This piffle is what passes for great literature today among the 300 lb. female club these days.
I never read the Handmaids Tale, but I did have to study some other of Margaret Attwood’s drivel for a literature class in Science Fiction. High concept SF, what Heinlien called ‘what would happen if’ stories, depends on consistently and logically developing the social and personal consequences of the story’s technological, sociological and psychological premise(s). Attwood’s story development, like many of the other 70’s Feminist SF writers such as Joanna Russ, was illogical, disconnected from any realistic historical or sociological precedents, and worst of all, inconsistent.
I developed a theory of literary criticism of my own, to describe this kind of writing; I called it unintentional irony, the writing of the exact opposite of what the author supposedly meant to say. Chaucer did it deliberately in the Canterbury Tales, having the character Chaucer say things about the other characters that was in direct contrast to how Chaucer the author described them. Margaret Mitchell perhaps did something like it in Gone With The Wind (although her irony may have been unintentional instead). But Attwood and the other ‘70’s Feminist SF writers (including some of the male ones) were surely blissfully unaware that what they wrote contradicted what they apparently wanted the reader to take away from their writings.
I was warned NOT to publish my thesis in the fan literature, if I valued my life and reputation. My SF professor did not have a high opinion of my theory, but my literature prof thought it had some merit, as a basis for discussion, but didn’t believe it.