The Handmaid's Tale summary

Welcome to Gilead.

It wasn’t always known by that name, though. Formerly, it was the United States of America. But in the early 2000s, the US government was overthrown by a religious fundamentalist group called the Sons of Jacob. After their successful coup, the Sons of Jacob established their own theocratic dictatorship: the Republic of Gilead.

The citizens of Gilead are bound by many rules. They must dress, behave, and even speak in certain ways – rather than hello, citizens greet each other with “Blessed be the Fruit” or “Under his Eye.” Most of all, they must never venture past the Wall, a tall red brick structure that separates Gilead from the outside world.

For the most part, the citizens of Gilead follow these rules. After all, the Eyes – the secret police – are everywhere, eager to report infractions – and any infraction is met with harsh punishment. Rule-breakers could be exiled to the Colonies, tracts of territory that have been polluted with radioactive waste. Or they could be executed and their bodies hung from the top of the Wall as a warning to others.

But the citizens whose lives are most circumscribed are women. In Gilead, women are sorted into several different classes.

Wives are the most powerful class of women – they’re the spouses of high-ranking Commanders. Although they enjoy status, they have little power outside of their own households. They’re identified by wearing only teal-colored robes.

Handmaids are fertile women of childbearing age. Fertile women are a rarity in Gilead – in this world, fertility has sharply declined and the birthrate is perilously low. Handmaids are assigned to Commanders and have regular sex with them while the Commander’s wife looks on, with the objective of falling pregnant with their Commander’s child. Handmaids don’t have names. They are referred to by the prefix Of- followed by the name of their Commander. For example, Ofglen is the handmaiden of Glen; Ofwarren the handmaiden of Warren. They are only allowed out in the company of a Guardian, the male soldiers in Gilead’s army. Handmaids wear bright red robes and bonnets that hide their faces from view.

Marthas are servants who work in the homes of the Commanders. They wear gray robes.

Aunts act as supervisors to the Handmaidens – they are responsible for their behavior and religious education. They’re the only women in Gilead permitted to read or write. They wear brown robes.

Jezebels are prostitutes.

Unwomen are women who fail to cooperate with the state; as punishment, they’re sent to the Colonies.

ANALYSIS

The author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood, has written that when she began the novel in the mid-1980s, she was inspired by recent and contemporary events, like World War II and the rise of the Iron Curtain. These were events, to her mind, that showed how easily the seemingly normal order of the world could be overturned – how easily ordinary people could find themselves living in totalitarian dystopias like Gilead. But, on the novel’s publication in 1985, Atwood wondered whether its premise, that the totalitarian state of Gilead had been established in place of the democratic USA, would strike readers as far-fetched – even though Gilead’s ruthlessly puritanical politics were inspired by events in American history such as the Salem witch trials.

Decades after its publication, though, many people believe that, rather than far-fetched, the novel was uncannily prescient. The 2010s and early 2020s have seen a rise in populist politics across the globe. And in the USA, where the novel is set, right-wing politicians have rolled back reproductive rights in a manner that strikes many observers as Gileadesque – most notably when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, in 2022. In the USA, and around the world, many women have dressed in red handmaid robes as a symbol of protest against the oppression of women’s rights.