The Handmaid's Tale vs The Crucible

"Oh God, I pray... is this what you had in mind?"(Atwood 92)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood paints a picture of a religious society that has gone too far. In an article she wrote describing the after effects of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood discussed how she believed "much of the church's behavior and doctrine during its two millennia long existence as a social and political organization would have been abhorrent to the person after whom it is named"(the Guardian, 2012). The whole society revolved around an interpretation of a bible passage, in which Rachel cannot bear Jacob a child. Jacob becomes angry, and she decides to give her maid to her husband in order to 'bear Jacob children for her'. In The Handmaid's Tale, this passage is followed nearly word for word.
In the book, there was some sort of nuclear disaster that rendered many American women infertile. Apparently, Serena Joy, already having been a gospel singer, spearheaded the new movement to make repopulating the planet easier. But, in chapters 15 and 16 Serena Joy finds out that the movement she helped begin has become more than she bargained for. The interesting thing of the book is the twisting of strange bible passages to give reason for a society that demoralizes and oppresses women. It seems as if this is a look back at the condition of women in an earlier time.
The choosing of a Puritanical Society as Margaret Atwood's base makes sense. Puritan's were among the first settlers in the colonies. Their form of religion was unhealthy, because in their search to be perfect people, they became obsessed with seeking out the damned and condemning them. This is the basis for The Crucible by Arthur Miller. In Puritanical society, it was believed that most people were going to hell, and at some points nothing could be done about it. Perfection as a responsibility was thrown on over paranoid people who were scared of what lay beyond. This lead to mass paranoia in villages like Salem Village, where the Salem Witch Trials took place. The inhabitants were constantly looking for evil in everything that went wrong for them. Mrs. Putnam, who lost a number of children, couldn't deal with the possibility of being infertile, so she blamed her midwife, Rebecca Nurse, for killing her children. This lead to Mrs. Nurse being hung. This was similar the the role of the Eyes in The Handmaid's Tale, who kept everyone on their toes, in paranoia, ready to attack each other. A god who was supposed to be a 'savior' for the people was used as a weapon for oppression in the Handmaid's Tale, as it was in Puritan society.