The Handmaid's Tale

Offred is the novel’s protagonist and first-person narrator. In her life before Gilead, she was married to Luke, a man with whom she had previously had an affair. They had a daughter together. As Gilead overthrew the government, curtailing women’s freedom and autonomy, Offred was largely apathetic. She had long eschewed her mother’s feminist politics and demonstrations, and when marches were organized to protest the increasing restrictions on women’s liberty, she did not attend, accepting Luke’s belief that “it would be futile and I had to think about them, my family” (189).

At some stage, this restrictive life became too much for Offred and Luke, and they attempted to escape into Canada. However, once this fails and Offred is separated from her husband and daughter, she becomes outwardly passive once more, although her thoughts remain critical and insightful. After being “reeducated” by the vicious, authoritative Aunts, Offred is forced to become a Handmaid and is, after several other appointments, assigned to the Commander (from whom she gets her name “of-Fred”) and his Wife, Serena Joy. Despite the horror of her situation and her ability to astutely analyze the machinations and mechanisms at play, she is largely reluctant to rebel against her imprisonment and abuse.