The Wicked Margaret Atwood

                                                               The Handmaid's Tale Opera

How can we not love writer Margaret Atwood? She is the award-winning author of novels, essays and  plays, but really a national icon. She is even the librettist for the opera based on her prescient 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale, a story of a totalitarian, quasi-theocratic Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the government of the United States The central character and narrator is a woman named Offred, one of the "handmaids"—a group of women who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the "commanders"—the ruling class of men in Gilead. The television adaptation of the novel has been hugely popular and the imagery of the oppressed handmaids has been used often in protests against misogyny. 

Of course, some feel that Atwood is anti-religous, which is not the case. She has written about her United Church of Canada experiences as a child in a reasonably positive fashion and she actually supports Christian environmental and social justice organizations in practical ways. She just isn't a fan of oppression in the guise of religion, including the control of women's reproductive rights. 

Atwood is a wicked woman, at least in terms of having a playful and sometimes wicked sense of humour. The Handmaid's Tale has been banned in some American communities and she attempted her own book burning in response. 

I'm trying to figure our whether it is her actual wry humour expressed in an open letter to the US of A regarding plagarism of the themes of The Handmaid's Tale or others channelling her. I won't include it all but I'll include the link and the first couple of paragraphs. 

 Dear United States of America: 

You are currently using my 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale as the template for your own dystopia and are doing so without my authorization, thereby violating U.S. copyright law. Adopting one or two aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale to rebrand the American Dream would be considered “fair use,” but all of them? 

Honestly, America, I get a Google alert every time you rip off one of my ideas. My condo strata filed a noise complaint, and Hulu producers banned me from The Handmaid’s Tale season 5 set due to my phone’s inceso you’ll understand my dismay at seeing you plagiarize the following key scenarios...sant pinging. It took me 18 months to write this book and to develop the nightmare world of Gilead, so you’ll understand my dismay at seeing you plagiarize the following key scenarios...

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/09/27/humour/margaret-atwood-cease-desist-letter-us-plagiarizing-handmaids-tale