The handmaid of the title is Offred, one of the few fertile women in a totalitarian theocratic state. Offred serves the Commander and his wife Serena Joy. Every month she must have impersonal sex with the Commander until she becomes pregnant.
The Handmaid's Tale is considered by some to be a work of science fiction and by others as social commentary on the way a state seeks to control women's bodies. It's thought that Atwood was 'inspired' to write it after visiting Afghanistan in 1978.
