The Handmaid's Tale

Question 1

Gilead enforces strict gender roles

Answer 1

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere as long as it stays inside the maze.”

Question 2

The regime justifies oppression through religious ideology

Answer 2

“Blessed be the fruit.”

Question 3

Fear of women losing autonomy

Answer 3

“We are containers it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important.”

Question 4

Atwood

Answer 4

“a slight twist of the society we have now,”

Question 5

Swale

Answer 5

“an amalgam of trends which [Atwood] has already observed and read about in various societies, past and present.”

Question 6

Howells

Answer 6

“Gilead is a totalitarian regime run on patriarchal lines from the Old Testament.”

Question 7

Weiss

Answer 7

“Offred is no less responsible for its destruction of freedom,”

Question 8

Control comes through state-enforced laws and ideology:

Answer 8

“gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled”

Question 9

The Moral Majority

Answer 9

campaigned for traditional gender roles, anti-abortion laws, and religious influence in government—similar to Gilead’s ideology.

Question 10

“Blessed be the fruit”

Answer 10

Pushback against the Roe v. Wade (1973) ruling, which legalized abortion.

Question 11

Islamic Revolution in Iran

Answer 11

women’s rights were stripped overnight.

Question 12

Nazi Germany

Answer 12

Women were expected to bear children for the state (like Handmaids).

Question 13

Chernobyl disaster (1986)

Answer 13

raised concerns about radiation affecting reproduction.