The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood recounts the establishment of a theological state, Gilead, in place of the United States of America. Gilead uses the Bible to justify a misogynistic, hierarchical and racist society. Offred, the narrator, is a woman forced to become the “Handmaid” of a Gileadean Commander, Fred. Handmaids are supposedly a position of honour for fertile women; in reality, they are sex slaves, allowing only the leaders of Gilead to reproduce. In the novel, education is limited to the elite. Women and minorities are forbidden from writing and text is scarce. The deprivation of education and knowledge, to Offred, is a deprivation of power; she describes her simple act of reading as empowering. Gilead exploits this illiteracy
