Why does the heroine try to escape to Canada with her family in the beginning? I'm not remembering anything in the book or film about what happens to normal families under the Gilead regime. If they'd just stayed where they were and gone about their business, would they have been 'okay'?
shareBecause they want to get out of a country that has been taken over by crackpot religious fundamentalists. I don't think the film makes it quite as clear as the book, but women are disenfranchised in Gilead and aren't even allowed to learn to read, let alone be independent (apart from the Aunts who need to as part of their job). Even the elite Wives, who are the highest level of women, have restrictions imposed on them and must devote their whole lives to their husbands. Not really somewhere I imagine Kate and her husband want to raise their daughter.
shareRecently re-read the book. I'd forgotten about the jobs and bankcards.
shareI'm not remembering anything in the book or film about what happens to normal families under the Gilead regime.
The regime created an instant pool of such women by the simple tactic of declaring all second marriages and nonmarital liaisons adulterous, arresting the female partners, and, on the grounds that they were morally unfit, confiscating the children they already had, who were adopted by childless couples of the upper echelons who were eager for progeny by any means. (In the middle period, this policy was extended to cover all marriages not contracted within the state church.)share