HOME | DD

Description

This was a request by www.deviantart.com/alternatehi…, who wanted me to try and make a map of the book (not Netflix series) universe of The Handmaid’s Tale.

---

The Handmaid’s Tale is really about two societies. There is the fictional theocratic state of Gilead that dominates the novel’s focus, and which the author, Margaret Atwood, describes in great detail. But there is also our modern Western society, and Atwood’s influences and anxieties are made quite apparent in the way she created Gilead.

There is Gilead’s religious fundamentalism and birth in a violent revolution, which reveals the profound impact of the 1980’s religious revival in America and the Iranian Revolution of 1979 on the minds of Western liberals. The environmental degradation is also a key feature of the landscapes of this dystopia – Gilead is less a country and more a sea of Superfund sites. Three Mile Island, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and the slow work of environmental cleanup clearly had an influence on her. The most important element of Gilead, however, is Atwood’s concern with birth rates and women’s rights. Her vision of Gilead is that of an America afflicted by birth defects and violent struggles over women, who have been relegated to second-class citizens (especially if they are fertile). Agent Orange is referenced as having some effects on the fertility of men who returned from the Vietnam War as well. Gilead becomes a caricature of America in this way, especially as Atwood contrasts it with her magically untouched, almost utopian depiction of her native Canada.

Thus, The Handmaid’s Tale is not so much a work of history, though its references to real events are many and quite impressive, but a work of anxiety. It is fast and loose with the details of the world around its main character Offred, the titular Handmaid, and there is little for one to work with in making a map of the world. I have tried to use my knowledge of those anxieties and influences when I was working out the details of the map for the requester, but odds are I have made many conjectures and missed details from the book.

---

The POD has been set in 1943. This is the year in which the active chemicals of Agent Orange are first synthesized and researched, and unlike in our timeline (OTL) these key ingredients also have a serious effect on human fertility and reproductive health. From this point, much of history continues in the same way it had – but with a twist. Environmental degradation of the industrialized United States continues, and an ever-increasing rate of birth defects and infertility wracks the nation. Nuclear accidents are also common. These catastrophes spur a religious revival in the north of the country, largely in the vein of the Puritan traditions that were brought there by the Mayflower.

This decline in the United States’ power puts it and the USSR on a more equal footing than in OTL. The USSR’s economy remains a mismanaged, bureaucratic mess, but the United States’ birthrate is beginning to shrink at an alarming pace, and this hastens its withdrawal from Vietnam. The two sign the Spheres of Influence Accord, granting each other the right to maintain control without interference of each other’s respective peripheries. The Soviets use their newfound latitude to tighten their grip on the Warsaw Pact states, while the US deposes Castro and puts the whole of Central America under its control as a series of territories.

By this time, almost a third of the United States has come under the sway of the Sons of Jacob movement. This ultra-traditionalist, ultra-conservative religious movement begins to take on an increasingly militant bent and orchestrates a coup that sees the United States Congress wiped out and the President killed. Martial law is declared, and while resistance occurs the US government is on the backfoot and assailed on all sides. Nuclear silo commanders turn their own weapons on their bases to prevent the newly-declared Republic of Gilead from taking control, while governors and generals flee to Alaska, Hawaii, and other American outposts to regroup and reorganize.

Gilead’s rise sees a global depression occur – and the loss of American power has consequences for geopolitical arrangements. The Soviet Union vastly outclasses the remaining NATO members militarily, and thus most of continental NATO agrees to a political union, combined military, and single currency – though the UK stays just outside of this arrangement. East Asia sees hot wars over Taiwan and the Korean peninsula as the American aegis folds overnight. Japan, with Australian and exiled American assistance, nuclearizes and takes center stage in the anti-Communist Pacific. Saudi Arabia’s loss of its protector sees its influence and security wane as a radical alt-Islamic Revolutionary Iran closes off the straits of Hormuz.

These changes will have consequences for the world – Europe begins to invest and expand its influence in Africa and the Middle East, the Soviets are able to quietly decline behind the Iron Curtain, China is never able to economically take off as in OTL, Japan is a major global power – but nowhere will be as impacted as much as North America. Gilead’s control over the Continental US is not absolute, nor are its neighbors safe. A small stockpile of nuclear weapons halts Canadian intervention plans in their tracks, and the Great White North is Finlandized overnight. Mexico, whose north was invaded by the United States as a means of acquiring fresh land and people, is a target for the Gileadeans.

But there are also internal enemies. The South was only weakly penetrated by the Sons of Jacob, and instead a Baptist revival occurred there. Texas re-declares its independence and survives Gilead’s nuclear reply. The Mormons attempt to do the same in Utah, but Salt Lake City and many surrounding cities and towns are left a nuclear-charred waste. Small holdouts, usually on the Canadian border, attempt to resist. Seattle was a haven for liberals, Detroit had a large black population, and Rochester, New York had a significant Catholic presence. A few Native American reservations in the Southwest attempt to band together to fight back. But Gilead’s Angels – the name for its military caste - are cruel and murderous. But they're not as cruel as the men and women who oversee the Homelands and the Colonies.

Beyond the traditional views on religion, women, and sexual minorities, the Sons of Jacob fully embraced racial purity in their ideology. The Republic of Gilead immediately began to march African-Americans, Native-Americans, and Asian-Americans up to what had been North Dakota, and settled them on Bantustans far from prying eyes. Besides cleaning up nuclear and chemical spoilages there, these innocent men, women, and children would be killed by the Gileadeans. Such deaths were immediate, but those allowed to survive at the margins of Gilead’s society would be put to work in the Colonies. Such labor merged the genocidal intentions of the concentration camp with the environmental horror of a Superfund site. In cleaning the nuclear and industrial wastes, Gilead’s remaining undesirables would slowly die a terrible death.

---

At present, Gilead fights numerous wars at its peripheries, while slowly restoring the population of the United States and the environment. The world has settled into an uncomfortable state of semi-peace outside of the Americas, though eyes wander often to the fanatical leaders of the Sons of Jacob. The year is unknown throughout the book, but this moment has been seared into human memory forever.

Description

This was a request by www.deviantart.com/alternatehi…, who wanted me to try and make a map of the book (not Netflix series) universe of The Handmaid’s Tale.

---

The Handmaid’s Tale is really about two societies. There is the fictional theocratic state of Gilead that dominates the novel’s focus, and which the author, Margaret Atwood, describes in great detail. But there is also our modern Western society, and Atwood’s influences and anxieties are made quite apparent in the way she created Gilead.

There is Gilead’s religious fundamentalism and birth in a violent revolution, which reveals the profound impact of the 1980’s religious revival in America and the Iranian Revolution of 1979 on the minds of Western liberals. The environmental degradation is also a key feature of the landscapes of this dystopia – Gilead is less a country and more a sea of Superfund sites. Three Mile Island, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and the slow work of environmental cleanup clearly had an influence on her. The most important element of Gilead, however, is Atwood’s concern with birth rates and women’s rights. Her vision of Gilead is that of an America afflicted by birth defects and violent struggles over women, who have been relegated to second-class citizens (especially if they are fertile). Agent Orange is referenced as having some effects on the fertility of men who returned from the Vietnam War as well. Gilead becomes a caricature of America in this way, especially as Atwood contrasts it with her magically untouched, almost utopian depiction of her native Canada.

Thus, The Handmaid’s Tale is not so much a work of history, though its references to real events are many and quite impressive, but a work of anxiety. It is fast and loose with the details of the world around its main character Offred, the titular Handmaid, and there is little for one to work with in making a map of the world. I have tried to use my knowledge of those anxieties and influences when I was working out the details of the map for the requester, but odds are I have made many conjectures and missed details from the book.

---

The POD has been set in 1943. This is the year in which the active chemicals of Agent Orange are first synthesized and researched, and unlike in our timeline (OTL) these key ingredients also have a serious effect on human fertility and reproductive health. From this point, much of history continues in the same way it had – but with a twist. Environmental degradation of the industrialized United States continues, and an ever-increasing rate of birth defects and infertility wracks the nation. Nuclear accidents are also common. These catastrophes spur a religious revival in the north of the country, largely in the vein of the Puritan traditions that were brought there by the Mayflower.

This decline in the United States’ power puts it and the USSR on a more equal footing than in OTL. The USSR’s economy remains a mismanaged, bureaucratic mess, but the United States’ birthrate is beginning to shrink at an alarming pace, and this hastens its withdrawal from Vietnam. The two sign the Spheres of Influence Accord, granting each other the right to maintain control without interference of each other’s respective peripheries. The Soviets use their newfound latitude to tighten their grip on the Warsaw Pact states, while the US deposes Castro and puts the whole of Central America under its control as a series of territories.

By this time, almost a third of the United States has come under the sway of the Sons of Jacob movement. This ultra-traditionalist, ultra-conservative religious movement begins to take on an increasingly militant bent and orchestrates a coup that sees the United States Congress wiped out and the President killed. Martial law is declared, and while resistance occurs the US government is on the backfoot and assailed on all sides. Nuclear silo commanders turn their own weapons on their bases to prevent the newly-declared Republic of Gilead from taking control, while governors and generals flee to Alaska, Hawaii, and other American outposts to regroup and reorganize.

Gilead’s rise sees a global depression occur – and the loss of American power has consequences for geopolitical arrangements. The Soviet Union vastly outclasses the remaining NATO members militarily, and thus most of continental NATO agrees to a political union, combined military, and single currency – though the UK stays just outside of this arrangement. East Asia sees hot wars over Taiwan and the Korean peninsula as the American aegis folds overnight. Japan, with Australian and exiled American assistance, nuclearizes and takes center stage in the anti-Communist Pacific. Saudi Arabia’s loss of its protector sees its influence and security wane as a radical alt-Islamic Revolutionary Iran closes off the straits of Hormuz.

These changes will have consequences for the world – Europe begins to invest and expand its influence in Africa and the Middle East, the Soviets are able to quietly decline behind the Iron Curtain, China is never able to economically take off as in OTL, Japan is a major global power – but nowhere will be as impacted as much as North America. Gilead’s control over the Continental US is not absolute, nor are its neighbors safe. A small stockpile of nuclear weapons halts Canadian intervention plans in their tracks, and the Great White North is Finlandized overnight. Mexico, whose north was invaded by the United States as a means of acquiring fresh land and people, is a target for the Gileadeans.

But there are also internal enemies. The South was only weakly penetrated by the Sons of Jacob, and instead a Baptist revival occurred there. Texas re-declares its independence and survives Gilead’s nuclear reply. The Mormons attempt to do the same in Utah, but Salt Lake City and many surrounding cities and towns are left a nuclear-charred waste. Small holdouts, usually on the Canadian border, attempt to resist. Seattle was a haven for liberals, Detroit had a large black population, and Rochester, New York had a significant Catholic presence. A few Native American reservations in the Southwest attempt to band together to fight back. But Gilead’s Angels – the name for its military caste - are cruel and murderous. But they're not as cruel as the men and women who oversee the Homelands and the Colonies.

Beyond the traditional views on religion, women, and sexual minorities, the Sons of Jacob fully embraced racial purity in their ideology. The Republic of Gilead immediately began to march African-Americans, Native-Americans, and Asian-Americans up to what had been North Dakota, and settled them on Bantustans far from prying eyes. Besides cleaning up nuclear and chemical spoilages there, these innocent men, women, and children would be killed by the Gileadeans. Such deaths were immediate, but those allowed to survive at the margins of Gilead’s society would be put to work in the Colonies. Such labor merged the genocidal intentions of the concentration camp with the environmental horror of a Superfund site. In cleaning the nuclear and industrial wastes, Gilead’s remaining undesirables would slowly die a terrible death.

---

At present, Gilead fights numerous wars at its peripheries, while slowly restoring the population of the United States and the environment. The world has settled into an uncomfortable state of semi-peace outside of the Americas, though eyes wander often to the fanatical leaders of the Sons of Jacob. The year is unknown throughout the book, but this moment has been seared into human memory forever.