From Atwood in interviews it was always intended to show that theocracy could happen in a Western Christian society, it drew upon earlier periods in Christian h

From Atwood in interviews it was always intended to show that theocracy could happen in a Western Christian society, it drew upon earlier periods in Christian history and took its title from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. She drew inspiration from the late 1970s Islamic revolution in Iran and openly paralleled that in the novel with a callout to a 'history book' Iran and Gilead: Two Late Twentieth Century Monotheocracies. If anything, though, it was a satirical extrapolation of the various social, political, and religious trends of the United States in the 1980s: the religious right discussing what they would do with/to women if they took power, the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and the Ronald Reagan administration.