Handmaid's Tale

“The handmaid’s tale”
-Margaret Atwood-
Made by: Androne Amalia-Irina

Mocanu Diana-Antonia
General view of the book
 The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author

Margaret Atwood, originally published in 1985. It is set in a near-
future New England, in a totalitarian state resembling a theonomy,
which has overthrown the United States government.
 The society divides women in diferent color coordinated classes,
all obedient and submissive to men. The colors are red
-handmaids, blue - commanders’ wives, green - the marthas, brown
- the aunts, black- the unwomen and multicolored - the econo-
wives. The men are also divided in diffrent classes but they ruling
over the country.
 Women are not allowed to read or write, have their own money,
vote or even have a different opinion than their male counterparts
or the rules of the theonomy they live in. If they disobey the
Gilead Republic gets rid off them in one way or another.
Plot summary
 June is the protagonist and narrator. Her story

begins before the rising of the Gilead Republic.
She is a middle-class american woman that lives
with her husband, Luke, and her daughter. When
the Republic rises , she’s fired from her job, her
mother gones missing, she isn’t allowed to
access her bank account and so she tries to flee
the country with her family, hoping for a better
life.
 They are caught by the authorities at the border
with Canada , the family is splitted and June is
transformed into a Handmaid and forced to bair
the children of a Commander (a male in the
higher-class society) and is given the name
Offred.
Offred – the main character
 The action is told from Offred’s perspective and is

focused mainly on the live of a Handmaid. The
Handmaids are subject of state-engineered rape in order
to give birth to children for the regime, as they are the
only fertile women left in the Republic. Offred is denied
her identity and she begins to consider herself as “a two-
legged womb for increasing Gilead’s population”
Serena Joy – the wife
 Serena is the other woman that is close to the Commander.

Though she is infertile , she fulfills her duty as a wife being an
advocate for traditional values and the establishment of the
Gileadean state, even if the outcome is bitter — being confined
to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a
Handmaid .
 She seems to possess no compassion for Offred. She can see the
difficulty of her own life, but not that of another woman.
The relationship between Serena and Offered
The climactic moment in Serena’s interaction with
Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to sleep
with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans
out of a desire to help Offred get pregnant, but
Serena gets an equal reward from Offred’s
pregnancy: she gets to raise the baby. Furthermore,
Serena’s offer to show Offred a picture of her lost
daughter if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena
has always known of Offred’s daughter’s
whereabouts. Not only has she cruelly concealed this
knowledge, she is willing to exploit Offred’s loss of
a child in order to get an infant of her own.
The Commander – Offred’s oppresor
 The Commander is the male dominant character. He is the ruler

of the household and one of the leading men of the regime.
Presumably, his first name is "Fred", though that, too, may be a
pseudonym. He engages in forbidden intellectual pursuits with
Offred, such as playing Scrabble, and introduces her to a secret
club that serves as a brothel for high-ranking officers.
 Offred learns that the Commander carried on a similar
relationship with his previous handmaid and that she killed
herself when his wife found out. At times, his unhappiness and
need for companionship make him seem as much a prisoner of
Gilead’s strictures as anyone else. Offred finds herself feeling
sympathy for this man, in this kind of cases.
“And Rachel seeing herself without children, envied her sister, and
said to her husband: Give me children, otherwise I shall die.
And Jacob being angry with her, answered: Am I as God, who hath
deprived thee of the fruit of thy womb?
But she said: I have here my servant Bala: go in unto her, that she
may bear upon my knees, and I may have children by her.” - The
Holy Bible , Book of Genesis , 30:1-3
The other household characters
Nick
Nick is the Commander's chauffeur, who
lives above the garage. By Serena Joy's
arrangement, he and Offred start a sexual
relationship to increase her chance of
getting pregnant. Offred begins to develop
feelings for him. Nick is an ambiguous
character, and Offred does not know if he
is a party loyalist or part of the resistance,
though he identifies himself as the latter.
Cora
Rita A Martha, along with Rita. She
A Martha (household servant and does less cooking and more
cook) at the household of the general chores, and is friendlier to
Commander and Serena Joy. She Offred. She discovered the
thinks of Offred as a slut and is
previous Handmaid’s death.
generally unkind.
Offred’s friends
Ofglen
Ofglen is a neighbour of Offred's and a fellow Handmaid. She is
partnered with Offred to do the daily shopping. Handmaids are never
alone and are expected to police each other's behaviour. Ofglen is a
member of the Mayday resistance. In contrast to Offred, she is daring.
She knocks out a Mayday spy who is to be tortured and killed in order
to save him the pain of a violent death. Offred is told that when Ofglen
vanishes, it is because she has committed suicide before the
government can take her into custody due to her membership in the
resistance, possibly to avoid giving away any information.
Moira
Offred’s best friend in college, a brave, opinionated feminist
lesbian whom Offred encounters again at the Rachel and Leah
Center. After one failed attempt, she manages to escape the Center
and move along the Underground Femaleroad, but the Eyes
capture and torture her. She decides to work as a prostitute rather
than go to the Colonies (the Colonies are essentially a death
sentence). When Offred sees her at Jezebel’s, it seems that the
authorities have managed to break Moira’s spirit.
 The Aunts are the class of women assigned to indoctrinate the
Handmaids with the beliefs of the new society and make them
Aunt Lydia accept their fates. Aunt Lydia works at the “Red Center” (the
Rachel and Leah Center and the Woman’s Salvaging) the
re‑education center where Offred and other women go for
instruction before becoming Handmaids.
 Although she appears only in Offred’s flashbacks, Aunt Lydia
and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Aunt
Lydia’s slogans and maxims drum the ideology of the new
society into heads of the women, until even those like Offred,
women who do not truly believe in the ideology, hear Gilead’s
words echoing in their heads.
In other media
The 1990 film The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's Tale (TV series) - 2017
This could happen?
 After reading this book we found ourselves asking “Can this happen in real life?”
 The answer lies within us, as long as we fight against carelessnes . On the political level, it
warns us to be vigilant against the small, gradual taking away of our rights . The book
portrays the lack of right in both men an women rights, although the first ones are the ones
that have more power in the Gileadean society.
 On the personal level, the book is asking us to look a little closer at our own behaviour in
the society and also at what place we might take in it as the phenomena we are talking
about is happening right now but not on a such extreme level. We should do the hard work
of examining how we relate to others and whether we are supporting oppresive power
dynamics more than we realize.
 Whether we are speaking about a man that categories women, a woman who does not help
other women or a person of privilege who thinks of others as less than the message is that
bad things happen when we do not treat all people as equal idividuals with us.
Thank you for
your time!
Biografy
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
 https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/handmaid/
 https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-handmaid-s-tale
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fFeSUv8eEg
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R45eiu8SXko
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v-mfJMyBO0
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PubyDwbNqYA
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj05QxebnC4

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“The handmaid’s tale”

Made by: Androne Amalia-Irina

 The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author

 June is the protagonist and narrator. Her story

 The action is told from Offred’s perspective and is

 Serena is the other woman that is close to the Commander.

 The Commander is the male dominant character. He is the ruler

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