2nd Reading Question

In "The handmaid's Tale" many of the events match events in our own real lives. One such event involves the birth defects causes from pollution, agent orange, nuclear waste and just plain contamination. Agent orange has caused birth defect such as spina bifida and contamination has caused many different types of structural malformations in newborns. Scientist have proved these events by their testing and observations of these specific birth defects in relationships to the higher concentrations of occurrences. You can read about these problems in many medical journals, magazines and even on the news. On place to look is at http://www.sbaa.org/site/pageserver?pagename=asb_agentorangefaq which gives some information on agent orange side affects. This is the same type of events as described in chapter 19 page 112 of "The Handmaid's Tale". The possibilities of birth defects and stillborns is taught to the women at the Red Center. Even though this is a fictional book, it does describe many of the events which could happen in the future if pollution and chemicals are not managed more closely to protect the future live.

Another event which happens in "The Handmaid's Tale" is terrorism. This country has already seen the effects terrorism can have on it, in just one day. The events of 9-11 not only caused the lose of uncountable live, it also cause transportation to stop, the stock market to close, and most of the state and federal governments to halt. This involved only four planes but the devastation is unbelievable (http://www.september11new.com). In "The Handmaid's Tale", we read a story that is completely based on the idea of the President and the congress all being killed. This problem is then further added to by the constitution being placed on suspension. By removing the rights of some people and giving others all the power to rule and control, we see the US as we know it turn into a prison for some and even worse for others (Chapter 28 page 174). People are killed just because of who they are and we have no more since of security which is the whole idea of terrorism. This is a fictional book but if we aren't careful, it could be us in some distant future.