Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel set in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic regime that has replaced the United States after environmental collapse and mass infertility. The story follows Offred, a “Handmaid” forced to bear children for the ruling elite, who recalls her past life with her husband and daughter while navigating a world where women are stripped of autonomy and reduced to reproductive roles. Trapped in a rigid social hierarchy controlled by Commanders, Wives, Aunts, and secret police, she risks her life through forbidden encounters with both her Commander and Nick, the household driver, while learning of an underground resistance called Mayday. The novel ends ambiguously as Offred is taken away by men who may be rescuers or enforcers, leaving her fate uncertain, and an epilogue reveals her story is later studied as a historical account of Gilead’s oppression.