Kate is a criminal, guilty of the crime of trying to escape from the US, and is sentenced to become a Handmaid. The job of a Handmaid is to bear the children of the man to whom she is assigned. After ruthless group training by Aunt Lydia in the proper way to behave, Kate is assigned as Handmaid to the Commander. Kate is attracted to Nick, the Commander's chauffeur. At the same time, a resistance movement begins to challenge the regime….
The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population. The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order.
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read.
She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable.
Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge.
But all of that is gone now. Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, "The Handmaid's Tale" is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning. Uploaded by radioannouncer on June 13, Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary Logo.
Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book.
Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Optimism for the future is particularly hard to stomach at this juncture.
When we see June again, looking out at a vivid street scene from her office window, she is called away to a poorly Hannah, who has been taken to hospital. Her dressing down by the doctor for being a working mum is a hint of what is to come. She is angry, but she brushes it off. It is only when she arrives home to see Luke gawping at the TV that they both begin to understand that everything is going to change. Where will we get our visual relief now?
It is back to the sludge-green sterility and chilly sunbeams of religious oppression. God, it is horrible. As Offred joins the throng of crying, shaking women, a leather bridle covering half her face, we are forced again to look into the dehumanised eyes of women who think they are going to be slaughtered.
It is more gruelling to watch than any number of ear-slicings or hand-burnings. Gilead rules not with fear, but with the abject terror of the removal of humanity. What the actual fuck? Welcome back to Gilead. I am glad she said it; the tiny release it provides after 11 minutes of hell is welcome, if brief. Moira is attracted to the Red Center, but she escapes, and Offred doesn't understand what becomes of her. After delegated to the Commander's home, Offred's life settles to a restrictive routine.
She requires shopping excursions with Ofglen, another Handmaid, plus they see the Wall out what was Harvard University, in which the bodies of rebels hang.
She has to pay a visit to the doctor often to be assessed for infection and other complications, and she has to endure the 'Ceremony,' where the Commander reads to the family from the Bible, then goes into the bedroom, where his predecessors as well as Offred await him, and has intercourse with Offred. The initial break from her regular happens when she visits the doctor and he also has to have sex with her to receive her pregnant, signaling her Commander is most likely infertile.
She refuses. The physician makes her uncomfortable, but his proposal is overly risky - she can be sent away if grabbed. Following a Ceremony, the Commander sends his gardener and chauffeur, Nick, to request Offred to come see him at his research the subsequent night. She starts seeing him consistently. They perform Scrabble, and that he lets her appearance at old novels such as Vogue. In the conclusion of the key meetings, he asks her to embrace him.
During one of the shopping excursions, Ofglen shows to Offred that she's a part of 'Mayday,' an underground organization dedicated to overthrowing Gilead. Meanwhile, Offred starts to discover the Ceremony feels different and not as impersonal today that she understands the Commander.
Their night conversations start to touch on the new sequence the Commander and his fellow leaders have already established in Gilead. When Offred admits how depressed she is, the Commander comments, 'You can not make an omelette without breaking eggs' After some time has gone by Offred becoming pregnant, Serena implies that Offred have intercourse with Nick covertly and pass off the child as the Commander's.
Serena vows to attract Offred a photo of the daughter when she sleeps with Nick, and Offred understands that Serena has ever recognized the whereabouts of Offred's daughter. The exact same night that Offred is to sleep with Nick, the Commander secretly carries her out to some club named Jezebel's, in which the Commanders mingle with prostitutes.
Offred sees Moira functioning there. The two girls meet in a toilet, and Offred learns that Moira was caught just before she crossed the edge.
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