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The Handmaid's Tale
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The Handmaid's Tale (1985) (edit title/settings)

by Margaret Atwood (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies? Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets in which signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to... read more

Summary edit see section history

The Handmaid's Tale was written by Margaret Atwood. She has written more than thirty-five pieces of fiction, poetry, and essays. They are published in more than forty different countries. She lives in Toronto. One of her most recents works is The Blind Assassin, a Booker novel. Offred is... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

The Handmaid's Tale was written by Margaret Atwood. She has written more than thirty-five pieces of fiction, poetry, and essays. They are published in more than forty different countries. She lives in Toronto. One of her most recents works is The Blind Assassin, a Booker novel. Offred is a Commander's Handmaid. A Handmaid has few responsibilities. The main ones are to go shopping and bear children for the Commander. When the Handmaid goes shopping they meet another Handmaid at a designated spot and go to the stores in pairs. Women are no longer allowed to read so the signs for the stores are pictures and they pay for the things they buy with coins that have the picture of the specific things they want. Every month there is a Ceremony. During the Ceremony the Commander's wife, refered to as the Wife, lies on the bed fully clothed and between her legs the Handmaid lies, fully clothed except for her underpants. The Wife holds the Handmaid's hands in her own while the Commander, also fully clothed, does his part of the reproductive process. Offred used to live a normal life. She used to have a different name. One day she was trying to buy some cigarretes but she couldn't because her account had been frozen. That was everything started to change. Her boss came in and fired her and all the other women that were working with her for no apparent reason. She went home and found out that women were no longer allowed to own anything or have any money. After a few days she and her husband, Luke, tried to take their daughter and leave the country. They weren't able to take much with them because they wanted to make it look like they were just leaving for the day not for good. They had fake passports to get across the border. Something went wrong and they were caught. They ran through the woods and last she knew of Luke he was falling to the ground. She was being shot at so she pulled her daughter to the ground and used her body to shield her daughter from the shots. She has no idea what has happened to her husband. As far as she knows he is dead. Her daughter was taken from her to be raised by others because she is declared "unfit" to be a mother. She was then taken to what used to be a high school but was now the Red Center. At the Red Center they have to sleep in what used to be the gym. They talk to each other by whispering from cot to cot. They go to different classes. They sometimes get to watch movies. Some of the movies are about the Colonies, the place they take Unwomen, or women that can't have children. When Offred goes shopping she goes with her shopping partner, Ofglen. At first they do not talk much they just go on their route that sometimes goes by a church by which there is a wall where they hang the bodies of people who were in proffessions no longer allowed or who did things they weren't supposed to. After a while they start to talk and Ofglen tells Offred about a rebel type organization that she is part of. They do what they can to make it look like they aren't talking so that they won't draw suspion upon themselves. Eventually a new woman comes and says that she is Ofglen. Offred is told as they go to leave at the designated corner that the first Ofglen saw the black van of the Eyes, government spies, coming after her so she hung herself. During her time at the Commander's home Offred has many adventures. One night the Commander sends Nick, a Guardian that works for the Commander, to have her come to his office. So Offred went to the office of the Commander and played Scrabble like he asked and when she was leaving and he asked her to kissed him. They made a routine of this. Whenever Nick's cap was on sideways she was to go to the Commander's office. If Nick had his cap on straight she was not to go to the Commander's office. During the time that she would go to the Commander's office Offred learned many things. She also had the Commander get her things, such as hand lotion. One night the Commander took her to a place called Jezebel's. It was a place where Commanders and other important men could go and find a woman to have "fun" with. While she is there she wears this wierd costume so that she blends in with the other women there. She also sees her best friend Moria again, she hadn't seen her since Moria broke out of the Red Center. The night before the Ceremony, also the night she and the Commander went to Jezebel's, the Commander's Wife has Offred go to Nick and get "serviced", or has Nick get her pregnant and say it's the Commander's. After that night Offred often goes to Nick's room and makes love with him. She tells him about things such as Moria and Ofglen, she also tells him her real name. She doesn't tell him about Luke or about the woman that used to live in her room. She doesn't want to hear about it if the woman used to do the same thing as her with Nick, which is why she doesn't talk about her. At the end Offred is sitting at the window of her room at dusk thinking about killing herself when she hears the black van coming up the drive way. She is expecting a stranger to come into her room but it was Nick. She thought Nick had betrayed her when he tells her that it's Mayday and to trust him and go with them, then calls her by her real name. The two Eyes lead her down the steps and out of the house with everyone thinking that she has done something wrong. They say she has violated state secrets. This makes the Commander very nervous. She is led out to the black van and steps in. That's where the story ends.

Characters edit see section history

  • Offred: Main character of the story. The protagonist was separated from her husband and daughter after the formation of the Republic of Gilead and is part of the first generation of Gilead's women: those who remember pre-Gilead times. Having proven fertile, she is considered an important commodity and has been placed as a handmaid in the home of the Commander Fred and his wife Serena Joy to bear a child for them (Serena Joy is said to be infertile). Prior to the formation of the Republic, she was married to Luke and they had a daughter.
  • The High Commander: The head of the household
  • Serena Joy: The Commander's Wife. A former televangelist, she is now a Wife in the fundamentalist theocracy she helped to create. She has the final say on any discipline for wrongdoings in the household.
  • Nick: The Commander's household chauffeur. Nick lives above the garage. On Serena Joy's suggestion and arrangement, Offred starts a sexual relationship with him to try to increase her chances of getting pregnant and saving herself from being shipped to the ecological and nuclear wastelands of the Colonies.
  • Moira: Offred's best friend from the earlier times. a close friend of Offred's since college, hinted in the book to be either Harvard University or Radcliffe College. An important aspect of Moira is her homosexuality and resistance to the new homophobia that rules society. Moira represents how the totalitarian state can destroy the hearts and characters of the most independent spirits. Moira, once strong and courageous, is now complacent and crushed.
  • Aunt Lydia: Teacher at the Red Center
  • Janine aka Ofwarren: Another of the Handmaids, was at the Red Center with Offred.
  • Luke: Offred's husband from the earlier time. She doesn't know what happened to him when they were captured, but she thinks he is Probably dead. Luke was Offred's husband prior to the formation of the Republic. He had divorced his first wife to marry Offred, and since all divorces have been retroactively nullified by the Gilead government, Offred is considered to be an adulteress and her daughter a bastard.
  • Ofglen: Offred's partner, they walk to the shops together each day. A neighbour of Offred's and a fellow Handmaid, she is partnered with Offred to do the shopping for the household each day, so that the Handmaids are never alone and can police each others' behaviour.
  • Rita: Rita is the main cook in the Commander's house. She is the one that gives Offred the tokens to go shopping. She seems to dislike Offred.
  • Cora: She is a Martha that helps cook and clean. Wants a baby to spoil. Seems to like Offred.
  • James Darcy Pieixoto: Explains that the Handmaid's Tale was discovered as a series of tapes. Talks about how they had to guess what order the tapes were in.
  • Professor Gopal Chatterjee: From the Department of Philosphy
  • Professor Wade: A co-worker of professor Pieixoto's. Titled The Handmaids Tale.
  • Wilfred Limpkin: Explains what he knows about two Commanders that may have been Offred's Commander. Explains what he thinks each Commander's role was, what he came up with, and why he thinks that.
  • B. Frederick Judd: Suggested the use of an obscured pamphlet from a government agency on destabilization as the strategy handbook for the Sons of Jacob. Is suspected of organizing the President's Day Massacre.
  • Aunt Elizabeth: One of the teachers at The Red Center
  • Angela: The name of the baby born of Janine (Ofwarren) and given to her owner.
  • Aunt Helena: One of the instructing aunts at the red centre.
  • Alma: A woman Offred meets at the Rachel and Leah Center.
  • Rachel: Motivation for the role of women in this dystopian society
  • Jacob: Add a description of this character.
  • Dolores
Show all 23 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “There can be no shadow unless there is also light.”
  • “Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”
  • “The sea fisheries were defunct several years ago; the few fish they have now are from fish farms, and taste muddy. The news says the coastal areas are being "rested". Sole, I remember, and haddock, swordfish, scallops, tuna; lobsters, stuffed and baked, salmon, pink and fat, grilled in steaks. Could they all be extinct, like the whales? I've heard that rumor, passed on to me in souldless words, the lips hardly moving, as we stood in line outside, waiting for the store to open, lured by the picture of succulent white fillets in the window. They put the picture in the window when they have something, take it away when they don't. Sign language.”
    Offred
  • “What we prayed for was emptiness, so we could be worthy to be filled: with grace, with love, with self-denial, semen and babies.”
  • “We were a society dying of too much choice.”
  • “Already we were losing the taste for freedom, already we were finding these walls secure. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere you'd come apart, you'd vaporize, there would be no pressure holding you together”
  • “Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn?”
  • “Every night when I go to bed I think, In the morning I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were. It hasn't happened this morning, either.”
  • “As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day.”
  • “Any news, now, is better than none.”
  • “We've given them more than we've taken away.”
    the Commander
  • “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum ("Don't let the bastards grind you down")”
  • “The eyes of God run all over the earth.”
  • “Nothing changes instantaneoulsy; in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.”
  • “He has something we don't have,he has the word. How we squandered it,once.”
    Offred
  • “I didn't want to live my life on her terms.I didn't want to be the model offsrping,the incarnation of ideas.We used to fight about that.I am not your justification for existence,I said to her once.I want her back,I want everything back,the way it was.But there is no point to it,this wanting.”
    Offred
  • “A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere,as long as it stays inside the maze.”
  • “It was after the catastrophe,when they shot the President and machine gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency.They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics,at the time.Keep calm,they said on television.Everything is under control.”
  • “It's outrageous,one woman said,but without belief.What was it about this that made us feel we deserved it?”
  • “Freedom from/freedom to.................”
  • “Our is not to reason why,said Moira.They had to do it that way,the Compucounts and the jobs at once. Can you picture the airports otherwise? They don't want us going anywhere,you can bet on that.”
    Moira
  • “Because they were ready for us,and waiting.The moment of betrayal is the worst,the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed;that some other human being has wished you that much evil.”
  • “Better never means better for everyone,he says.It always means worse,for some.”
  • “Notwithstanding she shall be saved by childbearing,if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.Saved by childbearing,I think.What did we suppose would save us,in the time before?”
  • “Fear is a powerful stimulant”
  • “As all historians know,the past is great darkness,and filled with echoes.Voices may reach us from it;but what they say to us is imbued with obscurity of the matrix out of which they come;and try as we may,we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day.”
  • “There were stories in the newspapers, of course, corpses in ditches or the woods, bludgeoned to death or mutilated, interfered with, as they used to say, but they were about other women, and the men who did such things were other men. None of them were the men we knew. The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable. They were too melodramatic, they had a dimension that was not the dimension of our lives. 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 the stories.”
Show all 27 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

The Republic of Gilead (formerly the United States)
  • The Republic of Gilead
  • Wall: This was an actual wall where the Government would physically "hang" dead people to make an example of them, to show what could happen to others if they followed in these people's footsteps.
  • Cambridge, Massachusetts: The novel is set in the Harvard Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Atwood studied at Radcliffe College, and many locations in the novel are recognizable. Fred's home is on the famous "Professor's Row"; and the Brattle Theatre, Memorial Hall and Widener Library make very prominent cameos.

First Sentence edit see section history

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1. Night
2. Shopping
3. Night
4. Waiting Room
5. Nap
6. Household
7. Night
8. Birth Day
9. Night
10. Soul Scrolls
11. Night
12. Jezebel's
13. Night
14. Salvaging
15. Night
Historical Notes

Glossary edit see section history

  • Palimpsest: A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book that has been scraped off and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek παλιν + ψαω = (palin "again" + psao "I scrape"), and meant "scraped (clean and used) again." Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the rather bookish term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice. From Wikipeadia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest
  • peccadillo: a very minor or slight sin or offense; a trifling fault
  • Opaques: not transparent or translucent; impenetrable to light; not allowing light to pass through; not transmitting radiation, sound, heat, etc; hard to understand; not clear or lucid; obscure

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in Books to Read in 2011. (community list)
This is book 153 of 194 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2010). (authoritative list)
This is book 88 of 100 in ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009. (authoritative list)
This is book 39 of 213 in Best English-Language Fiction of the 20th Century. (authoritative list)
This is book 334 of 1286 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)
This is book 154 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2010). (authoritative list)
This is book 48 of 95 in Telegraph Top 100 Books, 2008. (authoritative list)
This is book 58 of 97 in Waterstone's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century. (authoritative list)
This is book 31 of 113 in Book Smart Reading List. (community list)
This is book 53 of 98 in Modern Library's 100 Best Novels: Reader's List. (authoritative list)
This is book 155 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2011). (authoritative list)
This is book 22 of 99 in National Public Radio's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy. (authoritative list)
This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
This is book 153 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2011). (authoritative list)
This is book 37 of 100 in ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 1990-1999. (authoritative list)
This is book 131 of 200 in BBC 'Big Read' Top 200 Novels, 2003. (authoritative list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Margaret Atwood (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Traduzione di Camillo Pennati (Translator) - From English to Italian

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: McClelland and Stewart
Country: Canada
Publication Date: 1985
ISBN: 0771008139
Page Count: 324

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PR9199.3.A8 H3165
  • Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Young Adults

I think this is an important book for young women to read. But I think they need to be in their late teens if not young adulthood. Some of the themes are very adult and some of the scenes are graphic.

Movie Connections edit see section history

  • The Handmaid's Tale (1990) (IMDb): Set in a Fascistic future America, The Handmaid's Tale tells the story of Kate, a handmaid. In this America, the religious right has taken over and gone hog-wild. Kate is a criminal, guilty of the crime of trying to escape from the US, and is sentenced to become a Handmaid. The job of a Handmaid is to bear the children of the man to whom she is assigned. After ruthless group training by Aunt Lydia in the proper way to behave, Kate is assigned as Handmaid to the Commander. Kate is attracted to Nick, the Commander's chauffeur. At the same time, a resistance movement begins to challenge the regime. Written by Reid Gagle Following a coup, America is a country still at war with itself and ruled by a repressive Bible-inspired regime. Past pollution means only 1% of women can bear children, and anyone committing a crime and found to be a potential mother is put into an institution run by 'Aunt Lydia' to be indoctrinated ready for this. One such is Kate, who then goes on to Fred, a high-up in the security forces, to attempt to procreate. Fred's wife Serena is jealous and vicious, and the State's grip seems to be tightening. But Kate still has her own mind, and is finding that some other people are prepared to resist. Written by Jeremy Perkins <jwp@aber.ac.uk>

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Oryx and Crake
  • 1984
  • Wither
  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Never Let Me Go
  • The Forest of Hands and Teeth
  • The Drowned World
  • Make Room! Make Room!
  • The Children of Men
  • The Wanting Seed
  • Brave New World
  • Glow
  • The Diary of a Young Girl
  • When She Woke
  • The Gate to Women's Country
  • The Summer Before the Dark

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   
  • Margaret Atwood
  • The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

   
  • The Canterbury Tales

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