As a Handmaid she is forced to have sex with her Commander, in order to get pregnant, once a month in what is known as the Ceremony. It is a combination of the word “of” and her assigned Commander’s name, in this case, Fred. Offred is not the protagonist’s true name. Serena is often referred to as “the Wife” and Fred as the “Commander” due to his relatively high ranking in the Gilead military structure.

Offered is a Handmaid, a woman assigned to have children for an elite infertile couple, in this case, Fred and Serena Joy. this, coupled with violence against women, led to the rise of Gilead and the restrictive gender roles it creates. Due to a series of chemical spills, childbirth rates are incredibly low. The protagonist of the story, Offred, is a young woman of child-bearing age who unlike most American women, is still fertile. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian state that has sprung up in what used to be the United States of America. Spoiler alert: important details of The Handmaid’s Tale are revealed below. She struggles to balance her desire to escape her new prison with her own safety and that of her daughter who she desperately wants to see. As The Handmaid’s Tale progresses, Offred learns more and more about the society she’s now a part of and the darkness has no bounds.

Their single purpose in life is to have children for elite, infertile couples. They have to submit to a monthly “Ceremony” in which they have to sleep with the Commander they are assigned to. Young fertile women, such as Offred, have been rounded up and reeducated in the belief system of Gilead. The main character, Offred, tells her story through a series of flashbacks and remembrances that detail her marriage, her child, and her capture. Under the guise of religion, Gilead control its citizens, from Handmaid to Martha and Wife in a very particular way. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale readers will find themselves thrust into the world of Gilead, a totalitarian religious state that values childbirth and gender hierarchy over everything else.

‘Spoiler-Free’ The Handmaid’s Tale Summary

The handmaid's tale by margaret atwood