The Handmaid's Tale

The Republic of Gilead has replaced the United States with a regime that assigns women fixed social and reproductive roles. After Offred, Luke, and their daughter are caught while trying to escape, Offred is separated from her family and trained at the Rachel and Leah Center to become a Handmaid. In the household of a Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, she is required to take part in the monthly Ceremony while remembering Luke, their daughter, her mother, Moira, and the freedoms of the time before.

Offred's shopping partnership with Ofglen exposes both Gilead's surveillance and a clandestine resistance identified as Mayday. Inside the household, the Commander begins summoning Offred to his study for forbidden Scrabble games, reading, conversation, and small contraband favors, then secretly takes her to Jezebel's. Serena Joy, believing the Commander may be unable to father a child, separately arranges for Offred to have sex with Nick. Offred later returns to Nick repeatedly on her own, tells him her real name, and becomes so attached to the relationship that she refuses Ofglen's offers to gather intelligence or seek escape. She tells Nick she thinks she may be pregnant, while admitting that this is wishful thinking.

After a women's Salvaging and Particicution, the original Ofglen disappears. Her replacement tells Offred that Ofglen hanged herself when she saw a van coming to arrest her. Serena then discovers the cloak and sequined costume connected to Offred's trip to Jezebel's. Soon afterward a black van arrives. Nick tells Offred that the men are Mayday and urges her to trust him, but Offred cannot verify his claim. She enters the van without knowing whether she is being rescued or arrested.

The Historical Notes move the frame to an academic symposium in 2195. Scholars explain that Offred's account was reconstructed from roughly thirty unnumbered cassette tapes found near Bangor, Maine; the editors supplied both the title and an approximate sequence. Professor Pieixoto argues that Frederick R. Waterford is the strongest candidate for the Commander and that Nick may have been a Mayday operative, but repeatedly identifies these conclusions as conjectural. Offred's final fate remains unknown, and the symposium's jokes and priorities show that historical distance has not eliminated the attitudes her testimony records.