Puritan New England

English Lit: Edexcel A Level The Handmaid's Tale, topic 4.4.1

Historical Context: Puritan New England

17th-century Puritan New England inspired the creation of Gilead.

The Puritans aspired to create a Utopian society but did so through fear, intimidation, patriarchal rule and harsh living conditions.
Women were classed as the inferior sex and forced into a passive and domestic life to remind them of the preordained role God chose for them.
They would have been made to wear functional clothing, covering themselves up from everyone but their husband. They could hope for nothing more than to bear children and be a good, dutiful wife.

In the late seventeenth century, many people were tortured and murdered after being publicly accused of being involved in witchcraft.
Any individual who did not conform to societal norms or who was thought to be a dissenter was accused, put on trial and most likely killed to allay the fears and paranoia that society had about witchcraft.