T HE R EPUBLIC OF G ILEAD R EGIME Aleisha and Jessica

F ORMATION The Republic of Gilead is a fictional country that is the setting in the handmaids tale. The country exists in the border of what was originally the United States of America. It begun with a terrorist attack that killed the president and most of congress. A group called the ‘Sons of Jacob’ establish the Republic of Gilead during a time of rapidly declining birth rates and social instability. Electronic banking was used to freeze all women and other ‘undesirables’ assets stripping them of there rights. The main goal of this new totalitarianism regime was to get women back into there traditional roles as mothers or housewives.

C ONTROL One of the ways the totalitarianism regime controls the population is by restricting knowledge. In Gilead women are not aloud to read. Signs are in pictures not words. The bible is locked up, so the regime can interpret it however they want. It would be dangerous for anyone else to get their hands on it. As Offred said, “(The Bible) is an incendiary device: who knows what we'd make of it, if we ever got our hands on it?”. There is no difference, in the ideology of Gilead, between the needs of the state and the will of God.

C ONTROL CONTINUED Another way they control society is by monitoring people 24/7. They enforce the rules of Gilead through people called the Eyes of God. They are Gilead's secret police service. The eye of God and of the state are assumed to be the same. They had no freedom. “ We weren't allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field which was enclosed now by chain- link fence topped with barbed wire.”

P UNISHMENT Those who didn’t conform to the standards and rules of Gilead were sent out to work in the colonies where the pollution and radiation levels were high. This included anyone who wasn’t useful to the regime such as homosexuals, unwomen, and people who wouldn’t comply to the new rules. There are also Salvaging's. This word comes from ‘salvation’ which is to be saved from harm or the consequences of sin. A salvaging is when Women of Gilead are hung for crimes against the Regime. The other women sit and watch whilst holding a rope so it’s like they are a part of the salvaging.

P UNISHMENT CONTINUED There was also something called Particicution which is an execution carried out by a group. Those who are killed in this way are rebels or traitors to the regime. This death is a gruesome way to discourage others from doing the same thing and dying at the hands of those they are trying to help. This group execution also provides an outlet for the handmaids against the men who try to control them. In the book even before Aunt Lydia announces the guilty Guardian’s crime, a “murmur of readiness and anger” builds among the Handmaids. He was convicted of raping a pregnant women and the baby died making it more personal for the Handmaid’s as it could have happened to them.