The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, 311 pages

Offred is the name given to the main character of this dystopian fiction. It's not her real name, of course, but when everything changed and women became little more than property to be "protected" by her society, her name became a label indicating what man she belonged to. Offred is a handmaid, which is a woman who serves as a vessel for infertile families.  She is basically no more than a sexual object, both reviled by most of society and recognized as a necessary role in an age of drastically declining birth rates.  This is a story that in its telling sounds like an impossibility, but it raises much to discuss regarding reproductive control, the dangers of being uninformed, radical and mainstream feminism, and institutional misogyny as perpetuated by both men and women. This is one of those "classics" that has earned the description.