Summary On June 25, 2195, approximately two centuries after Gilead’s hostile takeover, the Gileadean Studies’ Twelfth Symposium meets at the University of Denay, Nunavit. The Chair, Professor Maryann Crescent Moon, indicates in her welcome to delegates that the creation of the Gileadean theocracy caused a remapping of the world. The […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Historical Notes on The Handmaids TaleSummary and Analysis Chapter 15 – Night
Summary At the window of her room, Offred ponders her disgrace. She weighs her alternatives: suffocation by setting the house on fire escape via a rope of bedsheets draped out the shatterproof window confession to the Commander and a plea for mercy hanging by bedsheets in the closet a surprise […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 15 – NightSummary and Analysis Chapter 14 – Salvaging
Summary Wracked with remorse and guilt for the tale that she must finish, Offred admits returning to Nick on the sly, surreptitiously making love by the glare of a state searchlight. Careless of the danger that she courts, Offred talks freely to Nick about Moira and Ofglen, but never of […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 14 – SalvagingSummary and Analysis Chapter 13 – Night
Summary That night, the heat in Offred’s room grows oppressive, even with the fan. The searchlights are off. Dressed once more in her obligatory red habit and makeup-free face, she awaits Serena, who arrives at midnight to escort Offred through the kitchen and point the way to Nick’s quarters. Inside […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 13 – NightSummary and Analysis Chapter 12 – Jezebeus
Summary Whispering cautiously, Ofglen and Offred make their daily trek past the Wall toward the park. Ofglen divulges that “Mayday” is the password of an underground network. On Offred’s return to the Commander’s house, Serena asks assistance with a skein of wool and reminds Offred that she must soon conceive. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 12 – JezebeusSummary and Analysis Chapter 11 – Night
Summary The heavy fragrance of summer flowers rises to Offred’s bedroom window, where she takes her accustomed seat and gazes out into the night. In the moonlight, she spots Nick. Her thoughts return to her family’s failed escape and Luke’s killing of the cat, whose prowling and yowls could have […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 11 – NightSummary and Analysis Chapter 10 – Soul Scrolls
Summary Cora’s scream awakens Offred, who pretends that she fainted in the closet. Cora, hoping that fainting is proof of pregnancy, conceals from Rita the fact that breakfast, which Cora dropped on the floor, went uneaten. As a favor to Offred, Cora hides the evidence by flushing the wasted food […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 10 – Soul ScrollsSummary and Analysis Chapter 9 – Night
Summary Offred returns to her room and determines to abandon her reveries of the past and live in the present. Obeying Aunt Lydia’s injunction to manipulate men to her advantage, Offred ponders how to bargain for something she needs. Her thoughts turn to women killed in Nazi Germany. As she […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 9 – NightSummary and Analysis Chapter 8 – Birth Day
Summary Still immured in shifting phantasms of the familiar and reassuring past, Offred sees herself as a mother with her child and also as a child with her mother. To compose her muddled brain, Offred recites litanies, mental gymnastics that exercise her numbed thinking processes. As she ponders the second […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 8 – Birth DaySummary and Analysis Chapter 7 – Night
Summary The urgent need for human contact forces Offred into the past, when she and Luke lay in bed as their unborn child kicked in her mother’s womb. Three unsubstantiated visions of Luke flash onto Offred’s mental screen: Luke lying in underbrush, his soft tissue decayed, leaving a skeleton and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter 7 – Night