Reductio ad absurdum is a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence.
Atwood's use of language in The Handmaid's Tale is almost mathematical. I felt that I could clearly see many of the locations and was often stopped in my tracks by the precision of her prose. She manages to make the confabulation of religious fundamentalism and extreme feminism convincing, and indeed there have been some regimes that sprung into existence since this book was written that might have used it as an inspiration rather than a warning.
