HT (Critic's quotes)
Atwood in New York Times, during Soviet Empire?
'I experienced the wariness, the feeling of being spied on, the silences, the change of subject'
Atwood in New York Times about future?
'Anything could happen anywhere, given the circumstances.'
Linda W. Wagner-Martin
'A brutal horrifying culture.'
Amin Malak
Gilead uses 'the usual terms of existence enforced by the totalitarian states'
Jessie Givner
'Indeed the desire of the Gilead regime to remove name is as strong as the desire to remove faces'
Heather Bowen
'Every step, every mouthful of food, every move is observed, reported, circumvented or approved.'
Atwood on the ending
'isn't totally bleak and pessimistic' and 'the possibility of escape exists. A sociey exists in the future which is not the society of Gilead'