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Summary Handsmaid Tale by Margaret Atwood study notes
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The handmaid tale summaryThe United States has fallen, overthrown by a theocratic regime, founded on rigid Christian
principles and the disempowerment of women, which has installed a new nation called
Gilead in its place. The novel begins with Offred, the first-person narrator, remembering
her restricted life at the Rachel and Leah Center, a training camp for Handmaids in an old
high school. The scene changes to her current residence, where she lives with a
Commander and his wife, Serena Joy. Offred puts on a red uniform and goes on a
shopping trip with Ofglen, and afterwards they stop by the Wall to look at the bodies of
recently executed men.
In the evening, Offred lies in bed. She remembers her spunky friend Moira, her activist
mother, and the loss of her daughter and her husband, Luke. She thinks about the
previous Handmaid who left a Latin message scratched into the wall. She describes her trip
to the doctor on the previous day. The doctor suggested that her Commander might be
sterile and offers to have sex with her. Though her life depends on getting pregnant,
Offred refused.
She takes a bath and thinks about her daughter and the hysterical Handmaid Janine. After
her bath, she and the rest of the members of the household gather to listen to the
Commander read the bible. Then the Commander, the Commander’s wife Serena Joy, and
Offred perform the Ceremony: the Commander has impersonal sex with Offred while she
lies between Serena Joy’s legs. Afterwards, Offred sneaks downstairs in a rebellious
gesture and runs into Nick, who gives her a message from the Commander to meet the
following night.
The next day, Offred and other Handmaids attend Janine’s birth. In the afternoon, Offred
remembers how Moira managed to escape from the Rachel and Leah Center disguised as
an Aunt. In the evening she sees the Commander, who surprisingly only wants to play
Scrabble and get a chaste kiss. Afterwards she can’t stop laughing.
Months pass. Offred and the Commander meet often, and the Ceremony becomes more
fraught for Offred now that she and the Commander know each other. Offred and Ofglen
go shopping regularly, and Ofglen reveals that she’s part of a secret organized resistance.
Offred recalls all the events that lead from the US government to the Republic of Gilead—a
massacre of the President and Congress, a succession of restrictive measures imposed for
“safety,” the removal of all power and possessions from women. One night the
Commander explains the meaning of the previous Handmaid’s Latin, and Offred learns
that the previous Handmaid hanged herself.
After a shopping trip one day, Serena Joy tells Offred to have sex with Nick in an effort to
get pregnant, and Offred agrees. Offred and Ofglen attend a Prayvaganza, celebrating
arranged marriages. Afterward, Serena Joy shows Offred a photo of her daughter. That
night, the Commander gives Offred a skimpy outfit and makeup, and Nick drives them to a
nightclub/hotel filled with prostitutes. Offred spots Moira across the room, and they meet
in the bathroom. Moira reveals that she spent many months on the Underground
, Femaleroad before she was captured. Offred and the Commander get a room and have
sex, and Offred has to fake arousal.
Shortly after returning home, Serena Joy leads Offred to Nick, and Offred doesn’t have to
fake arousal this time. Time passes, and Offred sees Nick often. She becomes so obsessed
with him that she doesn’t want to leave or help Ofglen with Resistance efforts. Offred and
Ofglen attend a Women’s Salvaging, where three women are hanged. Afterwards there’s a
Particicution, a frenzied group murder of a supposed rapist, who was actually a member of
the Resistance. The following day, a new Handmaid comes for the shopping trip with
Offred. She says that the old Ofglen committed suicide when the Eyes—the Gilead secret
police—came to get her.
When Offred returns home after shopping, Serena Joy confronts her with the skimpy outfit
and threatens to punish her. Offred goes to her room and sees the Eyes coming for her.
Nick tells her that they’re secretly members of the Resistance, and she enters their van,
unsure of her fate.
The novel ends with “Historical Notes” from a future academic conference about Gilead.
Professor Pieixoto describes the discovery of Offred’s narrative on cassette tapes in Maine,
suggesting that the Eyes that took her were part of the Resistance, as Nick claimed. It is
revealed that researchers may have discovered who the Commander was, but no one
knows what happened to Offred.
Gender roles
Gilead is a strictly hierarchical society, with a huge difference between the genders. As
soon as the Gileadean revolutionaries take over after terrorism destroys the US
government, they fire all women from their jobs and drain their bank accounts, leaving
Offred desperate and dependent. Luke, however, doesn’t seem so furious at this turn of
events, a subtle suggestion that even good men may have embedded misogynistic
attitudes, and that Gilead merely takes these common views to the logical extreme.
Soon Gileadean women find all liberties taken from them, from the right to choose their
clothes to the right to read.
Even women in positions of power, like Aunt Lydia, are only allowed cattle prods, never
guns. The Commander’s Wife, once a powerful supporter of far right-wing religious ideas
about how women should stay in the home, now finds herself unhappily trapped in the
world she advocated for. Gilead also institutionalizes sexual violence toward women. The
Ceremony, where the Commander tries to impregnate Offred, is institutionalized adultery
and a kind of rape. Jezebel’s, where Moira works, is a whorehouse for the society’s elite.
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