Chapters summary

Question 1

Chapter 1

Answer 1

• Offred describes how she and other women slept on army cots in a gymnasium
• Electric cattle pods being used by Aunts to control others
• women are forbidden to speak
• armed guards called Angels patrol outside
• Offered describes lying in bed at night, quietly exchanging names with other women

Question 2

Chapter 2

Answer 2

• Story shifts from the past to the present
• Offred’s room has no glass and nothing harmful to the Handmaid’s
• Handmaids wear red and Wives wear blue
• Martha’s are not supposed to create relationships with the Handmaid’s
• Offered desires to gossip about -
  one Handmaid gave birth to a stillborn
  one Wive stabbed a Handmaid with a knitting needle out of jealousy
  someone poisoned her Commander with toilet cleaner

Question 3

Chapter 3

Answer 3

• The Commander’s Wife owned a garden and smoked a cigarette (black market item)
• Offered reveals that the other two couples she was assigned to “didn’t work out”
• her new mistress told her to stay away from her and from trouble, the Wife also reminded her that the Commander was hers forever
• her mistress was Serena Joy, a golpes singer from Growing Souls Gospel Hour

Question 4

Chapter 4

Answer 4

• A Guardian called Nick winks at Offred- forbidden- she’s scared his an Eye testing her
• Handmaids always go shopping in pairs
• Ofglen gives exchanging greetings strictly orthodox
• Guardians serve as a routine police and do menial labor. They are men too young or too old that are unfit for the army
• Some young Guardians shot a Martha because they thought she was a man in disguise carrying a bomb
• Offred- subtly flirts with one of the Guardians by making EYE CONTACT
• Young men cannot marry without permission, masturbation is a sin, and pornographic content are forbidden

Question 5

Chapter 5

Answer 5

-The Republic of Gilead
- Women live a “safer” life as no men talk to them as it’s prohibited
-The shop in stores named as All Flesh or Honey and Milk–> they have pictures instead of words as Handmaids are prohibited to read
- Janine/OfWarren went shopping so she could show off her pregnancy
- Offred has a flashback of her past with Luke and her daughter
- Offred and Janine encounter a group of tourists (among them, women with revealing clothing) and their interpreter (many interpreters were eyes) that asked the Handmaids would behave well
- the tourists ask the Handmaid’s if they are happy under the regime and Offered says yes