Margaret

Atwood
Who is she?
• Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1939.
• She is the daughter of a forest entomologist, and spent part of her
early years in the bush of North Quebec. She moved, at the age of
seven, to Toronto. She studied at the University of Toronto, then took
her Masters degree at Radcliffe College, Massachusetts, in 1962. She
is Canada's most eminent novelist and poet, and also writes short
stories, critical studies, screenplays, radio scripts and books for
children; her works have been translated into over 30 languages. 
• Atwood has made a huge impact on Canadian
literature. She is known for exploring ideas of
gender, power, and identity, and for rewriting
myths and fairy tales (or in the case of her
2016 novel Hag-Seed, a Shakespeare classic).
Above all, perhaps, Atwood has made her mark
with haunting visions of future dystopias.
 Nonetheless, across the years,
Coming to Margaret Atwood’s
certain themes, concerns and
work for the first time, a
ways of writing recur.
reader is likely to be daunted:
Amongst other things,
she is seen as one of the
Atwood writes about art and
world’s leading novelists, for
its creation, the dangers of
some the best of all; she has
ideology and sexual politics;
written poetry, novels,
she deconstructs myths,
criticism and short stories; she
fairytales and the classics for
campaigns for human rights
a new audience. Her work is
and for the environment; she
often gothic, which is one
has simply written so much.
 • Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction
masterpiece "A Handmaid's Tale" explores the
consequences of complacency and how power
can be wielded unfairly. Atwood’s chilling vision
of a dystopian regime has captured readers'

Handmaid's imaginations since its publication in 1985. 

• Her purpose in writing this serious satire is
tale /1985/ to warn women of what the female gender
stands to lose if the feminist movement were to
fail
• . Atwood envisions a society of extreme changes
in governmental, social, and mental oppression to
make her point.
 The novel, narrated by Offred, alternates
between text describing her present life
and expository sections in which she
recalls
Offred’sher past. 
recollections reveal that she was
the daughter of a feminist activist who
Plot had chosen to be a single mother.
summary Before the advent of the theocratic
government, the protagonist attended
university and had a close friend named
Moira
Offred became involved with a married
man, Luke, and eventually she and Luke
wed and had a daughter. 
Following a military coup in which the president and most
members of Congress were killed, the country became the
Republic of Gilead. 

One day the protagonist was fired from her job at the library
because women were no longer permitted to work. That
evening she learned that women were also not allowed to have
money, and her bank account had been transferred to Luke. 
Eventually, Luke, the protagonist, and their daughter tried to
flee to Canada but were caught, and she was sent to a
reeducation centre for indoctrination in preparation for
becoming a Handmaid.

Moira was also at the reeducation centre, but she escaped.

 All women are assigned to various classes:

and the
reproductive
Handmaids, who
the chaste childless turn their offspring
the housekeeping
Wives of the over to the Wives
Marthas;
Commanders; and are called by
the names of their
assigned
Commanders. 
 Offred begins her third
assignment as a
Offred is required to go
Handmaid, having been
grocery shopping in the
unsuccessful in her
company of the
previous two. Fred is
neighbouring Handmaid,
Offred’s current
Ofglen. As they return,
Commander—her name
they pass the Wall, where
means “of Fred”—and his
the bodies of executed
Wife is Serena Joy, a
prisoners are displayed.
former singer on a 
 On Offred’s
monthly visit to
the doctor, he
One day, Offred suggests that the
notices a phrase Commander may
carved into the be sterile (the
closet floor: regime does not
“Nolite te recognize that men
bastardes can be sterile) and
carborundorum.” that he could
impregnate her.
Frightened, she
declines. 
 At home, she is required to attend the monthly
Ceremony: 

Later that night, Offred

after the Commander reads sneaks downstairs, hoping
the Bible to the household, to steal a flower, and finds
Offred must lie between Nick, a Guardian and the
Serena Joy’s legs while Commander’s chauffeur,
Serena Joy clasps her also in the house; he tells
hands as the Commander her that the Commander
has sex with her. wants her to go to his
office the following night.
• When one of the Handmaids gives birth, all
the other Handmaids attend her; a complex
ritual showing that the baby really belongs
to a Wife accompanies the birthing process.
When Offred presents herself in the
Commander’s office, she is surprised to
find that he wishes to play Scrabble, even
though women are forbidden to read. The
nighttime meetings continue, and Offred
finds the monthly Ceremony
uncomfortable now that she has a personal
relationship with the Commander.
One day Ofglen reveals to Offred that
she is a member of an underground
resistance movement.

From the Commander, Offred learns

that the phrase on the closet floor
means “Don’t let the bastards grind
you down” and that the Handmaid who
carved it had hanged herself after
Serena Joy learned of her secret 
• Weeks later, Serena Joy dangerously
arranges for Offred to have sex with Nick
in hopes that Offred will conceive; after
that assignation, she and Nick continue
with an affair. One night the Commander
requires Offred to don a sexy costume
and takes her out to an unofficially
permitted sex club, where Offred sees
Moira working as a prostitute.
• Later, all the women are
required to attend a
savage public execution,
and Ofglen tells Offred
that one of those killed
was a member of the
resistance.
•  The next shopping day, a
different Handmaid
identifies herself as
Ofglen; the new Ofglen
A van of the Eyes comes to arrest Offred,
but Nick tells her that the Eyes are really
resistance fighters. 
The story ends with Offred being taken away
to an uncertain fate. 

An epilogue then explains that the events of

the story, found on tape cassettes, are being
discussed as part of a symposium on
Gileadean Studies in 2195 and hints that a
more equitable society followed the
The book has been
adapted into a 1990 An ebook version
A sequel novel, The
film, a 2000 opera, was published by
Testaments, was
a 2017 television Houghton Mifflin
published in 2019.
series, and other Harcourt.
media.