Ivana Bodor

Choose a character you could identify yourself with and present his or her portrait

Offred

In Margaret Atwood's
dystopian book The Handmaid's Tale
(1986) she portrays a society
called Gilead in which women are
deprived of their civil liberties.
Sexual slavery and feminism are two
of the main themes.
In Atwood's dystopian society most
women have become infertile and the
few ones who can still bear children
are turned into handmaids, i. e. sexual
servants who are brainwashed for the
mere purpose of breeding healthy
children for the elite.

The character I have chosen to write about is Offred. Offred is the narrator and
the protagonist of the novel, and we are told the entire story from her point of
view, experiencing events and memories as vividly as she does. She tells the story
as it happens, and shows us the travels of her mind through asides, flashbacks, and
digressions.
Offred is intelligent, perceptive, and kind.
She possesses enough faults to make her human, but not so many that she becomes an
unsympathetic figure.
She also possesses a dark sense of humor—a graveyard wit that makes her
descriptions of the bleak horrors of Gilead bearable, even enjoyable.
Like most of the women in Gilead, she is an ordinary woman placed in an
extraordinary situation.
Offred is not the crusading hero a reader might expect.

This novel is an
account of Offred's musings and her
fragmented perception of reality.

After her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter, she submits to
her role in the regime rather than endure further torture or exile. Atwood
contrasts her with her feminist activist mother, whose causes Offred often felt
uncomfortable with. Offred tells us herself that her relationship with Luke began
as an illicit affair while he was married to someone else. Although Offred is
friends with Ofglen, a member of the resistance, and feels a thrill at the
possibility of someone bringing down Gilead, she fears joining it herself.
In her affair with Nick, too, Offred becomes absorbed by a physicality and autonomy
that Gilead has denied her, and she turns away from participating in Ofglen's
plans.
When the possibility of escape finally comes at the end, it comes through Nick,
rather than a plan Offred puts in place herself.
Offred's inertia shows how an oppressive regime like Gilead can destroy most
people's ability to resist it. 
I preferred her character because throughout the story she desires something, and
that desire provides the forward impetus for the narrative. Her goal was to find
her daughter and reunite with her family.
This line in reinforced once she is sure that both Luke and Hannah are alive.
From most of the novel Offred represents an alternative to the meek subservience
and acceptance of one’s fate that most of the women in Gilead adopt.
Other handmaiden’s have lost hope, they became suppressed by the system (Gilead)
and cannot resist it. That’s why they just endure the regime and don’t rebel they
just do not do anything.
They don’t have a strong motive to move, they lost everything and the best they can
do is that they don’t say anything because they are afraid to make a move.
Here comes Offred, who through the story has more and more reasons to fight. First
just to escape the system and try to live with her family that Gilead has taken,
but as the story goes she sees how cruel the world became and tries to change it,
whatever it takes.

Although he does not appear in the present-action story, Offred’s former husband,
Luke, is a major presence in the novel. Offred remembers him lovingly, and feels
anguish when she cannot preserve her memory of him: “night by night he recedes, and
I become more faithless” (Chapter 40). The word “faithless” here suggests that
Offred feels bound to by a traditional idea of romance, in which Offred owes
unswerving loyalty to her husband.
In Offred’s memories of Luke, The Handmaid’s Tale draws a connecting line between
the male-dominated society of Gilead and the feelings and behavior of men in our
own era.

For most of the novel, Offred remains passive. When she finds an opportunity to
express herself, she takes it: for instance, she seizes chances to talk to Moira at
the Red Center and at Jezebel’s, and she accepts the Commander’s invitation to see
him alone. However, at no point does she take an active stand against the regime.
The novel contrasts Offred’s passivity with the active resistance of her mother,
who joins feminist “Take Back the Night” marches.
Offred’s conflict with the regime is not thst dramatic. Simply by preserving her
memories and faithfully witnessing what happens to her, she tries to maintain own
identity. The novel argues that Offred’s minimal resistance is all that can be
expected of most oppressed people, and that her resistance has value.

All in all, the reason why I have chosen Offred, because she has a strong
personality, she is stubborn, smart and knows what she wants and needs.

Offred’s voice, her story, and her judgments which remain with us have the most
value and influence how the story continues.

Sometimes she just remains calm, obedient, quiet and analyses the happenings from a
distance, but when the opportunity arises she acts.

I find it admirable that she knows when and how to behave in different situations,
even though she has the fear of consequences of her actions, she doesn’t let the
system suppress her.