Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is an epistolary tale whose 300 pages allow the reader to infer the structure of an entire apocalyptic society through the story of a character. The novel explores the author's speculation about how American society will evolve over the next century or two, creating a fictional historical account. The book ends with a scene from a historians' symposium, set even further into the future, in which the keynote speaker discusses a "soi-disant manuscript" of The Handmaid's Tale that has been discovered (Atwood 300). This 12-page talk allows the author to stimulate contemplation about how history as a whole should be documented and studied: are narratives or hard facts, subjectivity or objectivity, more effective for understanding the past? Atwood provokes reflection on the context and meaning of the book, on the message contained in the epilogical section “Historical Notes” and on the process of academic research in today's world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay It is important to note that The Handmaid's Tale is itself a symbol. This can be determined by recognizing that each element in the book means something else, many of these symbols are highlighted and explained by Atwood. For example, to highlight the importance of female fertility in future society, Gilead, as the narrator describes, “the great white canopy of Serena Joy's enormous colonial-style four-poster bed, hanging like a falling cloud above us, a cloud dotted with tiny drops of silver rain, which, if you looked at them closely, would become four-petalled flowers” ​​(Atwood 93). Further vivid visual imagery leads the narrator to reflect that the bed's canopy resembles a ship's sail. And he continues: “Bellied sails, it was said in the poems. Belly. Pushed forward by a swollen belly” (Atwood 93). The character's train of thought leads the reader from a fascinating and detailed description of a scene to an evidently symbolic comment. The Handmaid's Tale is peppered with such events; the author makes it clear throughout the book that almost everything has a second, more intricate meaning. The novel itself can therefore be considered to be a symbol. The suspicion grows in the reader that there is some kind of extra meaning in the book's sometimes bizarre epistolary form, and this is almost definitively confirmed in the final episode. Atwood undoubtedly disapproved of many aspects of American society, his rebuke prompting her to write a fiction of the dark future towards which she believed the country was heading. Stylized as a narrative, The Handmaid's Tale was likely intended with the dual purpose of being a compelling speculative piece and of the author demonstrating a way in which history can be written and understood. By the end of the book, it is clear that the symposium participants have a strong preference for factual history, although there appears to be an appreciation for primary sources. The event's keynote speaker's presentation is itself quite informative, with sentences such as: There was also a negative incentive: childless or infertile or elderly women who were unmarried could take service with their aunts and thus escape dismissal , and subsequent shipment to the infamous Colonies, which were made up of mobile populations used primarily as expendable toxic cleanup crews, although if you were lucky you might be assigned to less dangerous tasks, such as cotton picking and fruit picking. (Atwood 308) The details and commentary in this sentence are retained throughout.