The Handmaid's Tale: Plot Summary (OCR A Level English Literature)

The Handmaid’s Tale: Plot Summary

One of the most important things you can do in preparation for the exam is to ‘know’ the plot of The Handmaid’s Tale thoroughly. When you are familiar with all of the key events, you can then link them to larger ideas. Having an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the text will also help you to gain confidence in finding the most relevant references to support your response.

Below you will find:

• plot storyboard

• a general overview of the novel

• a detailed section and chapter summary

Overview

Published in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in what used to be the USA, but is now a totalitarian and repressive theocracy named the Republic of Gilead. The Republic of Gilead exists in an era of environmental pollution and radiation which has affected fertility. The story is narrated by the protagonist Offred, a “Handmaid”, who recounts her daily experiences interspersed with memories of her life before the revolution and during her training to become a handmaid.

Due to dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are fertile women assigned to bear children for elite couples who are unable to conceive. Offred is allocated to the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy. Offred has to live in the Commander’s house, and her freedom, like the freedom of all women in Gilead, is severely restricted. She is not even allowed to use her real name, with the name “Offred” meaning “of Fred”, the Commander’s first name. Once a month, Offred has to submit to a “Ceremony”, in which she is forced into having sex with the Commander while lying in Serena Joy’s lap and holding her hands. Any child Offred conceives will be considered the Commander and Serena Joy’s child.

During the novel, Offred recalls her restricted life at the Rachel and Leah Re-education Centre (the Red Centre), a training camp for Handmaids, where Aunt Lydia supervised the women and indoctrinated them into Gilead’s belief system of women being subservient to men. She also remembers her feisty friend Moira, who escaped from the Centre, her feminist activist mother, her husband Luke and their daughter, from whom she has been separated. Offred can only leave the Commander’s house for shopping trips (accompanied by another handmaid), and Gilead’s secret police force, the Eyes (short for the Eyes of God), watch everything. During one shopping trip, the Handmaid Ofglen reveals to Offred that she is a member of “Mayday”, an underground resistance group attempting to overthrow Gilead.

Handmaids are required to visit the doctor to check for pregnancy or disease. On one such trip, the doctor suggests to Offred that the Commander might be infertile and offers to have sex with her in order to get her pregnant, but Offred refuses. Unusually, the Commander starts to ask Offred to visit him in his study more regularly. They play Scrabble, which is forbidden since women are not allowed to read, and he lets her look at old magazines. However, some time goes by without Offred becoming pregnant, so Serena Joy suggests that Offred secretly have sex with Nick, the Commander’s chauffeur, and pass the child off as the Commander’s. Serena Joy promises to bring Offred a picture of her daughter if she does this, leading to Offred realising that Serena Joy has always known where her daughter was.

On the same night that Offred is to sleep with Nick, the Commander secretly takes her out to a club called Jezebel’s, where male members of the elite drink and consort with prostitutes. Offred sees Moira working there, and discovers that Moira was captured as she tried to flee across the border to Canada. She chose Jezebel’s over being sent to the Colonies, where anyone who poses a threat to Gilead is sent. The Commander later takes Offred upstairs and they have sex. Offred does not see Moira again.

Soon after returning from Jezebel’s, Serena Joy arrives at Offred’s room and instructs her to go to Nick. They begin an affair, which Offred gets caught up in and ignores Ofglen’s requests to spy on the Commander for Mayday. One day, all of the handmaids are made to take part in a group execution of a supposed rapist, supervised by Aunt Lydia. Ofglen strikes the first blow, but she later tells Offred that the rapist was actually a member of Mayday and she hit him to put him out of his misery.

On their next shopping trip, Offred is met by a new Ofglen, who tells Offred that the old Ofglen hanged herself when she saw the Eyes coming for her. Serena Joy discovers Offred and the Commander’s trips to Jezebel’s, and confines her to her room. As she waits, Offred sees a black van of the Eyes approaching. Nick enters and informs her that the Eyes are really Mayday members who have come to save her. Offred leaves with them, unsure of her fate.

The novel ends with an epilogue from 2195, after Gilead has fallen, written in the form of an academic lecture given by Professor Pieixoto. He discusses Offred’s story, which was discovered on cassette tapes. Pieixoto suggests that Nick arranged Offred’s escape, but that her fate after that is unknown.

Section and Chapter Summary

Section I - Night - Chapter 1

• The first person narrator, Offred, starts by describing the old school gymnasium where she has been sleeping along with other women on army-style cots

• The women are supervised by “Aunts”, Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Sara, who wear electric cattle prods

• There are male guards, picked from the “Angels”, who have guns but who are not allowed to interact with the women

• Offred and the other women are not allowed to speak or have any contact with each other, but at night they stretch out their arms to touch hands and lip-read each other’s names

Section II - Shopping - Chapters 2-6

• The location shifts to a plain bedroom in a large, Victorian house, which Offred describes as having nothing which a person could use to harm themselves

• She enters the kitchen where Rita, a Martha (a domestic servant) dressed in green, is kneading bread. Rita gives her tokens to exchange for food

• Offred exits through the garden, which is maintained by the Commander’s Wife and a Guardian

• The reader learns that this is Offred’s third posting, and she recognises the Commander’s Wife as Serena Joy, who used to sing with a Gospel choir on TV

• Offred passes Nick, a Guardian who works as a chauffeur for the Commander, who gives her a wink and Offred wonders if he is an Eye

• Offred waits for her companion, another Handmaid named Ofglen, as they are only allowed to go shopping in pairs

• In a shop, a heavily pregnant Handmaid enters. Her name is Ofwarren, but Offred recognises her from the Red Centre as Janine

• Offred and Ofglen walk back past the Wall, from where the hooded dead bodies of dissidents are hung from hooks.

Section III - Night - Chapter 7

• At night, Offred is able to escape into her memories

• She recalls Moira, her college friend, along with her mother, who was a feminist and an activist

• She also remembers the loss of her daughter, who it seems was taken away because she was “unfit”. She recalls seeing a photograph of her wearing a long, white dress

Section IV - Waiting Room - Chapters 8-12

• Offred and Ofglen return from another shopping trip, in which they saw three new bodies hung from the Wall 

• Ofglen mentions that it is a beautiful “May day”, and Offred considers the use of the word “mayday” for asking for help

• On the way back, they pass a funeral procession of Econowives, the wives of poorer men, mourning deceased babies

• Back at the Commander’s house, Offred passes Nick, who again breaks the rules by speaking to her

• Inside, Offred discovers the Commander breaking the rules by standing outside her room, looking in, invading the only space she gets to call her own

• She recalls how she explored the room carefully when she arrived, and on the third day discovered a Latin phrase scratched into the floor of the closet: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

• It is revealed that the Handmaid’s visit the doctor once a month for tests to assess their fitness to conceive

• During this visit, the doctor abuses his position and offers to impregnate Offred, telling her that he has done it before and that most of the Commanders are either too old or sterile. Offred declines

Section V - Nap - Chapter 13

• During her lengthy periods of boredom, Offred recalls seeing Moira for the first time at the Red Centre

• She thinks about her body, her memories and her daughter during their failed attempt to escape

Section VI - Household - Chapters 14-17

• It is time for the Ceremony, during which all of the household first assemble for family prayers. Offred has to kneel on the floor

• Then the Ceremony is performed in the bedroom - Offred lies on her back between Serena Joy’s legs, holding her hands

• The Commander enters and has sex with Offred in a detached and impersonal manner

• When Offred is sneaking downstairs, Nick enters the room behind her. He and Offred embrace, sexually attracted to each other, before Nick informs Offred that the Commander sent him to tell her to see him in his office the next day

Section VII - Night - Chapter 18

• Offred lies in bed, thinking of Luke and her family

Section VIII - Birth Day - Chapters 19-23

• At breakfast, a siren announces the arrival of a Birthmobile, which takes Offred and the other Handmaids to Commander Warren’s house, as Offwarren has gone into labour

• Ofwarren gives birth to a baby girl, who is immediately handed to the Wife as hers

• After dinner, she visits the Commander in her study, where they play Scrabble

Section IX - Night - Chapter 24

• Offred decides she must live in the present and work within its rules to her advantage

• She realises that the Commander’s unusual behaviour may be able to be exploited somehow

Section X - Soul Scrolls - Chapters 25-29

• The Commander and Offred play Scrabble, and one night he allows her to look at an old copy of Vogue magazine

• At the next Ceremony, something has changed. Offred feels more awkward and shy with the Commander, who seems to want to be more intimate with her, even though Serena Joy is there

• On another shopping trip with Ofglen, the pair stop outside a shop called “Soul Scrolls”, which prints out prayers

• Under the guise of pretending to pray, Offred and Ofglen discover that neither believes in the doctrine of Gilead

• Ofglen reveals that there are more like her - the resistance

• In the Commander’s study, after Scrabble, instead of reading, Offred asks to talk and to find out a bit more about him

• She asks him about the Latin inscription in her room, and discovers it means something similar to “don’t let the bastards grind you down”

• She realises that the previous Handmaid also had this relationship with the Commander, but she ended up hanging herself

• Offred understands that the Commander summons her to his study because he wants her life to be bearable, and his guilt is a weapon she could use. He asks her what would make her life better, and she replies knowledge about what is going on

Section XI - Night - Chapter 30

• Sitting in her room looking out of the window, Offred sees Nick in the garden and their look at each other is charged with sexual desire

Section XII - Jezebel’s - Chapters 31-39

• On a shopping trip, Ofglen tells Offred of the password “Mayday”, but warns her not to use it unless she has to

• Offred is stopped by Serena Joy in the garden, and she suggests that the Commander might not be able to have children and that they should consider another man

• She offers to help with this, and suggests Nick as the safest possibility

• She tells Offred that she will let her see a picture of her daughter if she agrees, which fills Offred with anger as she realises that Serena Joy has known of her daughter’s whereabouts all along

• The Handmaids attend a Prayvaganza with the other women of their district - this is a mass wedding ceremony for the Wives’ daughters, in which girls as young as fourteen are wed

• Ofglen reveals to Offred that she and others know of the secret visits to the Commander’s study - she asks Offred to find out what she can

• Serena Joy brings Offred her meal, along with a photograph of her daughter

• That night, when she visits the Commander, he gives her a dress and instructs her to put on make-up, as he is taking her out

• Nick drives them to a club the Commander has clearly been to before, where women work as prostitutes

• Offred sees Moira there, and they meet in the bathroom where Moira tells Offred of her escape attempt and how she ended up at the brothel

• The Commander takes Offred to a private room to have sex, and she doesn’t see Moira again

Section XIII - Night - Chapter 40

• That night, back at the house, Serena Joy collects Offred and instructs her to go to Nick

• They have sex for the first time and, because she enjoys it and has feelings for Nick, she feels as though she has betrayed her husband

Section XIV - Salvaging - Chapters 41-45

• Offred reveals things to Nick, including her real name, and realises that she wants to stay in Gilead with him

• The women are summoned to a Salvaging, where two Handmaids and one Wife are publicly hanged

• It is followed by a Particicution, where a man accused of rape is torn to pieces by the mob of outraged Handmaids - Ofglen is at the forefront of this

• When Offred questions her about this, she reveals that he was not a rapist but a dissenter, and she knocked him out first to put him out of his misery

• At the next shopping trip, Offred is met by a different Ofglen, who reveals that the old Ofglen hanged herself when she saw the Eyes coming for her

• Serena Joy also reveals that she knows about the Commander and Offred’s trip to Jezebel’s

Section XV - Night - Chapter 46

• Offred hears a black van approach, and Nick enters her room telling her that it’s actually Mayday and to go with them

• Offred is taken away, to Serena Joy and the Commander’s apparent surprise and dismay

Historical Notes

• It is the year 2195, and Offred’s tale has been discovered on tapes and is being presented at an academic conference

• Gilead no longer exists, and Offred’s fate is ultimately unknown