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The Handmaid's Tale Chapter Summaries

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The novel starts with Offred beginning to serve the Commander and his wife, Serena. Offred had been hired as the household's Handmaid and therefore, every month during her fertile week, she must have impersonal and wordless sex with the Commander as Serena sits behind her. Unfortunately, as a Handmaid, Offred's original identity and freedom have been stripped from her and she can only leave the house to shop, her door cannot be closed all the way, and the secret police watch her every move while she's in public. In the old world, Offred had had an affair with a married man named Luke. Luke ended up divorcing his wife and he married Offred instead and they had a child together. The government and architects of Gilead cracked down on women's rights and forbid women to have jobs or own property. Offred, with Luke and her daughter, tried to flee to Canada but was caught and …show more content…

Offred thinks that things are now different since she knows the Commander more personal now. During one of the secret meetings, Offred hears about a new order that the Commander and other leaders are making for Gilead. After a little while, Serena suggests that Offred have sex with Nick and pretend that the baby is the Commander's. Serena says that if Offred agrees, then Serena will give Offred a picture of her daughter. However, the same night that Offred is to have sex with Nick, the Commander takes her to a club where the Commander talks with prostitutes. The Commander takes her up to what used to be a hotel room after the club and has sex and Offred has to pretend to be passionate. After Offred returns, Serena orders her to go to Nick's room and have sex with him and she does. They begin to have an affair without anyone knowing and Offred forgets to gather information for Mayday . One night, all of the Handmaids execute a rapist as a

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Gilead values obedience to their core beliefs and use many tactics to maintain it. The citizens often spy on one another and Eyes are spread throughout the society. Offred’s depression and fear is what controls the way she behaves even around Ofglen, who later on became one of her closest companions. “She may be a real believer, a Handmaid in more than name. I can’t take the risk.

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The Role Of Religion In The Handmaid's Tale

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She wishes that “sooner or later [she] will get out, find her [daughter], she will remember her, and [they] will be together” (Atwood 120). Every night, Offred finds herself falling asleep thinking of the times she’s spent with her daughter, wishing she could still be holding her little girl. On top of missing her daughter, she struggles with the idea that she could be having another child for the Commander and his wife to raise. Offred begins to hate the commander's wife because she is jealous that this other woman gets to be the one to raise her child. However, after seeing the commander’s wife’s longing stare, Offred begins to wonder “which of them has it worse” (Atwood 109).

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Nowadays, most people live in democratic countries where they have fundamental freedom and rights. However, The Handmaid's Tale and Prisoner of Tehran describe the opposite side where both characters are imprisoned in their societies. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel which describes a society is ruled by a extreme religion. The setting changes from a democratic country to a dictatorship where people live in fear. The novel is told by the protagonist, Offred, who is a Handmaid, a baby-maker, and is only valued by her ability to reproduce.

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Offred is not a victim. Or rather, she is not a guiltless victim. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred is undoubtedly subjected to the worst horrors of a society which strips her of autonomy and forces its ways upon her unflinching but unwilling mind – much like the Commander whom they assign to do the same to her unflinching but unwilling body. However, a victim as she is, Offred is involved in the very system which abuses her. She is a product of her circumstances throughout the course of The Handmaid’s Tale and remains passive in the face of oppression - in that sense, she is complicit in the perpetuation of all that Gilead represents.

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Conflict In The Handmaids Tale

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Offred struggles between her attraction to Nick and remaining faithful to Luke. In the end of the novel, Offred ends up giving in to her attraction to Nick, however she does not feel that she has betrayed Luke in any way. Both gentlemen fulfill needs of Offed at different times of her life. Luke only exists in her past life, and most of Offred’s memories with him are fading away as she struggles to remember certain details of her past. Offred thinks, “The fact is that I no longer want to leave, escape, cross the border to freedom.

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The Commander In The Handmaid's Tale

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She is used by Commander for sex and companionship and had an affair with Nick (higher preganancy chance). Most of her actions are being forced “Which of us is it worse for, her or me?”(151) meant the sex between the narrator and commander is unbearable to the point of watching your husband having sex with another women right infront of you. Her only defiance done totally by herself is “I will use the butter later that night.” (113), everything else including escaping the Gilead, having an affair with Commander, having an affair with Nick and leaving the Commanders house are all stimulated by others. Offred represent those who does not stand against oppresion, being pushed around and used for sex.

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The Role Of Offred In The Handmaid's Tale

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(Atwood 93) this led to the Commander, his wife, and Offred getting the deed done to try for a baby. These very experiences molded Offred into the person she’d become at the end of the novel emphasizing the effect they had on her. Offred’s life before Gilead was similar to the typical women of 1980s. She had a husband, a child and more importantly a life.

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Justice In The Handmaid's Tale

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Offred records tapes, telling the story of her time in Gilead. These tapes, while they do not say whether or not she was united with her daughter, do help lead to Gilead’s collapse. Offred found justice for both herself and her daughter in a way she never expected; she was able to help make sure no women or child went through what she did. This search for justice her goal throughout the novel, and while she was successful, it was in a way in which she never expected. Before her escape from Gilead, Offred saw justice with different eyes; justice to her was being reunited with her daughter and the idea of bringing the state of Gilead never seemed to cross her mind, until she began to realize just how deep Mayday ran.

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Morality In The Handmaid's Tale

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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood tells a story revolving around a young woman in a post-war economy run by the church, where if a woman fails to produce a child she is sentenced to death. The morals in The Handmaid's Tale are twisted by religion, countless women hung or physically shamed for expressing themselves or refusing to procreate with a man much older than them. Margaret Atwood is skilling in writing post-apocalyptic or future-oriented stories of what could be, something even more prevalent in her novel Oryx and Crake. The story is narrated through the eyes of a man named ‘Snowman’, or Jimmy which is his birth given name, and follows the events that lead to the dystopian society that he currently resides in. Immorality is a major

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The Handmaid's Tale Feminist Analysis

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The novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a story about a society set in a future world where women’s rights have been revoked. Many values change with this new regime of controlled women and strict laws. Despite the changes in the world it maintains many conservative, religious beliefs while also containing liberal, feminist beliefs simultaneously. Society in the futuristic world of Gilead is structured heavily off of readings from the Bible and traditional views of gender that have been in place for a long time. An example of the Bible being an important part of society is the idea of the Handmaids came from a passage in the Bible about two women, Rachel and Leah.

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Identity In Handmaid's Tale

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The Handmaid’s lifestyle is equivalent to a slave’s. As property, along with their freedom, they have lost their dignity, individuality, and uniqueness. By allowing Gilead to take a part of the

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