In Western culture there is a strong literary tradition in the creation of 'visions of the future' where writers create imagined worlds in the genre of dystopias. Writers of dystopias create frightening worlds which serve as a warning to their own societies of the consequences for individual freedom of state control. In a totalitarian regime, it is the dominant ideology of the state that determines the social hierarchy and the lives and thoughts of citizens with state surveillance being a common method of control. Margaret Atwood's dystopic fiction, The Handmaid's Tale, portrays a chilling future in which women are subjugated in Gilead, a theocracy and a patriarchal society based on religious fundamentalism and distorted biblical principles. Gilead strips Handmaids of their identity and freedom through indoctrination and through being defined solely in terms of their biological role. The film Gattaca, directed by Andrew Niccol, also depicts a chilling future where the status of citizens is defined in terms of their genetic composition. In a society driven by new eugenics, people conceived through natural means are termed INVALIDS, and are subject to discrimination. Despite the attempts in Gilead and Gattaca to exercise control and power over its citizens, the characters of Vincent and Offred reveal that resistance is possible. As long as the fundamental human values of hope, love and personal identity and the resilience of the human spirit remain, individuals are capable of triumphing over state control.
Repressive regimes use constant surveillance and fear of punishment to create a shadow of suspicion and mistrust. When faced with such oppression, hope is an essential attribute in the survival of the human spirit. In Gilead, the ever present fear of being caught by the state police, the Eyes, aims to eliminate any hope that escape is possible or that life could be different. The penalties which follow sedition and heresy are swift and brutal: the hangings...