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The Handmaid’s Tale
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Sydney Sweeney, in gray clothing, sits on a sofa facing Elisabeth Moss, dressed in a red dress and white bonnet, in a scene from The Handmaid's Tale.
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The Handmaid’s Tale

American television series
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Sydney Sweeney, in gray clothing, sits on a sofa facing Elisabeth Moss, dressed in a red dress and white bonnet, in a scene from The Handmaid's Tale.
The Handmaid's Tale Actresses Sydney Sweeney (left) and Elisabeth Moss in a scene from The Handmaid's Tale.

The American television series The Handmaid's Tale is an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel of the same name. The story is set in a near-future New England, where a Christian fundamentalist theocracy, known as the Republic of Gilead, has overthrown the U.S. government in response to a fertility crisis.12

The series, like the novel, is narrated by Offred, who recounts her life before and after the rise of Gilead. In Gilead, fertile women, called Handmaids, are forced into sexual servitude to repopulate the society, bearing children for the ruling Commanders and their infertile Wives. The narrative explores themes of oppression, resistance, and the loss of individual freedoms within this totalitarian regime. The series debuted on Hulu in 2017 and has received critical acclaim.2

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2 Britannica Sources
  1. Margaret Atwood: Top Questions
  2. The Handmaid’s Tale

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