The Handmaid's Tale

The Republic of Gilead has replaced the United States with a theocratic state that assigns women rigid social and reproductive roles. Offred lives in the household of a Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, where she is required to participate in the monthly Ceremony. Her first-person account moves between this controlled present and memories of Luke, their daughter, her mother, Moira, and the gradual loss of the life she had before Gilead.

Offred's prescribed shopping trips with Ofglen expose both surveillance and the possibility of Mayday resistance. Inside the household, the Commander begins meeting Offred privately for Scrabble games and later takes her to Jezebel's, revealing that powerful men disregard rules imposed on everyone else. Serena Joy separately arranges meetings between Offred and Nick in the hope that Offred will become pregnant. Those relationships give Offred limited choices, but each also increases the danger around her.

After Ofglen disappears and a black van arrives for Offred, Nick tells her that the men are connected to Mayday. Offred leaves without knowing whether she is being rescued or arrested. The narrative does not resolve her fate.

The supplementary Historical Notes place her account at an academic symposium in 2195. Scholars explain that the text was reconstructed from unnumbered cassette tapes and that its title and sequence were supplied by editors. Their effort to identify Offred and her Commander adds historical context but cannot settle what happened to her, while their detached jokes reproduce some of the attitudes the narrative records.