AQA English Literature A-level

The Handmaid’s Tale

Overview of Text and Key Scenes

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Overview
Written in 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in Gilead, a totalitarian state run by a
theocratic regime in what used to be the USA. Environmental decline has led to a decreasing
fertility rate. Handmaids are women who are still fertile, and they are assigned to upper class
couples in order to bear them children. The story centres on one of these women, Offred. The story
is told using a non-linear narrative that includes flashbacks and repetitions, weaving together
Offred’s past and present. In the present, Offred has been assigned as a Handmaid to the
Commander and the Commander’s Wife. Throughout the novel, she remembers her time in the
Red Center, where Aunts train Handmaids to adhere to the regime. She also reminisces about her
life before Gilead, her childhood with her mother, her husband Luke and her friend Moira. Atwood
uses the novel to explore themes of patriarchy, class, and religious extremism.

Genre
The novel combines multiple genres: speculative fiction, dystopian fiction and tragedy.
● It is seen primarily as speculative fiction because the world described in it is not too
dissimilar from our own. Atwood is using the novel to speculate about what could
happen in the future. In the novel, we see that many of the main anxieties and
contemporary issues of the 1980s have led to the formation of Gilead, a theocratic
(meaning ruled by religion) regime. Atwood is suggesting that the rise of the religious far
right in the US, if left unchecked, could lead to the formation of a totalitarian state.
● Dystopian fiction is a genre which focuses on imagined societies where injustice, human
suffering and catastrophe are rife. Often, it is used to make a point about the political
state of the world. A well-known example of dystopian fiction is 1984 by George Orwell.
Published in 1949, Orwell imagines the year 1984, in which the UK has been replaced by a
totalitarian state and is run by a leader known as ‘Big Brother’. Interestingly, 1984 is the
year Atwood began writing The Handmaid’s Tale. Many similarities can be drawn between
the two novels.
● Tragedy usually refers to drama concerned with human suffering, but the term is also
applicable to other types of literature. Often, the characters undergo many traumatic
events and there is not necessarily a happy ending. A famous example of a tragedy is
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, in which both of the titular characters die at the climax
after much hardship. The Handmaid’s Tale can be seen as a tragedy because of the
continual suffering Offred experiences, and the fact that she has no obvious happy
ending.

Structure and Narration

The novel is split into parts, which are subdivided into chapters. The final chapter of the novel is
called ‘Historical Notes’ and is a lecture given by an expert on Gilead in the year 2195, many years
after the fall of the regime. Offred is the internal first-person narrator of the story, which we learn
in the ‘Historical Notes’ section has been found recorded on cassette tapes, long after Gilead is no
more. It follows a loosely non-linear narrative, meaning that it centres on the events which drive
the plot rather than following a strictly chronological timeline. Much of the narrative involves
flashbacks to the Red Center and to Offred’s life before the regime.

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Key Themes
● Survival
Survival, and issues of survival, are key to the plot. For Offred, there is a distinction between
mental and physical survival. She cannot control her physical survival, since her body is no
longer her own in the eyes of the state. It belongs to the Commander and to the regime. In the
new regime, Offred has no value outside her reproductive capacities, and consequently feels
herself fading: “I feel as if there’s not much left of me; they will slip through my arms, as if I’m
made of smoke, as if I’m a mirage, fading before their eyes.” (Chapter 14). While she mourns
the loss of her sense of self, this loss can also be seen as a survival strategy - survival for
Gileadean Handmaids is predicated on obedience and submission, and a strong sense of
herself, and her value would likely lead to over resistance and would therefore endanger her.
However, some sense of identity is important for her psychological survival. Through her
memories she regains some sense of identity and her ability to narrate these memories also gives
her a small sense of power: “if it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending.”
(Chapter 7). In this way, Offred develops mental strategies for surviving Gilead.

● Patriarchy
Patriarchy refers to systems of government and society that give men the most power and
actively exclude everyone else. In patriarchies, men have moral authority, leadership roles,
and control of laws and property. Gilead is an example of an extremely patriarchal society.
Women cannot own property, and not even their own bodies belong to them any more. They
cannot possess money and they cannot have jobs. Throughout the book, Offred compares the
patriarchy of Gilead to society before the regime, and sees that there are both similarities and
differences.

● Identity & Autonomy

Identity and autonomy are key themes to consider when looking at the novel. Offred’s struggle to
maintain her identity and humanity in the face of oppression is central to the story. Women in
Gilead are reduced to their functions in society; they are either Wives, Marthas, or Handmaids,
and don’t even get to keep their real names - Offred’s name refers to the Commander to whom
she belongs. Offred lacks bodily autonomy and often remembers the time before Gilead, when
she could use her body for pleasure in any way she pleased. Even though she can eventually
manipulate The Commander to some extent, he is always the one who is in control. Later in the
novel, she regains a feeling of autonomy through her relationship with Nick.

● Reproduction
Gileadean society is entirely structured around reproduction. Handmaids exist to maximise the
possibility of reproduction, but any offspring they produce automatically belong to the upper class
couples they are assigned to. The novel argues that to control women’s bodies for reproductive
purposes is unethical, given the suffering that it causes for Offred and other Handmaids.

“We are two-legged wombs, that’s all”

(Chapter 23)

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 ● Class & Oppression
Gilead is structured along pre-existing class lines, as well as having racist, anti-Semitic and
homphobic ideals (we see men hanged on the Wall for “homosexual activity”, and learn that
Jewish and non-white people have been forced to emigrate or be killed). Offred must leave the
house through the back door, harkening to how upper class Victorian households operated, with
the servants (lower class) segregated entirely from the upper classes.

Context
The book was written in 1984 in the US by Atwood, when she was living in West Berlin. It was a
time of intense political unrest, with people attempting to flee the GDR (German Democratic
Republic) into the West. Many were killed in the process of crossing the Berlin Wall. The Cold War
(1979-1985) was ongoing, and the threat of nuclear war between Soviet Russia and the West
was always present, which informed the idea of the Colonies as a radioactive wasteland. This
sense of imminent threat and political unrest informed many of the themes of the novel.
In the early 1980s, the AIDs pandemic was beginning to take hold of the public imagination, and
this may have had an impact on Atwood’s imagining of Gilead as a society struggling against
disease. Other anxieties at the time included environmental decline and over-industrialisation,
and arguments about climate change were just beginning to emerge. All of these concerns no
doubt had an impact on Atwood’s vision of the future in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Characters

● Offred: Offred is the first-person narrator and protagonist of the novel. Offred is a name
given to her signifying the Commander to whom she belongs; it means she is “Of Fred”.
She is a Handmaid, a fertile woman forced to bear children for infertile upper class
couples. The novel opens as she is placed on a new assignment in the home of the
Commander and Serena Joy, his wife. Throughout the novel she has flashbacks to her
indoctrination as a Handmaid at the Red Center, and to her life before the regime with her
husband Luke and her daughter.
● Serena Joy: A former gospel singer and the Commander’s Wife. Before Gilead she was an
anti-feminist activist campaigning for a
return to “traditional values”. She is proud of
her status as the Commander’s Wife, the
highest position a woman can hold in Gilead,
and she is cruel to Offred, who she sees as
inferior. At the same time, Serena is jealous
of Offred’s ability to get pregnant. In a
society that values reproduction so much,
Offred likely reminds Serena that she cannot
have children, which makes her feel
inadequate and resentful.
● The Commander: The patriarchal head of the household that Offred is assigned to at the
beginning of the novel.
● Aunt Lydia: An Aunt at the Red Center, tasked with re-educating and indoctrinating
women into accepting their fates as Handmaids. Offred remembers Aunt Lydia’s pro-Gilead
aphorisms throughout the novel.

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 ● Moira: Offred’s best friend from college, before Gilead. A lesbian and a feminist, she is
independent and defiant in the face of the regime. Eventually, she escapes from the Red
Center. Offred sees her again later in the novel at a private club, as a sex worker.
● Nick: A Guardian, an officer of Gilead who works at the Commander’s home as a
chauffeur and a gardener. Offred and Nick begin a secret affair after Serena Joy, in an
effort to get Offred pregnant, organises a union between them. It is unclear whether Nick is
a member of the Eyes, Mayday, or both.
● Ofglen: A Handmaid assigned to be Offred’s shopping partner. Ofglen is a member of the
underground group “Mayday”, working against the regime. Towards the end of the novel
Ofglen hangs herself when she is discovered.
● Cora: A servant at the Commander’s house. She is a Martha, an infertile woman who
carries out domestic work. She is more accepting of the regime than Rita, the other
Martha at work in the house.
● Janine: Offred meets Janine at the Red Center where they were training to be Handmaids
together. As a Handmaid, her name is Ofwarren. She manages to have a baby, which
causes a lot of envy in the other Handmaids, but the baby turns out to be an “Unbaby”,
born with deformities.
● Luke: Luke is Offred’s husband from before Gilead. They met and had an affair while he
was married to another woman, but he left his first wife for Offred. They have a daughter
together, and try to escape to Canada when the regime first takes power. They are
captured and separated, and never see each other again.
● Aunt Elizabeth: An Aunt at the Red Center who is attacked by Moira. She steals Aunt
Elizabeth’s uniform as a disguise to escape from the Center.
● Offred’s mother: A single parent and feminist activist, Offred remembers her mother in
flashbacks to her life before Gilead. At the Red Center, she sees archival footage of her
mother as a younger woman on an anti-rape protest called Take Back the Night.
● Rita: Rita is one of two Marthas, along with Cora, working in the Commander’s household.
She treats Offred with disdain at the beginning of her stay, and seems more at odds with
the regime.
● Professor Piexoto: The epilogue of the Handmaid’s Tale takes place in 2195. The
Professor is a guest speaker at a symposium, and has transcribed Offred’s tape-recorded
narratives. In his lecture he examines the historical context and significance of Offred’s
story.

Quick Summary

Part I: Night (Chapter 1)

● The book opens on a woman, who we later learn is named Offred, remembering her time
at the Red Center, a re-education centre for Handmaids. The Aunts, who teach at the
Center, are domineering and cruel, patrolling with cattle prods on their belts.
● Guards ensure the women don’t escape. Offred observes that the Handmaids long to
interact with the Guards if only so that they can barter an escape.
● At night, Offred describes the Handmaids secretly exchanging their names from
bed-to-bed when the Aunts aren’t watching. She lists the names.

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Analysis - Part I: Night
Atwood does not introduce us to our narrator or explain the intricacies of the world of Gilead
straight away. Instead, she alludes to both the familiar, with her descriptions of the gymnasium
and football field, and the unfamiliar, like the implied violence of the Aunts with their cattle prods
and the Guards with guns. This juxtaposition serves to make the reader uneasy and sets the
tone for the rest of the novel. It tells us that the world we are reading about is related to our own,
though we don’t learn how exactly until later in the book. Despite the ambiguity, we know from the
first chapter that the book takes place in a time where women have been completely
disempowered. The fact that they imagine using their bodies to barter escape with the Guards
further confirms this; the women have nothing to trade except themselves. The women
exchange names as a small act of defiance, retaining their humanity in the face of oppression.

Key Quotes

● “If only we could talk to them. Something could be exchanged, we thought,

some deal made, some trade-off, we still had our bodies. That was our
fantasy.”
The women at the Red Center have been completely stripped of their power and their
previous identities. We learn later that in Gilead, women cannot own money or have
jobs. The only tool they have to bargain with is their bodies. By using the word “we”, the
narrator speaks for all of the Handmaids at once, compounding the idea that under Gilead,
they have lost their individuality, and are now defined by their biological purpose
alone.

● “We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways,
watching each other’s mouths. In this way we exchanged names, from bed to
bed: Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.”
Readers have speculated that “June” is Offred’s real name (as it is in the TV adaptation)
since the rest of the names listed here are mentioned again later in the book - Atwood
mentions this directly in her 2019 introduction to the novel. The TV show also By trading
names under the cover of darkness, the women are holding on to their individuality in the
only way they can.

II: Shopping (Chapters 2 - 6)

Chapter 2
● Offred describes her new bedroom in the Commander’s house. It is sparse and
characterless, unlike the surrounding house which is large and expensive looking, and
anything that could be used to self-harm has been removed. Hearing the bell ring, Offred
must go shopping, and describes her outfit. Handmaids wear red, down to their gloves and
shoes. Her winged white bonnet protects her from being seen; and from seeing.
● Offred goes into the kitchen to get shopping tokens from Rita, a Martha, who treats her with
hostility and disinterest.

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 ● Offred leaves through the back door, and the scene changes to a flashback to five weeks
ago, when Offred first arrived at her posting, and when she first met the Commander’s
Wife. The Commander’s Wife tells Offred what she expects of her. She asserts her
position as a Wife and therefore superior to Offred, and is territorial about her husband.
● Offred realises she recognises the Commander’s Wife from before Gilead. She was a
gospel singer on religious TV called Serena Joy.

Chapter 4
● On her way out, Offred passes Nick, a low-status Guardian, washing the Commander’s
car. He sees Offred looking at him and winks at her, a forbidden act. She wonders if he is
testing her, and he is a spy for the regime, known as an “Eye”.
● Offred meets Ofglen, another Handmaid. They are to chaperone each other on shopping
outings. As they show their passes to the Guards at a checkpoint, Offred imagines
returning there at night and using her body as a bargaining tool. Offred finds herself
enjoying the limited power she has as an object of desire in the eyes of these men.

Chapter 5
● On the way to the shops, Offred reminisces walking the same streets with her husband
Luke before the regime. Further into the town, Offred remembers how she sometimes felt
unsafe as a woman in the times before Gilead, though she had much more control over
her body and freedom.
● Once at the store, a pregnant Handmaid walks in. She has successfully carried out her
duty as a Handmaid and is pregnant with a Commander’s child. Offred recognises her as
a woman from the Red Center called Janine, who she never liked.
● As Offred and Ofglen leave the shops, they come across a guided group of Japanese
tourists. The women are dressed in the Western style of times before Gilead. They are
fascinated by the two Handmaids and ask if they are happy, via their interpreter. Offred
lies and says they are very happy, worried the interpreter could be an Eye.

Chapter 6
● En route home from shopping, Ofglen suggests
they walk past the church. It is now a museum
to the history of white Puritan settlers.
Walking past old dormitories, a football stadium,
and a boathouse, it is implied that they are
walking through what was formerly a University
campus.
● Opposite the church is the Wall, where enemies of Gilead are executed and hung on
public display. There are six corpses, and all wear a sign on their necks with a fetus,
signifying that they were put to death for performing abortions before Gilead. They are
being retroactively punished for their crimes.

Analysis - Part II: Shopping

As Offred’s narrative develops, terms like “Angel”, “Aunts” and “Handmaid” are introduced to us but
never directly explained. Rather, as the novel progresses the structure of Gilead is revealed
bit-by-bit. The mundanity of Offred’s daily activities, familiar to all of us, is at odds with the
horrors that she witnesses as she goes about them. In Part III, we are introduced to the

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Commander’s Wife, a former anti-feminist activist who campaigned for the life she now has but
seems unhappy all the same. Themes of class
inequality are also introduced, as Offred has to use
the back door to leave the house, is treated with
disdain by the other domestic staff, and meets Nick. In
Part III we are also more firmly introduced to the idea
that Gilead exists in the not too distant future, in what
used to be the USA. At the Wall, criminals are
executed for their past crimes before Gilead, which we
are led to believe is around the late twentieth century -
Atwood wrote the novel in 1984.

Key Quotes

● “This is the kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, made by women, in their spare
time, from things that have no further use. A return to traditional values. Waste not
want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?” (Chapter 2)
Referring ambiguously to what “they” like, we sense that Offred is powerless to the whims of
those in charge, even down to making her own aesthetic choices. The traditional values to
which she refers are the idea that women are best suited to home-making, domestic work, and
repdroduction. She uses the old proverb “Waste not want not”, which has Victorian
associations, and further implies to us that the world she lives in has taken a lot of its influences
from the past. She questions the truth of the proverb, a phrase mostly used to talk about
resources, and applies it to her own body, thus objectifying herself.

● “They used to have dolls, for little girls, that would talk if you pulled a string at the
back; I thought I was sounding like that, voice of a monotone, voice of a doll.”
(Chapter 3)
Here, Offred again likens herself to an inanimate object, signifying her loss of humanity under
the regime. Her relationship with Serena Joy only exists in order to carry out biological function.
Offred’s permitted conversation is limited, and scripted to specific religious phrases, just like a
doll with pre-recorded speech. In this instance, Atwood is implying that Serena Joy is the little girl
and Offred is her doll, which also can be seen as a comment on their class differences.

● “To be seen - to be seen - is to be - her voice trembles - penetrated. What you must
be, girls, is impenetrable. She called us girls.” (Chapter 5)
Offred describes an instance of Aunt Lydia’s teachings at the Red Center. Aunt Lydia’s allusion to
sexual activity is a reflection of the religious doctrine that governs Gilead. She is implying that
the women must aim to be pure, and this has a scriptural basis - for example, the Bible says
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). In Gilead, purity brings you
closer to God. Aunt Lydia also patronises the women by calling them girls, reinforcing her own
place in the hierarchy of power.

Part III: Night (Chapter 7)

Chapter 7
● Offred remembers her former life at night; talking to her friend Moira in their dorm room at
college, walking with her mother in the park and coming across women burning books and

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 pornographic magazines. Offred cannot remember large portions of her life and wonders
whether she has been injected or given a pill in order to forget.
● She recalls waking up in an unfamiliar place, where authorities from the regime tell her she
was an unfit mother to her daughter, who they have taken away. Offred imagines she is
recounting these events as a story to someone, because then she has control over the
ending.

Analysis - Part III: Night

Throughout the novel, we see Offred reliving her memories as a form of escapism and a way of
surviving the mental anguish of her life in Gilead. In Part III we see her do this in the form of
several flashbacks. In one such flashback, a young and unknowing Offred participates in the
burning of misogynistic material as part of a public protest with her mother, introducing us to the
political struggles between feminism and the belief in male superiority which led to Gilead.

Quotes
● “The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as
I don’t move. As long as I lie still.” (Chapter 7)
Though we can interpret Offred as passive and accepting of the oppressive conditions she is
living in, she disrupts her oppression in moments like these. Though she cannot legally own
material property or wealth in Gilead, she can ‘own’ the time when she is alone.

Part IV: Waiting Room (Chapters 8 to 12)

Chapter 8
● On their next shopping trip, Offred and Ofglen see three new bodies on the Wall. Two are
Guardians, executed for homosexual activity, and one is a Catholic priest. On the walk
home, they come across a funeral procession of Econowives, the wives of poor
Guardians, mourning the miscarriage of an early fetus. These women treat the Handmaids
with disdain.
● When Ofglen leaves after shopping she says goodbye, but Offred thinks she wants to say
more. At the driveway, she ignores Nick when he breaks the rules and asks her about her
walk. Seeing Serena Joy, Offred remembers how she campaigned for women to stay in the
home before Gilead. Offred wonders whether Serena Joy is satisfied with the results of her
activism, now that she is permanently stuck at home under the regime.
● Upstairs, Offred sees the Commander standing outside her room, which is not allowed.
He nods at her and leaves.

Chapter 9
● Back in her room, Offred longs for her husband Luke. She remembers waiting for him in
hotel rooms when they first got together and he was cheating on his wife.
● She remembers finding the Latin words Nolite te bastardes carborundorum scratched into
her cupboard floor in the first few weeks of her stay. Offred doesn’t understand it, but she
feels a connection with the Handmaid who had this room before her, and who she
assumes wrote it. She associates this Handmaid with memories of her feisty best friend,
Moira. Later, she asks Rita about the last Handmaid, but Rita snubs her questions.

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 Chapter 10
● Offred sings songs to herself in her head. Though music is banned in Gilead, she has
heard Serena Joy humming, and listening to old recordings of herself when she was a
gospel singer.
● With summer approaching and the house getting hot, Offred thinks about the things women
used to be allowed to wear, before Gilead. She remembers Aunt Lydia at the Red Center
blaming the sexual violence against women that occurred before Gilead on how they used
to dress. Offred remembers the relative freedom before Gilead, when Moira threw a party
at college to sell lingerie. She remembers reading about sexual violence against women in
the news at the time, but felt it was far away from her own experience.

Chapter 11
● All Handmaids are tested monthly for disease and pregnancy by a Doctor. Offred went for
her visit yesterday. At the Doctor’s office, a sheet prevents her from seeing his face during
her examination. Though it is forbidden, the Doctor talks to her in a casual and cheerful
way, and offers to have sex with her to improve her chances of pregnancy, saying most
Commanders are sterile or too old.
● This statement shocks Offred, since the state does not acknowledge male sterility
anymore. In Gilead, the blame always lies with the woman if a couple cannot get pregnant.
She refuses his offer, but tries to sound grateful. She is frightened because she
recognises that the doctor has the power to list her as infertile -- an Unwoman -- and she
will be sent to the Colonies.

Chapter 12
● Today is one of the days Offred is required to bathe. The door is kept unlocked and
everything that could be used to self-harm has been removed. Cora waits outside until
Offred is done. Offred feels disconnected from her own naked body, remembering her
ownership of her body in the world before Gilead. It is hard to imagine now.
● She remembers a woman trying to kidnap her five year old daughter in the supermarket. It
has been three years since. Offred often thinks of her daughter as a ghost, since it is easier
to imagine her dead, where the authorities cannot hurt her.
● At dinner she steals a pat of butter from the table to take to her room.

Analysis - Part IV: Waiting Room

In Part IV, we learn at the Wall that the regime is not just oppressive of women, but is also against
homosexuality and any religious belief that doesn’t align with that of the state. We also see
themes of pro-life politics in the funeral held for the fetus. Offred examines the hypocrisy of
Serena Joy’s lifestyle before Gilead and her pro-regime values now. Serena Joy was an
anti-feminist campaigner who travelled and gave speeches, both activities which are denied her
now under the regime. Offred’s attitude towards Serena Joy is initially sympathetic and hopeful
that the Wife will be lenient, but it quickly becomes apparent that Serena Joy takes an
enthusiastic role in enacting female oppression, a theme which reappears throughout the
book. In the Doctor’s office, Offred is presented with
an uncomfortable Catch-22: accept sex from the
Doctor and risk both of their lives, or deny him and
risk his revenge. This situation is one of many
throughout the novel which serve to emphasise
Offred’s total lack of power.

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We learn that not only is Offred heartbroken from the loss of her husband, but that she is also
mourning the loss of her daughter. For the rest of the book, Offred’s grief for her daughter is one
of her few driving forces.

Key Quotes
“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the
edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between stories.” (Chapter
Ten)
● Offred here is talking about the times before Gilead. She is hinting at her own political
apathy, which is at odds with her mother’s strong feminist convictions. By using the word
“We” instead of “I” she is acknowledging that she was not alone in her apathy, and that
most of society was ignoring the rise of religious extremism that led to Gilead. She
describes her position of privilege in the time before Gilead, when she knew oppression
against women was rife, but since it wasn’t happening to her, she did nothing to fight it. In
other words, she’s complacent. Earlier in the Chapter she says of those times that “We
lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work
at it.” People were aware of the dangers of the religious far right, but collective cognitive
dissonance meant that nobody did anything to stop its rise in popularity. Offred could
easily be talking about the world as we know it now. Atwood uses descriptions of the world
before Gilead to warn the reader that such dystopia is always possible. When Offred talks
about being someone who “lived in the gaps between stories”, this is an example of irony,
since the novel we are reading centres on her.

“Sterile. There is no such thing as a sterile man any more, not officially. There are only
women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law.” (Chapter 11)
● Semantics are different in Gilead. The state no longer recognises male sterility as a
possibility and only women can be blamed for infertility, to the extent that the word ‘sterile’
itself is banned. Atwood is emphasising the relative fragility of universal civil rights,
which can be taken away or disrupted at the whim of those in charge. Further, Atwood is
undermining the idea of the law as sacred; it is actually just a set of rules made up by the
people with the most power.

Part V: Nap (Chapter 13)

● After dinner, Offred finds herself remembering when Moira first arrived at the Red Center,
three weeks after she got there herself. They are too scared to speak to each other at first
because friendships arouse suspicion, but arrange to meet in the bathroom and exchange
a few words.
● At the Center everyone must “Testify” about their previous lives. Janine describes how she
was gang-raped at fourteen and had to have an abortion. The Handmaids are made to
blame her for the experience and shame her for being emotional.
● Offred thinks about how her relationship to her body has changed. Before Gilead, it was her
own, used for pleasure. Now, her body is walking uterus. Menstruation represents
shame each month because it means pregnancy has failed.
● She remembers running through the woods carrying her daughter, trying to escape
Gilead. Hearing gunshots, she tries to keep her daughter quiet but the girl is too young to
understand. Upon capture, her daughter is torn from her.

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Analysis Part V: Nap
Offred is heartbroken at the loss of Luke and her daughter, but many of her fondest memories are
of her best friend, Moira. Along with Offred’s mother, Moira represents the modern feminist. At
the Red Center, contrary to ideas espoused by the feminist movement, women are encouraged
to blame each other for the way men have abused them in the past. Testifying is a technique
practiced at the Red Center to teach women to uphold the patriarchy against each other.

Key Quotes
“She looked disgusting: weak, squirmy, blotchy, pink, like a newborn mouse. None of us
wanted to look like that, ever. For a moment, even though we knew what was being done to
her, we despised her.” (Chapter 13)
● In a moment of enforced vulnerability, Janine (Ofwarren) ‘testifies’ about her gang-rape at
the age of fourteen and her resulting abortion. Aunt Lydia encourages the women to
blame Janine for this horrific act of violence, revealing Gilead’s essential hatred of
women, which encourages them to blame themselves for men’s actions. A commonly
critiqued expression of the last fifteen years is the phrase “What were you wearing?” which
has been asked of women after sexual assault, implying that their clothing choices are the
reason they were assaulted. This is misogynistic and places the blame on women when
really, the perpetrator of the assault is responsible. Offred explains that even though the
women are aware that what they are doing to Janine is unfair, they have already begun to
see her as repulsive because of her past, proving that the brainwashing at the Red
Center has already begun to take hold.

Part VI: Household (Chapters 14 to 17)

Chapter 14
● It is time for the Ceremony. The whole household assembles in the master bedroom and
waits for the Commander. Nick touches Offred’s foot with his and she moves it away, but he
does it again. Even though it’s forbidden, Serena Joy allows them to watch the news on
TV while they wait for the Commander to arrive.
● Offred remembers purchasing fake passports with Luke in order to try and escape across
the border. They give their daughter a sleeping pill so that she will not give them away, and
pack nothing in the car to avoid suspicion.

Chapter 15
● The Commander arrives. From an ornate box he reads Bible verses that emphasise
childbearing, and Serena Joy cries. Offred knows these verses from the Red Center, and
remembers Moira faking an illness to try and escape by offering sex to the ambulance
operators. She is reported and tortured by the Aunts as punishment.

Chapter 16
● Once the Bible reading and prayers are finished, Offred lies with her head in Serena Joy’s
lap, holding her hands, and the Commander has impersonal, profunctory sex with her.
When he is finished he leaves, wordlessly.
● Serena Joy angrily tells Offred to leave too, even though she is supposed to lie with her
hips up for ten minutes to improve her chances of pregnancy.

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 Chapter 17
● Back in her room, Offred uses the butter she stole earlier as a lotion for her skin, a trick she
learnt at the Red Center. Unable to sleep, she goes downstairs to steal a daffodil from the
flower display. She wants to press it and leave it for the next Handmaid.
● In the sitting room, she runs into Nick. Neither of them are allowed to be there. They kiss
and Offred feels very sexually attracted to him. Nick says the commander wants to meet
her in his office tomorrow.

Analysis - Part VI: Household

In this chapter we finally see the chilling practical reality of being a Handmaid. Part of Gilead’s
efforts to disempower its citizens include stripping people of types of privacy previously believed
to be sacrosanct. In the religious theocracy of Gilead, sex is no longer a private action for
personal pleasure, but happens only for the purposes of reproduction. The Bible is a literal
part of this process since it is read before the Ceremony, but it also informs the actions of
Ceremony itself. At the beginning of the novel, Atwood quotes a passage from the Bible (Genesis
30:1-3) which is continually referenced as the story unfolds. Rachel, having been unable to get
pregnant, tells her husband Jacob “Give me children, or else I die”. This angers him, and she
tells him to have sex with her maid Bilhah instead in order to produce a child for her. Rachel’s
logic has been taken literally in Gilead and applied to the Handmaids.

Key Quotes
● “To be a man, watched by women. It must be entirely strange. To have them watching
him all the time.” (Chapter 15)
Here, Atwood flips the idea of the male gaze on its head, focusing instead on how the Commander
must feel with all of the women in the house observing him. Offred cannot help but scrutinise
him. In Gilead, women are not permitted to be looked at, which is why they must wear their white
bonnets.

● “I do not say making love, because that is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would
be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does
rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for. There wasn’t a lot
of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.” (Chapter 16)
Offred struggles to define what it is that happens to her during the Ceremony. The absence of
love, and indeed, any relationship between her and the Commander, the humiliation of having
everyone in the house witness, all cause Offred to disconnect from her body completely. Though
she denies that it is an act of sexual violence, a feminist interpretation would contest this.
Already, Offred is blaming herself for what is happening to her body, just as she was taught at the
Red Center. Offred believes she had a choice, but her choice was between certain death in the
Colonies or the institutionalised, repeated rape expected of Handmaids. Offred’s logic is
skewed, but it is a survival mechanism. By denying the idea that she is being raped, Offred can
avoid dealing with the emotional trauma of the event.

Part VII - Night (Chapters 18)

Chapter 18
● Offred lies in bed and thinks about Luke. She remembers lying in bed with him while
pregnant with their daughter. She imagines he’s dead or in prison. Then, she imagines he

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 has escaped across the border and that one day soon, she will receive a message from
him. She expects all three scenarios at once as a way of managing her expectations.

Analysis
Offred’s attitude towards survival includes more than just staying alive. Throughout the book,
Offred uses memories of her family and friends to help her manage her emotional state as best
she can in order to avoid sinking into depression completely, as many Handmaids do. We
understand that Offred believes if Gilead were to break her spirit, that would be them winning, and
she will not let them win.

Key Quotes
● “The things I believe can’t all be true, though one of them must be. But I believe in all
of them, all three versions of Luke, at one and the same time. This contradictory way
of believing seems to me, right now, the only way I can believe anything. Whatever
the truth is, I will be ready for it.” (Chapter 18)
Shaken after the Ceremony, Offred thinks about Luke. She cycles through all the potential
scenarios she can imagine that might have happened to him. This is an example of one of
Offred’s individual survival mechanisms. In Chapter 2, she tells us “I intend to last”, and this
means mentally as well as physically. Throughout the novel we see examples of Offred’s mental
fortitude in the face of the regime, and this is one such example.

Part VIII: Birth Day (Chapters 19 - 23)

Chapter 19
● Offred dreams of hugging her daughter, and of waking up as her mother comes in with a
breakfast tray. Breakfast that day at the Commander’s House is interrupted by the sirens
of the Birthmobile. Ofwarren is going into labour, and the Handmaids must go and
witness.
● On the way to the birth, Offred remembers Aunt Lydia at the Red Center explaining the
declining birth rate. Environmental decline and toxification has poisoned one in four
women, leading to birth defects. According to Aunt Lydia, women who do not want to
breed are ‘lazy sluts’. Women in labour are no longer allowed pain relief because God
wants them to suffer.
● At the house of Ofwarren, the district’s Wives arrive. They will also witness.

Chapter 20
● The Wife of Warren lies in the sitting room mimicking labour with the Wives watching. In
the master bedroom, the Handmaids watch Ofwarren give birth. Offred remembers a film
shown at the Red Center about “Unwomen”; feminists from the old days. Offred
recognised her mother in some footage of an anti-rape march. Offred and her mother
often fought because her mother thought Offred ungrateful for her own feminist
struggles. Now, Offred wishes she could see her mother again despite the tension that
existed between them.

Chapter 21
● Under the cover of a chant to help Ofwarren give birth, one of the Handmaids asks Offred if
she is looking for anyone. Offred tells her about Moira. The Handmaid is looking for a

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 woman named Alma, and they both agree to look out for women matching their
description. Their conversation is interrupted by the wary glance of an Aunt.
● Ofwarren and the Wife of Warren sit on a birthing stool together and the baby is born, a
girl with no visible deformities. She is given to the Wife of Warren, who now lies in the
master bed. Ofwarren will now be transferred to a new Commander, after nursing the
baby for a few months. Because she has carried out her duty and given birth, she will
never be sent to the Colonies and doesn’t have to live under the constant threat of
violence or death.

Chapter 22
● On the way back from the birth, Offred remembers Moira’s escape from the Red Center.
She tied Aunt Elizabeth up in the furnace room and exchanged their clothing, then left the
Center in disguise using Aunt Elizabeth’s pass. That was the last time Offred saw or
heard from her.

Chapter 23
● Back at home, Cora expresses her hope that soon the Commander and his Wife will have
a child.
● That night Offred leaves her room to meet the Commander in his quarters. She is terrified
that if they get caught she will be sent to the Colonies, but also knows that to refuse him
would also be dangerous because he holds all the power in the house.
● In his book-filled study, Offred is surprised when the Commander asks her to play Scrabble,
an activity forbidden to her since women are banned from reading. The game feels
hedonistic to Offred.
● When she leaves, the Commander asks her for a kiss. She imagines murdering him in his
vulnerable state. She kisses him and he seems disappointed, saying he wanted her to
kiss him like she meant it.

Analysis - Part VIII: Birth Day

In ‘Birth Day’ we see the ideal result expected of the Handmaids. During the labour, we see the
separation of women according to class, with the Wives (higher class) in the sitting room and
the Handmaids (lower class) in the bedroom. In Gilead, as in many misogynistic societies today,
sex outside of marriage is seen to defile women. Even though the purpose of the Handmaids is to
reproduce for Gilead, the fact that they must have sex with married men makes them inferior in
the eyes of society. It is as if the existence of Handmaids is a necessary evil in order to counter
the declining birth rate. We also see an opportunity arise for Offred: manipulating the
Commander. In this way, Offred can wield the little power she has to benefit herself.

Key Quotes
● “The chances are one in four, we learned that at the Center. The air got too full, once,
of chemicals, rays, radiation, the water swarmed with toxic molecules, all of that
takes years to clean up, and meanwhile they creep into your body, camp out in your
fatty cells.” (Chapter 19)
One of the recurring themes of the novel is environmental decline because of human activity.
During the 1980s, when the novel was written, environmental concerns around toxic waste,
radioactive material and acid rain were becoming more popular. Anxiety over these concerns
was growing in society. In Gilead, over-industrialisation and capitalistic greed has decimated

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the environment, and radiation poisoning is a constant threat. Atwood wrote the novel at the end
of the Cold War, when the US was in constant threat of nuclear attack from Soviet Russia, and
the idea of nuclear apocalypse had captured the popular imagination. At the time it was
published, the horrors of the world depicted in the novel would have seemed an entirely possible
scenario.

● “Mother, I think. Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women’s
culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for
small mercies.” (Chapter 21)
Offred is calling for her mother, after witnessing Ofwarren’s labour. Giving birth, in contemporary
times, is an incredibly private occasion, featuring only people close to the mother. In Gilead, as
with the Ceremony, giving birth is a public act and everyone is involved. It is another example of
the way the individual rights of women have been taken away in Gilead. It makes sense that
Offred misses her mother while watching Ofwarren become one. Offred says that in Gilead there is
a ‘women’s culture’, and though it’s not the feminist utopia that her mother campaigned for, the
statement is partly true. The segregation of men and women in Gilead has provided a ‘women’s
culture’ in kind.

Part IX: Night (Chapter 24)

Chapter 24
● Returning to her room, Offred decides to focus on how to manipulate her present situation,
using the limited power she has with the Commander. She remembers Aunt Lydia’s
teachings that all men are sex machines. Offred realises this provides the opportunity to
bargain.
● Offred remembers watching a historical documentary about the mistress of a guard at a
Nazi concentration camp. She denied knowing about the death camps and asserted that
her lover was not a bad person, but killed herself days after conducting the interview.
● Abruptly, Offred finds the events of the evening hysterically funny and has to stifle her
laughter from erupting. She falls asleep with her head in the cupboard, resting where the
words Nolite te bastardes carborundorum are written.

Analysis - Part IX: Night

After her encounter with the Commander, Offred is full of adrenaline. She realises she has an
opportunity to bargain, and therefore the possibility to escape in future. Her laughter can be
interpreted in multiple ways. Possibly the adrenaline has made her delirious and hysterical.
Another possibility is that she relishes undermining the absolute power of the regime by laughing
at it. Breaking from her normal routine, she falls asleep with her head near the graffiti in her
cupboard. This is a touching moment, implying her solidarity with the previous Housemaid and
her need to feel emotionally connected to another person.

Key Quotes
“Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing.
You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good. Lead them around by the nose; that
is the metaphor. It’s nature’s way. It’s God’s device. It’s the way things are. Aunt Lydia did
not actually say this, but it was implicit in everything she did say.”
● In Part IX, we see the first sliver of an opportunity for Offred. The Commander is interested
in her and in bending the rules. He is attracted to her, and though she cannot truthfully
reciprocate, she realises that she can utilise his attraction in order to barter for things in

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 return. Offred remembers Aunt Lydia’s twisted teachings at the Red Center, which
characterised men as animals unable to control their sexual desires. This attitude is not
unheard of even today, in patriarchal societies, as a way of explaining away men’s
inappropriate behaviour without holding them accountable for it. Atwood includes many
familiar tropes like this in the novel, highlighting how we are never far away from a social
dystopia if we do not fight to protect our civil liberties.

Part X - Soul Scrolls (Chapter 25 - 29)

Chapter 25
● Offred is woken by a scream as Cora finds her with her head in the cupboard in the
morning. Cora had assumed Offred had tried to kill herself. Offred says she fainted.
● It is summertime now, and Offred has continued to meet the Commander at night time,
using Nick and a system of signals to ensure Serena Joy does not find out.
● Offred and the Commander continue to play Scrabble, and he does not try to kiss her
again. He lets her read an old copy of Vogue magazine. She asks him for hand lotion. She
tells him she has been using butter instead and he laughs at her, much to her irritation.

Chapter 26
● Offred feels embarrassed during the Ceremony now that she has a friendship with the
Commander. She begins to feel jealous of Serena and also guilty that she is going behind
her back with the Commander.
● The Commander almost touches Offred’s face during a Ceremony and Offred tells him
never to do it again, or Serena Joy will have her sent to the Colonies. He complains that he
finds sex impersonal, and Offred scoffs. She is becoming more trusting in his presence.

Chapter 27
● Offred and Ofglen are more comfortable with each other, and continue to shop together.
Offred wonders if Luke is imprisoned in the detention center behind the Wall. On one
shopping trip, they stop at a store called Soul Scrolls, which prints phone-order prayers
for the Wives to signify their piety.
● Oflgen asks Offred if she believes God listens to the printing machines. This kind of
question is treason in Gilead, but Offred decides to answer truthfully and says no. The
two women realise they can trust each other and feel invigorated. We learn that Ofglen is
part of an underground resistance group called Mayday. On the way home a van for the
Eyes stops near them and takes a man off the street. Offred is relieved, having thought it
might be for her and Ofglen because of their treasonous conversation.

Chapter 28
● Offred remembers Moira disapproving of her affair with Luke. We learn that Moira was a
lesbian. Offred has been given a fan in her room because of the summer heat, and she
thinks about how if she were Moira she’d use the blades as a weapon.
● Offred thinks back to the fall of the United States. The President and Congress were
executed and the Constitution suspended. Roadblocks appeared and widespread
censorship began. Moira warned Offred something bad was going to happen. Offred tries
to use her bank card and realises it has been suspended. She goes to her job as a
librarian only to find that all female staff have been fired, and soldiers appear to escort
women out.

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 ● Back at home, Offred learns from Moira that women can no longer legally hold jobs or
own money, only men can. As Luke tries to comfort her, she wonders if he is already
beginning to patronise her. She realises the soldiers she saw at the library were not US
soldiers, but some other army.
● She sees Nick out of the window with his hat askew, a signal meaning that the Commander
wants to see her that night. She wonders about Nick’s motivations for being involved. She
remembers the night she lost her job, when Luke wanted to have sex but she didn’t,
because she felt the power had shifted. She now belonged to him, legally, and she was
worried that he enjoyed it.

Chapter 29
● One night, after their game of Scrabble, Offred says she wants to talk. He concedes to her
questions but answers evasively. She asks him to translate the Latin in her room, and he
reveals that it means “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”. Offred thinks the previous
Handmaid must have learnt it from him, and asks what happened to her. We learn that
Serena Joy found out about their night time meetings and the Handmaid hung herself.
Offred realises the Commander feels guilty about her situation, and knows she can use his
guilt to manipulate him. She asks him for information about what’s going on in the world.

Analysis - Part X: Soul Scrolls (Chapter 25 - 29)

‘Part X’ reveals a lot of information we have been missing up until now. Offred details the events
that led to the fall of the US and the beginning of Gilead. We also see some of Offred’s
personality begin to seep through the cracks of the polished facade she puts on in order to
survive. She is beginning to feel comfortable in front of the Commander, even going so far as
asking him for hand lotion and gently mocking him. She also makes an important connection
with Ofglen, who she discovers is a member of an underground resistance group. ‘Part X’
represents the rising action of the overall narrative arc.

Key Quotes

“The Commander likes it when I distinguish myself, show precocity, like an attentive pet,
prick-eared and eager to perform. His approbation laps me like a warm bath. I sense in him
none of the approbation I used to sense in men, even in Luke sometimes. He’s not saying
bitch in his head. He’s positively daddyish.” (Chapter 29)
● Offred, in the relative safety of the Commander’s quarters, is able to study the man in
charge of her life. In contrast to the structural state violence of Gilead, the Commander
presents as quite a gentle figure, even while leading an active role in the governance of
the regime. Despite resenting him and finding him repulsive at times because of what he
represents, Offred finds she likes his attention. This is understandable, as she is otherwise
starved of human interaction. Though she cannot completely relax in his company, by
Chapter 29 she explains that much of the formality that restricts her daily life has
dissolved. She likens herself to a pet in his company, reflecting the power dynamic of
their class differences. She is learning what he likes and is modifying her behaviour to
suit - she knows that her ability to bargain will improve the more he likes her. Though her
behaviour with him is tactical, she is still enjoying it when he responds well.

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Part XI - Night (Chapter 30)
Chapter 30
● Later that night, Offred steals a sexually charged glance from Nick from her bedroom
window. She recalls trying to escape Gilead with Luke, and how they tried to leave
inconspicuously so their neighbours would not notice. Somebody must have reported
them, because their escape failed. Offred prays and thinks about suicide.

Analysis - Part XI: Night (Chapter 30)

In this chapter, Offred is losing her grip on her mental strength. Her loneliness is exacerbated
by seeing Nick, and knowing they cannot touch. She tries to remember the faces of her family
and her loved ones, and, finding it difficult, spirals into a depression. We see her praying to God
for the first time in the novel, suggesting that this is a moment of true despair. It is not clear
whether she actually believes in God or whether she is doing this to try and counteract her
loneliness. She contemplates suicide and we learn that she has thought about it before,
suggesting that her mental attempts to keep her spirits up have a deeper history.

Key Quotes
● “I try to conjure, to raise my own spirits, from wherever they are. I need to remember
what they look like. I try to hold them still behind my eyes, their faces, like pictures in
an album.” (Chapter 30)
Using the word “conjure”, Atwood is making a comment about the strength of the imagination.
So far, Offred’s ability to imagine herself out of Gilead has kept her sane, and alive. It has been
years since Offred has seen Luke or her daughter, and here we find her struggle to remember
what they look like. Offred calls them “spirits”, a result of not knowing whether they are alive or
dead. Earlier in the novel, Offred mentions that it is almost easier to imagine that they are dead,
because then she knows they aren’t suffering. Offred’s lived experience of Gilead is incredibly
bleak, enough to make her contemplate suicide - it makes sense that she wouldn’t want her
daughter to have to go through the same.

Part XII: Jezebel’s (Chapters 31 - 39 )

Chapter 31
● Summer continues and time drags slowly for Offred. There are two new bodies on the
Wall, one marked with a ‘J’. Offred and Ofglen do not know what this signifies. If the body
was Jewish, it would be marked with a yellow star. We learn that Jews were given the
option to convert to Christianity or emigrate to Israel in the beginnings of Gilead.
● Ofglen reveals that the resistance use the word ‘mayday’ to communicate with each
other, but warns Offred to use it sparingly.
● Back at home, Serena Joy asks Offred to hold her wool while she knits. She asks if Offred
has shown any signs of pregnancy. Offred says no and Serena Joy suggests that the
Commander might be sterile, which shocks Offred, since this distinction is no longer
accepted in Gilead. Serena suggests an alternative method to get Offred pregnant: having
sex with Nick. She offers to show Offred a photo of her daughter if she agrees, and gives
her a cigarette as a reward for doing so.

Chapter 32
● Offred thinks about saving the match for the cigarette to burn down the house. The
Commander has started drinking during their meetings. Ofglen tells Offred he has a
high-powered position in Gilead. One night, he tells Offred that before Gilead, men were

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 bored because there was nothing left to hold their interest when it came to women. He
asks her what she thinks of Gilead. She cannot answer and he senses her discomfort,
explaining they wanted to do better than what they ended up with.

Chapter 33
● Offred and Ofglen attend a Prayvaganza with other women from their district. Wives and
their daughters are segregated from the Marthas and Econowives, and the Handmaids sit
in their own section. Ofwarren is there with a new Wife, and we learn that her baby was
deformed after all, and that she slept with a doctor to get pregnant. Offred remembers
Ofwarren at the Red Center having a mental health crisis and speaking to an invisible
customer at the restaurant she used to work at. Moira slapped her to snap her out of it.

Chapter 34
● Prayvaganzas are mass wedding ceremonies for the daughters of Wives, who are
married as young as fourteen. Offred remembers the Commander saying that Gilead has
provided safety and security for women, despite taking away their freedoms. Now, all
women have spouses, and do not have to work. He says that arranged marriages work
better than love unions.
● Prayvaganzas sometimes celebrate the conversion of former Catholic nuns to the
religion of Gilead. Older nuns are tortured and sent to the Colonies, while younger ones
are given the option to convert or be sent off. Many choose the Colonies.
● After the ceremony, Ofglen tells Offred that the resistance group know about her seeing
the Commander, and asks her to pass on any information she can gather.

Chapter 35
● Offred can’t help but remember when she and Luke tried to escape Gilead. At the border
they showed their fake passports. Luke’s passport said he’d never been divorced and
the border Guard picked up the phone to check. They fled as fast as they could in the car,
eventually getting out to flee into the woods. Offred tries to remember being in love. That
night, Serena shows her a picture of her daughter. Offred imagines that her daughter is
forgetting her.

Chapter 36
● The Commander is drunk at their meeting that night. He gives her a revealing outfit and
makeup to wear and asks her to accompany him out. Nick drives them through the city
and Offred worries what he thinks. They stop in an alley where the Commander unlocks a
door, puts a purple tag on Offred’s wrist, and says she must tell anyone who asks that she
is an ‘evening rental’. She imagines Moira calling her an idiot for going along with him.

Chapter 37
● They are at an old hotel which Offred recognises as a place she used to meet Luke
before Gilead. Scantily clad women are everywhere, as well as high powered men.
Though the club is officially forbidden, the Commander explains that it is understood that
men need a variety of women to stay satisfied. Offred decides to stay quiet. Some of the
women here were sex workers before Gilead and some were lawyers, but all prefer this
over life as a Handmaid. Suddenly, Offred spots Moira in the crowd. They pretend not to
recognise each other but Moira uses their old signal from the Red Center to say that they
should meet in the bathroom.

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 Chapter 38
● Offred meets Moira in the bathroom. She tells her about the Commander smuggling her in
and Moira tells her own story. After she escaped the Red Center, she tried to leave Gilead
on the Underground Femaleroad, but was caught as she left the final safe house to
board a boat across the border.
● The Eyes tortured Moira and showed her terrible videos of the Colonies, where the life
expectancy is three years, and Unwomen must clean up radioactive spills and bodies
from war. She chose to do sex work in “Jezebel’s”, the nickname for the club they are in,
rather than be sent there. Offred sees how Moira’s once strong spirit has been crushed
and is disappointed. Moira suggests Offred work in the club too, where the life expectancy
is a little longer than the Colonies and they get face cream. Offred misses the Moira she
used to know. This is the last time Offred ever sees her friend.

Chapter 39
● The Commander takes Offred to a hotel room, where she excuses herself for a moment to
go to the bathroom. She thinks about her mother and Moira, who told her that she’d seen
Offred’s mother in one of the videos about the Colonies. Offred remembers going to her
mother’s house when the regime first began and finding her gone. She had assumed she
was dead. She imagines the Colonies must have broken her mother’s spirit like the
regime has broken Moira’s. Back in the hotel room, the Commander is waiting for her and
seems disappointed when she is not excited to have sex with him. Offred tells herself to
fake enthusiasm.

Analysis - Part XII: Jezebel’s (Chapters 31 - 39 )

In Part XII we learn more about the extent of Gilead’s religious intolerance. Jews are murdered
if they do not emigrate, and the yellow star used to identify them is the same as was used by the
Nazis. Catholic Nuns are given a similar choice, death by exile or conversion. In Chapter 6 we
learn of a museum in Gilead dedicated to the Puritan settlers who colonised America. Many
comparisons can be made between Puritan societies and the state of Gilead: music is banned,
intoxicants are banned, and men are seen as superior to women; morally, physically and
spiritually. Every law has a scriptural precedent.
● Part XII also shows us the forbidden underground nightclub that the Commanders
attend to let off steam. Named “Jezebel’s”, after a Biblical figure, Queen Jezebel of Israel,
the name is generally used to refer to people masquerading as believers, or false
prophets. The nightclub’s existence reveals the hypocrisy of Gilead, that the men who
enforce the rules do not have to follow them. At the nightclub we witness the brief return
of Moira to the narrative, but she has changed significantly, and has been beaten down
by life in Gilead.

Quotes
● “Money was the only measure of worth, for everyone, they got no respect as
mothers. No wonder they were giving up on the whole business. This way they’re
protected, they can fulfil their biological destinies in peace. With full support and
encouragement. Now, tell me. You’re an intelligent person, I like to hear what you
think. What did we overlook?” (Chapter 34)

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The Commander reveals more to Offred about how he thinks. Before Gilead, money dictated
people’s lives - this explains why it has been replaced by tokens under the regime. Interestingly,
however, class differences are still apparent in Gilead. The Commander’s house is an
ostentatious display of wealth. Getting rid of money has not solved the problems of class
inequality or poverty. The new system of currency could be seen as a rebranded version of the
old one.

● “...there’s an enticement to this thing, it carries with it the childish allure of dressing
up. And it would be so flaunting, such a sneer at the Aunts, so sinful, so free.
Freedom, like everything else, is relative.” (Chapter 36)
Offred knows she is in a dangerous situation in accepting the Commander’s offer to accompany
him out, but she has no other choice. She understands that to dress in forbidden clothing could
bring her perverse enjoyment, and would be a small act of rebellion against everything the
Aunts stood for at the Red Center.

Part XIII: Night (Chapter 40)

Chapter 40
● Back at the house, Serena Joy takes Offred to Nick’s room for their pre-arranged sexual
union. Alone with him, Offred tells us two versions of what happened. One is passionate
and sensual, the other is awkward and sad. Offred says it was actually more like a
combination of both scenarios. Offred wonders whether Nick feels used. After they are
done, Offred feels full of shame, and guilty of betraying Luke.

Analysis
In Chapter 40, Offred is finally able to act on her feelings of attraction towards Nick. Serena Joy
has set up a secret meeting between them in order to improve Offred’s chances of giving birth.
Ironically, this happens on the same night the Commander breaks the rules to take Offred out -
both husband and wife are breaking the law behind each other’s backs. Offred describes two
versions of her meeting with Nick, repeating sentences each time. This gives the chapter a
dreamlike quality. In the first scenario, no words are exchanged, Nick turns out the light and they
embrace passionately, like they might in a romance novel. In the second, they make awkward
conversation until the ice is broken when they begin to quote old movies to each other. Offred
says that in reality, what happened was a rough approximation of the two scenarios, leaving the
reader guessing. Unlike sex with the Commander, which is public, humiliating, and coercive,
Offred cloaks her interaction with Nick by telling us two versions, preserving the privacy of one of
her only truly intimate moments in the book.

Key Quotes
● ‘“No romance,” he says. “Okay?” That would have meant something else, one. Once
it would have meant: no strings. Now it means: no heroics. It means: don’t risk
yourself for me, should it come to that.” (Chapter 40)
Though Nick is obviously attracted to Offred and feels affection towards her, he provides a
caveat to their lovemaking: “No romance”. Offred explains that in pre-Gilead times this would have
meant a sexual relationship without emotions. What Nick really is doing is warning her not to
get too emotionally invested in him, because doing so could lead to dangerous and risky
behaviour. Despite this, their relationship has undeniably romantic qualities. Up until this point,

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Nick has been courting Offred in the limited ways that he can. He touches her foot during the
Ceremony, winks at her and steals glances, not to mention the kiss they share in Chapter 17.

Part XIV: Salvaging (Chapter 41 - 45)

Chapter 41
● Offred tells us her story is too painful to bear but she feels compelled to keep telling it. She
continues her affair with Nick, and finds herself telling him about Ofglen and Moira, and her
real name. He never says much in return. She tells him she thinks she is pregnant, though
she realises this is unlikely.
● During their walks to the shops, Ofglen tells Offred to break into the Commander’s office to
find out what his position is and the power he has. Offred chooses instead to fixate on her
feelings for Nick. This parallels how, as Gilead was rising to power, she remained
complicit and focused on her relationship with Luke.
Chapter 42
● A “Salvaging”, or public execution, is organised for all of the district women to attend. It is
held in what used to be Harvard Yard. On the stage is Aunt Lydia, who Offred has not seen
since the Red Center, overseeing the hangings. She announces that the crimes of those
executed will no longer be revealed because they result in copycat crimes. This gives the
Handmaids hope that women still resist the oppressive regime. Three women are
hanged, two Handmaids and one Wife. The Handmaids must lay their hands on a long rope
during the execution to show their consent.
Chapter 43
● After the hanging, Aunt Lydia asks the Handmaids to form a circle and presents them with
a dishevelled looking Guardian on whom they are to carry out a “Particicution”. She
explains that he and another Guardian, who has already been executed, have committed
rape. Apparently, one of the victims was a pregnant Handmaid who lost her baby.
● Offred feels an intense bloodlust along with the other women, but it is Ofglen who makes
the first move and kicks the Guardian’s head repeatedly. Afterwards, Ofglen explains to
Offred that he was a member of the resistance, and she wanted to put him out of his
misery quickly. Offred sees Ofwarren walking past in a state of psychosis, babbling
phrases from before Gilead as she clutches a bloodied clump of hair. Offred admits that
she feels a deep hunger, for violence or for sex.
Chapter 44
● When Offred goes to meet Ofglen for their shopping trip at the usual spot, she finds a new
Handmaid in her place who introduces herself as Ofglen. Wondering if the new Ofglen is
also part of the resistance, Offred works the password “Mayday” into their conversation by
talking of May Day, the celebration from old times. New Ofglen coldly tells her to forget
things from the old world. Worried that the new Ofglen will report her as part of the
resistance, Offred imagines them torturing her daughter. As they part ways at the end of
the shopping trip, new Ofglen reveals in a whisper that the old Ofglen was found out and
hung herself. She says this was the best possible outcome.

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 Chapter 45
● Offred finds herself relieved that Ofglen hanged herself before she could give Offred’s
name to authorities. She feels she has completely succumbed to the regime and will do
anything she can to survive. Back at home, Serena has found the sequined outfit and
winter robe that Offred wore on her outing with the Commander. Serena calls her a slut,
saying she will end up like the previous Handmaid. Nick witnesses this interaction, but
Offred avoids his gaze and returns to her room.

Analysis Part XIV: Salvaging (Chapter 41 - 45)

The action is rising and the narrative is reaching its climax in Part XIV. We see several executions
happen in Harvard Yard, which is symbolic of the ways power has shifted hands in Gilead.
Atwood chooses this location on purpose. In Gilead, Harvard Yard - once a symbol of academic
freedom and possibility; one of the world’s best universities - is now the site of public
executions for women who do not adhere to the regime.

Key Quotes
● “I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in
a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted
by trivia. I wish it had more shape.” (Chapter 41)
Themes of complacency permeate the novel. Many times, Offred hints that the complacency of
her and her peers led to the rise of Gilead. Offred wishes that her story was more obviously
heroic - many times she imagines what Moira’s actions would be in comparison to her own.
● “I did not put it, to myself, in terms of love. I said, I have made a life for myself, here,
of a sort. That must have been what settlers’ wives thought, and women who
survived wars, if they still had a man. Humanity is so adaptable, my mother used to
say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few
compensations.” (Chapter 41)
Here Offred is justifying her relationship with Nick. She has mentioned previously that she feels
guilty about sleeping with him because it feels like she is cheating on Luke. Offred explains that
she is making the best of a bad situation by having a relationship with Nick. Throughout the book
Offred has been incredibly lonely and has craved intimacy, and in the relative safety of his room
she begins to feel a sense of freedom, even going so far as to tell him her real name. Gilead can
control her body and her environment but it cannot control her feelings. Earlier on in the novel,
the Commander explains how he disapproves of love, making Offred’s forbidden affection for
Nick a way of pushing back against everything the regime stands for. Gilead is not a place where
love can exist; marriages are arranged for the benefit of the man, and extra-marital sex is
forbidden. Knowing this, we can interpret Offred’s affair with Nick as an act of rebellion, even
though Offred herself might not define it that way.

Part XV - Night (Chapter 46)

Chapter 46
● Offred waits in her room for her punishment. She considers ways to kill herself before the
Eyes arrive, but hears their car and regrets not doing anything while she had time. Nick
opens her door and says she should go with the Eyes as they are in Mayday. They have
come to save her. Offred doesn’t know whether he is telling the truth, since he could
easily be an Eye himself, but she has no choice.
● Downstairs, Serena demands to know the reason for Offred’s arrest, and Offred realises
that Serena was not the one who called them. The Commander asks to see a warrant,

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 and the Eyes say Offred is being arrested for “violation of state secrets”. Offred follows
them outside and gets into the van.

Analysis Part XV: Night (Chapter 46)

These are the final moments we have with Offred’s narrative, and the ending is left intentionally
ambiguous. Offred is faced with the very real possibility that she will be taken away and
executed, or sent to the Colonies. While reckoning with this, she tries to think of a way out by
contemplating suicide, and thinks of the previous Handmaid. Offred’s agency has become so
limited by Gilead that in the moment when it matters most, she is unable to take action or make
a decision. The Eyes arrive before she can do anything. When it becomes apparent that Serena
Joy did not call them, we can surmise that it was probably Nick, who watched Serena admonish
Offred for the costume a few hours before.

Key Quotes
● “Behind me I feel her presence, my ancestress, my double, turning in mid-air
under the chandelier, in her costume stars and feathers, a bird stopped in
flight, a woman made into an angel, waiting to be found. By me this time. How
could I have believed I was alone in here? There were always two of us.”
(Chapter 46)
In her darkest hour, Offred feels the presence of the previous Handmaid hanging from the
chandelier. It is an incredibly chilling moment, but we are led to believe that perhaps Offred is
finding strange comfort in it. Loneliness has been a theme throughout the novel, and here, finally,
Offred realises she has never been alone. The presence of the previous Handmaid has been with
her.

Historical Notes
● The historical notes at the end of the novel are from a symposium held at a university in
the Arctic in the year 2195. Gilead no longer exists, and Offred’s account of it has been
found on cassette tapes in an army footlocker in Maine, recorded between songs on the
tapes in order to hide it. Professor Piexoto is an expert on Gilead and he is presenting the
account as a published manuscript.
● The Professor gives historical context for Gilead and explains that the regime resulted
during a time of immense pressure, with a falling birthrate and environmental decline.
He reveals the birth rate was falling because of an increase in sexually transmitted
diseases as well as pollution.
● He explains the influence of the Bible on the state doctrine of Gilead, as well as how the
racial tensions that existed in society before Gilead informed its racist principles.
● The Professor has tried to discover the identity of Offred, but this has been impossible
because of the destruction of records since during civil wars. However, he has narrowed
the identity of the Commander down to two possibilities, either Frederick Waterford or B.
Frederick Judd. (Note that in the TV adaptation, The Commander is Fred Waterford). Judd
invented the Particicution, and espoused the idea that women should be involved in
controlling other women, citing colonial administrative tactics.
● It is revealed that Offred’s fate remains unknown - she may have escaped to England or
Canada, or been recaptured. The Professor reveals that Nick was a member of both the
Eyes and Mayday, and the men he called at the end of the account were indeed sent to
rescue her.

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Analysis - Historical Notes
The ‘Historical Notes’ at the end of the novel breaks completely from the novel’s established
narrative. Over a thousand years since Offred’s account takes place, an expert on Gilead,
Professor Piexoto, is giving a lecture at a symposium. He clarifies some things for us that Offred
was never able to, about the fall of the US and about the reasons Gilead came to be. The
Professor explains clearly the Biblical justifications for Gilead’s governance. By providing this
justification, however, he attempts to remain neutral, instead of trusting Offred’s narrative.

The world of Professor Piexoto seems to have developed beyond dictatorship and white
supremacy. The Academics mentioned by the Professor have Indigenous American names, and
the world’s best universities are now in Northern Canada and India, suggesting a new world order
in which racial inequality has possibly been abolished. Gilead’s executions of non-Christians
and glorification of Puritan settler colonialism imply that the regime was based on a white
supremacist ideology. Professor Piexoto’s critique seems to suggest that Gilead is seen as
regressive and barbaric by 2195 standards. However, Piexoto, the “expert” on Gilead, is a man
who makes sexist jokes and comments, suggesting that Gilead’s legacy is not that distant after
all.

Key Quotes
● “Now we are enjoying an equally charming Arctic Chair. I use the word ‘enjoy’ in two
distinct sense, precluding, of course, the obsolete third. (Laughter).” (Historical
Notes)
Even though he’s an expert on the topic, and suggests that the patriarchal ways of Gilead are a
thing of the distant past, the first time Professor Piexoto speaks, he makes a sexist joke. Here,
he is using the word “enjoy” to euphemistically imply that he enjoys looking at Crescent Moon, the
other (female) lecturer. This shows that sexism and patriarchy did not disappear with Gilead, but
are still perpetrated long afterwards.

● “Men highly placed in the regime were thus able to pick and choose among women
who had demonstrated their reproductive fitness having produced one or more
healthy children, a desirable characteristic in an age of plummeting Caucasian birth
rates, a phenomenon observable not only in Gilead but in most northern Caucasian
societies of the time.” (Historical Notes)
The Professor here confirms to the reader that Gilead based many of its governing principles on
racism, and preserving Caucasian (white) populations. Though never explicitly spoken about in
Offred’s account, the state-sanctioned murder of Jews and non-conformists in Gilead hints at
the white supremacist nature of the regime. Later in his lecture, the Professor mentions that the
racist policies of Gilead were directly drawn from the world before Gilead - in other words, from
the 1980s. Given everything we have learned from her account, Offred’s experience of life before
Gilead was one of relative comfort and privilege. Her complacency surrounding social issues
before Gilead, it could be argued, was a result of her privilege. She did not feel the need to protest
social issues because she did not feel they affected her directly, and she regrets this in her
account.

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 ● “We may call Eurydice forth from the world of the dead, but we cannot make her
answer; and when we turn to look at her we glimpse her only for a moment, before
she slips from our grasp and flees.” (Historical Notes)
The Professor likens Offred to Eurydice, a figure from Greek mythology. She is the wife of
Orpheus, who travels to the Underworld when she dies to entreat the Gods to let her live. Moved
by his music, the Gods allow his wish to let her live. They promise Eurydice will follow behind him
out of the Underworld, on the condition that he does not look back as they make the journey.
Orpheus cannot help but turn around to see his wife. She has not yet crossed the threshold from
the Underworld, and so disappears into the darkness forever. By making this reference, the
Professor is making a comment about the futility of trying to find answers in Offred’s account. In
doing so, however, he also erases her narrative.

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