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Fiction that takes place in a setting outside of the real world. It often involves supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements. Overall, it must incorporate some form of the fantastic.

Speculative fiction can include science fiction, fantasy, and horror. However it can also include more specific genres. For example, alternate history, post-apocalyptic, superhero, supernatural, utopian and dystopian.

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-Reveals a sense of responsibility and obligation to others to make a record of what they have experienced and make these accounts available for future generations.
-A witness to their experiences through writing diaries, for future generations. If there were not a record of these experiences, then who would have told the details of the stories that most were not able to survive to tell.

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-Helps reader to comprehend a spiritual reality
-Author or narrator is a witness and acts as a chronicler of devastation and destruction in their society.

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A futuristic imagined universe where oppressive societal control creates an illusion of a perfect society through cooperate control.
Propaganda that pushes change by depicting a negative world.

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"Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci- fi is that which we're probably not going to see,"

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Type of literature that aims to ridiculessociety. It uses laughter as a weapon againt any target. The aim is to be entertaining; to show problems or offer a warning by poking fun. Atwood uses this literature for an attack on a society which she strongly disapproves of.

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Used in literature to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society

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-The Hunger Games
-Lord of the Rings
-Harry Potter
-Planet of the Apes
-Star Wars
-The Giver
-Divergent

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Laughter as a weapon; can be entertaining yet censorious (highly critical/judgemental)

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The use of humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues

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Offred records her story the best as she can; then she hides it, trusting that it may be discovered later by someone who is free to understand it and share it. This is an example of an act of hope for Offred. This shows that every recorded story implies a future reader.

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Coined in 1960s by Judith Merril who thought genres like 'science fiction' and ' fantasy' were too restrictive on authors.

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"If I hadn't have got my tubes tied, it could've been me. Say I was 10 years younger, it's not what you'd call hard work"-Cora chapter 1
-This quote is said joking to Offred, regarding how a woman's role in Gilead and the social hierarchy is structured based on their bodies. However, there is also an underlying, condescending tone that draws a parallel between our world and Gilead.

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Rebellion

Oppression

Revolutions

Wars

Overpopulation

Disasters

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"All dystopias are telling you is to make sure you've got a lot of canned goods and a gun" (Atwood).

, www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/15/margaret-atwood-interview-english-pen-pinter-prize.

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Atwood said The Handmaid’s Tale was powerful because it falls into a category known as “the literature of witness.” The protagonist writes her story, and then hides it in hope of a future reader.

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"I am so shrieking old," wrote Canadian author Margaret Atwood in a Reddit "ask me anything" earlier this week. At 77, the author of the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale is having a moment. The book's sales have surged, likely due to what some call the " Trump bump " for dystopian literature, and a Hulu adaptation of the story starring Elizabeth Moss will premiere on April 26.

Addressing the readers of Reddit and the New York Times in an essay on Saturday, Atwood offered clues to what has made The Handmaid's Tale a timeless-and chilling-classic.

It has basis in truth

Atwood's novel features Offred, a "handmaid" who is forced to bear children for the upper classes in a theocratic dictatorship set in the Republic of Gilead, once the US.

On Wednesday, she wrote of the proposed rollback of women's healthcare: "Who knew that this would ever have to be defended? Childbirth care, pre-natal care, early childhood care - many people will not even be able to afford any of it. Dead bodies on the floor will result. It is frightful. Then there is the whole issue of sexual violence being used as control - it is such an old motif."

She expanded upon this in the New York Times:

"The control of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet," she wrote. "Without women capable of giving birth, human populations would die out. That is why the mass rape and murder of women, girls and children has long been a feature of genocidal wars, and of other campaigns meant to subdue and exploit a population. Kill their babies and replace their babies with yours, as cats do; make women have babies they can't afford to raise, or babies you will then remove from them for your own purposes, steal babies - it's been a widespread, age-old motif."

In another Reddit AMA from 2014: "One of my rules for writing [ The Handmaid's Tale] was that I would not put anything into it that had not happened in human history or for which we did not already have the tools. I was drawing upon some very discouraging chapters in the human story. Having been born in 1939 and therefore having been a small child during the war and a less small one right after it, I was aware of the suddenness with which things we think are stable can change for the worse. So I have never thought, 'It can't happen here.'"

"The literature of witness"

In addition to a basis in history-and echoes in current events-Atwood said The Handmaid's Tale was powerful because it falls into a category known as "the literature of witness." The protagonist writes her story, and then hides it in hope of a future reader.

"Every recorded story implies a future reader Robinson Crusoe keeps a journal. So did Samuel Pepys, in which he chronicled the Great Fire of London. So did many who lived during the Black Death, although their accounts often stop abruptly. So did Roméo Daillaire, who chronicled both the Rwandan genocide and the world's indifference to it. So did Anne Frank, hidden in her secret annex."

"This is an act of hope," she wrote, and guessed that amidst today's political climate, many others may be writing their stories for a future reader at this very moment.

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Margaret Atwood gives the best explanation for why "The Handmaid's Tale" is so compelling today

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"I am so shrieking old," wrote Canadian author Margaret Atwood in a Reddit "ask me anything" earlier this week. At 77, the author of the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale is having a moment.

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The Lord of the Flies

The Handmaid's Tale

The Chrysalids

The Hunger Games

Divergent

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Human Development
Inductive Reasoning
Philosophy (Human Nature)

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Speculative refers to a hypothetical prediction based on foresight (intuition) and observing the possibilities rather than knowledge.

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-The Simpsons
-The Onion (fake news)
-Gulliver's Travels
-Scary Movie 5
-Deadpool
-Wolf of Wall Street
-Zoolander

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Society is the antagonist, society is against the protagonist.

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Dystopian literature refers to the genre of books about unpleasant or repressed societies, often propagandized as being utopian.

Google books

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•society is an illusion of a perfect world
•society required conformity
•citizens are preceived as being under constant surveillance by the government of those of power/privilege

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Sometimes, it intends to inspire social reform.

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A movement focused to gradual change within specific areas of society, rather the fundamental changes.

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The word dystopia comes from two ancient Greek words:
Dys: meaning bad
Topia: meaning place

It is not a synonym for post-apocalyptic

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-imaginative literature
-flawed fictional society
-a setting that completely disagrees with the authors culture/ era
-highly undesirable society
-science fiction
-explores political and social structures

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A genre of fictional writing which is used to explore social and political structures in a 'dark nightmare world'

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Usually controlled by a totalitarian government, meaning that the government is centralized and dictatorial. It requires complete submission to the state.

Totalitarian government takes over due to various reasons like overpopulation.

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Any fiction in which the "laws" of that world (explicit or implied) are different than ours.

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A place, state, or condition that is in ideal state

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Literature in which the author (main character) serves as a witness to offer their testimony on the destruction of their society

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To enable reader(s) the capture a protagonist's perspective of society.

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History
Culture
Antropothogy

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"Antithesis of those cheesy, escapist fantasies about talking squids in outer space" -Margaret Atwood

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In an article by Tarra Gaines,
"When asked about "how satire and humour can find fertile ground in Utopias" Atwood says, "you can't write a variation of the world without making a comment about the world you are making a variation about." and "I think it's what the French call Anglo-Saxon humour. It's funny and not funny at the same time."

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Over 30 years ago, E. Wiesel already acknowledged witness literature as an innovation of our times: “If the Greeks invented tragedy, the Romans the epistle, the Renaissance the sonnet, our generation invented a new literature: that of testimony.” [10]

http://webbut.unitbv.ro/BU2013/Series%20IV/BULETIN%20IV/02_SASU-L.pdf

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Witness perhaps refer to 'voice that cannot be head'

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"you don't tell a story only to yourself.  there's always someone else. a story is like a letter"