Links to Dystopian Fiction

English Lit: Edexcel A Level The Handmaid's Tale, topic 4.2.2

Atwood claims that The Handmaid's Tale is a work of "speculative fiction".

Atwood was quoted as saying that Science Fiction was all "monsters and spaceships" whereas speculative fiction, like The Handmaid's Tale, "could really happen".
The Handmaid's Tale is part of a long literary tradition of dystopian fiction.
It shares many parallels one of the most iconic dystopian novels of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell.

Dystopian fiction is literature which presents a sense of warning or danger to the reader.
Authors set their stories in worlds similar to our own or in nightmarish visions of the future.
Dystopian fiction is often satirical and aims to criticise the world as the author sees it by showing what might happen in the future if we don't change problems in society.

Nineteen Eighty Four was written in 1949,
The novel is about the everyman protagonist Winston Smith, who tries to survive in the totalitarian society of Oceania. Everyone is constantly watched by Big Brother, the omnipotent faceless authority that rules all.

Parallels with Nineteen Eighty Four

Parallels between The Handmaid's Tale and Nineteen Eighty Four are:

Use of violence as a way of controlling the masses and deflecting the focus away from those in charge:
Atwood: Salvaging and Particicutions.
Orwell: Two Minutes Hate ritual.

Both protagonists are beaten down by the totalitarian regime and willing to say anything or incriminate anyone to surivie:
Atwood: "I'll say anything they like. I'll incriminate anyone. It's true, the first scream, whimper even, and I'll turn to jelly, I'll confess to any crime, I'll end up hanging from a hook on the Wall"
Orwell: "Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!"