitted to read.
We find out more about Aunt Lydia in the follow-up novel The Testaments and she describes her life and how she became an aunt and she is still terrified of the male leaders despite having more authority than most women. The narrative demonstrates that women, such as aunts, are only permitted to read if doing so aids the males in maintaining their authority.
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