There are two kinds of freedom: freedom to and freedom from. Historically, women in the United States have fought philosophical battles inside and outside the home to gain the "freedom to" and have been successful. But what would happen if society suddenly took away these freedoms? What would happen if American women suddenly returned to their former cloistered state where their only freedom was from the dangers of the world around them? On the other hand, have women ever truly achieved the "freedom to"? These are the hard-to-answer sociological questions raised in Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale. In this thought-provoking work, two societies with completely opposite ideologies and concepts of freedom are juxtaposed in an attempt to answer these same questions. The first society is modern America with its relatively liberal customs and customs, and the second is Gilead, a totalitarian country. Christian theocracy taking control of America in the late 1980s to "save" it from pollution and declining birth rates. The novel's protagonist, Offred, uses two sets of images to document the history of these contrasting societies. She tells the reader with astonishing intensity and photographic clarity the images of her memories of her past life as an American woman, and those of her present life as a handmaid, or uterine slave, in the Republic of Gilead. Ironically, the images of Offred's life in Gilead, which are far more fantastical than Offred's past as a middle-class American, are told in the present tense, giving them a more solid tone and apparent reality than is used to describe her past life. The descriptive images that Offred uses to describe her experience ...... middle of paper ......ture allow a freedom that simply taking a photo cannot afford. Atwood created a society that uses not only visual images, but also images of social ethics and forgotten traditions. Perhaps the devices used to create such a society are complex, but the expected result is simple. Although Offred does not overtly pass judgment on her own experience, the imagery in Handmaid's Tale vividly employs the use of contrast between old and new so that readers can come to their own moral conclusions. It is obvious, however, from Offred's devastation that the dehumanization of women for any purpose is reprehensible. While this dystopian novel may seem like a fantasy, the politics it criticizes are very real. Atwood's images may never be captured on film (another essay?), but they have just as many repercussions for a sympathetic reader..