Political and Socio-Cultural Dystopias In the world we live in today there are many conflicts that people are blind to see or don’t acknowledge at all. There has been a lot of talk in the news about the President of the United States and some of the decisions he has made, or the natural disasters that have taken places in these past couple months, and much more. Atwood makes connections to real-world problems and reinforces them throughout the book and forces the reader to think about what she is saying because it is shockingly accurate. In the book The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood thoroughly relates present-day problems we face as a nation to the problems such as political and socio-cultural dystopias that are extremely similar and warns us what will happen to the world if we do nothing to change it. Atwood shows the political dystopia that has arisen in the Republic of Gilead and how broken the system is after the assassination of the president and the destruction of the congress. The constant overwhelming fear that someone is a spy is presented in the first few chapters when “[Offred] knows better to look the interpreter in the face. Most of the interpreters are Eyes” (Atwood 28). Eyes in the Republic of Gilead are better known as spies and they drive with “the windows of the vans dark-tinted, and the men in the front seats wear dark glasses”, where their duties are to flush out the traitors and members of the resistance (Atwood 22). Anybody could have been an Eye and no one would ever know until it is too late. Many people including Offred and Ofglen were scared to talk to each other out of context because the repercussions of doing so would have you hung on the wall or even worse, transferred to the colonies. The guard posts were presumably occupied by at least one guard twenty four hours, seven days a week to ensure that nobody was escaping or breaking the rules. Offred even describes a night where “the searchlights were back on again, expecting at any moment to feel the bullets rip through [her]” (Atwood 268). Even in modern day the government has the ability and watches what citizens do on the internet legally which is shown in the Patriot Act of 2001. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 is an acronym that stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” and allows the government to “get a lot of information and lowered the standard of them to be able to get it” (Ali and Abdullah). Major government agencies such as the NSA, FBI, CIA, and many more are protected under the USA PATRIOT Act to wiretap phones and collect information about domestic and out of country threats to the U.S. The fear that the government is listening to it’s people all the time is reinforced when Offred sees Moira in the bathroom for the first time after she escaped and instantly “looks up at the ceiling [and asks] is the ceiling is bugged?” (Atwood 243). Nowadays we expect privacy in certain parts of our life, and if not having privacy even in a bathroom where you expect to have a sliver of solitude is extremely violating. This just goes to show that the government in Gilead was corrupt and needed changing if they are monitoring and bugging the bathrooms to listen for supposed resistance chatter. Another problem that arises in the novel is the socio-cultural dystopia of the women of Gilead. The women are classified into categories or classes in hierarchal order where they are separated into Wives, Aunts, Handmaids, Marthas and Econowives. If separating the women into classes was not enough the women are also forced to wear certain attire such as “some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas, some in striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimpy, that mark the women of the poorer men” (Atwood 24). The women must wear what they are told and have no choice in their appearance. In the novel the only purpose the Handmaid’s serve to the Republic of Gilead is to reproduce for their commanders. Offred explains how she doesn’t “say making love, because that isn’t what he is doing… There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what [Offred] chose” (Atwood 94). Offred didn’t necessarily choose to live this life, but the choice she is talking about is the choice in whether or not to live a better life by reproducing for the commander or being sent to the colonies to ultimately suffer and eventually die. The Handmaid’s are nearly the lowest on the totem pole and generally treated like garbage. Offred soon learns from Aunt Lydia that “it is best not to speak unless they asked you a direct question” (Atwood 14). Aunt Lydia teaches Offred and the other Handmaids to fit into the household the easy way, the way the commanders would like it to be. Denying someone’s right to even talk without being allowed to is extremely degrading and damaging to the victim. The women in Gilead are not even allowed to read and all books are confiscated, signs with “lettering are painted out, when the [government] decided that even the names of shops were too much temptation for [women]” (Atwood 25). The government thought that letting women read would be too tempting to form their own opinions and be educated human beings. Prayvaganzas were held to celebrate war victories for the men and marriages for the women. And during these Prayvaganzas the marriages would be arranged and “some of [the girls] were no more than fourteen”, which in any country should be illegal (Atwood 219). The girls that marry at such an early age is not just fictional but even in “New York has allowed children as young as fourteen to marry, and can do so with judicial and parental approval. Sixteen and seventeen year-olds can marry with mere parental consent” which is extremely scary to think about (Foderaro). There should be no reason why a fourteen year old child should have the ability to marry another person regardless of the situation. If laws like these are implemented in the near future what will the world come to? Men generally have an easier lifestyle than the women but are still forced to live in a way that is foreign to them. When the book was written a little over 30 years ago, males were stereotyped as needing to be “manly” and not show any emotions. Psychologist Georgia Ray sheds light on the “societal stereotypes and expectations discourage men from displaying emotional tears” and how “men have significantly lower levels of prolactin (a hormone found in emotional tears) . The men are separated into classes, just like the women: Commanders, Eyes, Angels and Guardians. Guardians don’t have very much power and are mostly used as errand boys for the commanders and their wives. They are told to do their duty and think of being “promoted to an Angel, and being allowed to possibly marry, and then if they are able to gain enough power and live to be old enough, of being allotted a Handmaid of their own” but instead to do their job as asked (Atwood 22). As Guardians are definitely granted some freedom, they are denied the right of marrying someone until they are qualified enough, which is awfully worrisome to think about. A person that is supposed to provide safety to other people is not allowed to marry another person just makes no sense at all. Although the commander is seen as the top of the food chain, even he can get lonely with all his Handmaids and his wife. The commander offers to play scrabble with Offred since his wife is a firm believer and he just wants some company because he feels as if “[him and his wife] don’t seem to have much in common” and how they are growing apart (Atwood 158). Even the commander is effected by a forced marriage, he is unhappy with how his relationship with his wife has turned out. He invited Offred over to play scrabble with him to feel a sense of companionship again and not feel so alone anymore. Gilead is not just a terrible environment for the women, but it also affects the way men live and how their lives are altered for the worst. The many different dystopias that Margaret Atwood explained in The Handmaid’s Tale warns readers what will happen to the world if these dystopias are not resolved. The men and women of Gilead are forced to live a unwanted lifestyle where they need to adapt to survive. Atwood flawlessly proves her points through events in the book like the constant fear that you are being watched or listened to or the arranged marriages of young girls that eventually happen in future time, such as the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, or the sexist laws in New York that allow minors to marry. In through providing examples of her points throughout the book, Atwood makes The Handmaid’s Tale a relevant novel even more than thirty years after it was published.