After reading the novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, I think the whole book shows a feminist dystopia, which is different from radical feminists. Since the balance of power between men and women is the most important theme of this novel, Atwood strongly criticizes the patriarchal society by describing the suffering of the Handmaids. In this society, lower class women are stripped of their social status, becoming totally child-bearing tools for the upper class male. Furthermore, they are deprived of all their possessions and their human rights, even their emotions as human beings. In Atwood's novel, the author shows us a great concern for social prejudice against women. Due to the balance of power between men and women in this society, women are assigned their own function: handmaids are tools for creating children; Wives are used only for ceremonial purposes, and Jezebels are prostitutes and entertainers, available only to upper-class men and their guests. Handmaids have only one function: to bear children for their wives, which is the only reason for their survival. In the eyes of Gilead's ruling class, the Handmaids are not human. However, they are also important in society because they can raise children. According to the book, Gilead adopted a passage from the Bible to justify the behavior of using the Handmaids to bear children for the Wives: It's the same old story, the same old stories. God to Adam, God to Noah. Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Then comes the musty old Rachel and Leah stuff we had instilled in us at the Center. Give me children, otherwise I die. Am I in the place of God, who withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Here is my servant Bilhah. She will carry me on her knees, that I too may have children...... middle of paper....... Since the Wives do not have the capacity to bear a child, they ask the Handmaids to sleep with their husbands once a month to have a baby. Their husbands are not allowed to see the Handmaids except for the Ceremony each month. Since the husband cannot kiss and touch the Handmaids when they have sex, the husbands go to night clubs to flirt with Jezebels. In this society, each woman has a function and becomes a victim of patriarchal government. Once we no longer have to deal with gender relations, what will the situation be for the entire human society? In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood inserts this concern into her feminist dystopia, a real nightmare. Although the suffering everyone faces in the novel will not occur in the real world, the novel conceives a unique and horrific social landscape, exaggerating and amplifying gender tension in the real world, containing criticism of reality.