Gileadan Empire

 Every state is evil. And if I am going to personify them, then it is fair to say some states are on another level of evil.  If the average state is petty and cruel bully then an empire is a malicious and ingenious sociopath. The empire has no limit to its hunger for power and size. It not only wishes to exert as much power as possible over its subjects, but it wishes to have as many subjects as possible as well.

This book, undeniably, had a lot to do about the nature of power and the state. We can tell from the historical notes part of the book that Margaret Atwood was thinking about empire consciously when it is stated "no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature: control of the indigenous by members of their own group". This is one of the necessary strategies of the imperial state. The early American empire used it against the Native Turtle Islanders, the British Empire used it in India, And the Roman Empire used it on barbarian tribes on every possible border. It was even used by Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, arguably the first empire ever, against the city-states of Sumer.
   
In this section she also stresses the importance of the cultural impositions of the regime. Part of this cultural dominance is the aesthetics of day to day life. All of the costumes that each social class wears was carefully planned out to highlight the role and position of each. More importantly though is the neologisms, as well as the slang, created by the regime. The vocabulary created is even more closely analyzed than the costumes. The naming of the Aunts, for example, to pleasant sounding brand names is a great tactic that Gilead uses to make the first generation of women not fear them. The slang that arose from this society is even more important at normalizing the state's behaviors than the imposed vocabulary of Gilead itself. The term "shredders"  is used as a way to cope with the horror of the empire's infanticide but in the end might also end up being used to rationalize the practice.