Handmaids Tale - Chapter Summaries Flashcards
What is the summary for section 1, chapter 1?
The narrator describes a former gymnasium that appears to now be like a women’s prison, patrolled by ‘Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth’ and guarded by ‘Angels’
The narrator nostalgically recalls the games and the dances that would once have been held in this space
What is the summary for section 2, chapter 2-3?
Location shifts to a room in a Victorian house that Offred describes in detail
Offred describes her red costume, her marginal position and the layout of the house which belongs to a Commander and his Wife
Having been assigned to do the shopping, Offred receives tokens instead of money from the housekeeper and sets out with the shopping basket. She leaves by the back door and goes through the Commander’s Wife’s ‘large and tidy’ garden
In chapter 3, Offred remembers arriving at the Commander’s house as his Handmaid and meeting his wife for the first time. She realised who the wife used to be - a gospel singer called Serena Joy
What is the summary for section 2, chapters 4-6?
Chapter 4 switches back to the present. Offred sees Nick, the chauffeur, who is washing the commander’s car. Riskily he winks at her and she wonders why
Offred meets Ofglen, her shopping companion, who is dressed in an identical red costume. They speak to each other using conventional Gileadean greetings and make cautious small talk
The two women pass the checkpoint and Offred makes a small gesture of defiance by teasing the guards, flaunting her forbidden sexuality as she walks away
The Handmaid’s walk to the shops in what was formerly a university town, and is now the capital of Gilead. Offred recognises it all because she used to live there will Luke, her former husband and their young child. She yearns for them and her friend Moira
There are two significant encounters here: one with a pregnant handmaid Ofwarren, who Offred recognises from the red centre. The other when Offred and Ofglen meet a group of Japanese tourists. Offred realises their westernised clothes now look as exotic to her and hers do to them
Chapter 6, the handmaids pass the old landmarks and pause to stare at the hooded dead bodies of dissidents (doctors who performed abortions) that are hanging from the wall
What is the summary for section 3, chapter 7?
Offred lies alone on her bed. She has a secret escape route as she can ‘step sideways’ into private spaces of memory
Offred remembers her rebellious college friend Moira
Offred’s attention then moves to an earlier childhood memory of going to the park with her mother, an early feminist activist, to a burning of pornographic magazines
Most painful of all is her memory of her lost child, who was taken away from her by force under the new regime, when Offred was drugged and assigned to the red centre to be trained as a handmaid
Finally, she comments on her relationship to the story she is telling and her uncertainty about who she is addressing, or whether he story will ever be heard
What is the summary for section 4, chapter 8-10?
On one of their walks together, Ofglen uses the words ‘May day’ and Offred wonders what its significance is in Gilead
Offred notices evidence of misery and oppression all around her: in the daily executions of dissidents and in a baby’s funeral procession
On returning to the house she sees Nick, who tries to speak to her. She also sees Serena sitting alone in the garden
We learn about Serena’s history and how she became a media celebrity, promoting New Right family values. Offred notes the irony that Serena is now a ‘speechless’ and household victim of the very ideology she helped to promote
When Offred goes upstairs after shopping, she sees her new commander peering into her room. As she passes him, he tries to look at her face. Both these acts are prohibited, and is puzzled as to what it may mean
Inside the room she now considers hers, Offred thinks back to happier times and her secret, adulterous assignations with Luke before they were married
Offred remembers finding a secret message left by her unknown predecessor in the room
However, when she tries to find what happened to the handmaid before, nobody in the house will tell her
Offred reminisces again about Moira and their college days
What is the summary for section 4, chapters 11-12?
Offred describes her visit to the doctor for her monthly check-up to assess her reproductive fitness. The doctor offers to give her a baby, but Offred refuses on the grounds its too dangerous
Offred takes a bath and remembers her small daughter, who was taken from her
Cora brings Offred some food, and Offred waits for the commander
What is the summary for section 5, chapter 13 and section 6, chapter 14?
Offred describes the boredom of her situation, likening herself to ‘a prize pig’
She remembers one compulsory rest period at the red centre when her friend Moira was brought in by the Aunts, and relishes the memory of Moira’s spirited resistance against the brainwashing sessions in which Janine proved herself the most abject female victim
Offred also thinks about male and female bodies. She compares how she used to feel about her own body with how she feels about it now, and describes bodily sensations including her menstrual cycle using powerful and poetic imagery
Sinking from meditation into sleep, Offred has two of her recurring nightmares: first her dread Luke is dead, and then replay of their failed escape attempt
The commander’s household assembles for family prayers. As they wait, Serena switches on the news. Although its only state of propaganda we learn that Gilead is a war zone and there is religious and political prisoners and mass deportations
In an act of resistance, Offred thinks about her own name and her first contact with Nick
What is the summary for section 6, chapters 14-17?
The commander enters the sitting room and there are family prayers. offred tries to visualise what it must be like to be a man with women at his disposal, reflecting how Gileadean constructions of masculinity relate to power and isolation: ‘It must be just fine. It must be hell. It must be very silent’
The impregnation ceremony takes place involving Offred, the commander and his wife. After the ceremony, Offred steals a flower and embraces Nick in the sitting room in the dar. Nick gives her a secret message from the commander
What is the summary for section 7, chapter 18 and section 8 chapters 19-20?
Offred remembers lying in bed with Luke before their daughter was born and contrasts this memory with her present solitary state
Offred hears the siren of the red Birthmobile and the handmaids travel together to attend the birth of Ofwarrens baby
As she travels, Offred describes some of the reasons why the birth rate has fallen to dangerous levels and why birth abnormalities have become so common
Surround by other handmaids and wives, Offred remembers her own mother. In one of the red centres brainwashing films, Offred recognises her own young mother at an anti-pornography and pro-choice rally in the 1970s. Although their relationship was ‘never easy she misses her and the comparative freedoms they enjoyed at that time
What is the summary for section 8, chapters 21-23?
During Ofwarren’s natural home birth, Offred tries to find news of Moira
The baby is born and named Angela, but attention immediately moves away from the handmaids to the wife who will rear the child. Janine will then be transferred to another family, her reward being that ‘she’ll never be sent to the colonies, she’ll never be declared Unwoman’
Offred muses on the differences between what her mother’s generation meant by ‘a women’s culture’ and Gilead’s interpretation
Offred returns to her room after the birth. She remembers the story of Moira’s first heroic escape attempt from the red centre
Offred has her first secret meeting with the commander, where they play scrabble
What is the summary for section 9, chapter 24 and section 10, chapter 25?
With a newly awakened sense of her individuality, Offred gives some details about herself, her age and appearance
She realises that she may be tempted into friendship with the commander and remembers a TV documentary she saw as a child about a Nazi war criminal’s mistress who refused to believe that the man she loved was a monster
She sees she is trapped and says of the commander’s desire for her that ‘it could be a passport, it could be my downfall’. She finds the situation ‘bizarre’ and at the end of chapter 24 begins to laugh at its absurdity
The next chapter opens with ‘a scream and a crash’ as Offred has fallen asleep in the closet and Cora thinks Offred has killed herself
High summer comes and Offred enjoys walking in Serena’s garden
She begins to enjoy her secret meetings with the commander
What is the summary for section 10, chapters 26-27?
Offred attends another ceremony. The commander tries to touch her face but Offred is afraid of the consequences, warning him he could get her ‘transferred… to the colonies… or worse’
Offred and Ofglen go shopping together. After visiting the wall, they visit ‘the store known as soul scrolls’ where there are computers that print readout prayers as a sign of customers piety
Offred and Ofglen confess to each other their feelings of dissent, and Offred discovers an underground resistance in Gilead
Outside, there is a commutation as ‘two eyes, in grey suits’ grab a man from the street, slam him against the side of their black van, violently immobiliser him and take him away
What is the summary for section 10, chapters 29-29?
Offred thinks about her relationship with the commander. Trying to see it as Moira might have done, she realises that there are parallels with her early relationship with Luke, for that too was a form of love triangle: she was his mistress before she was his wife
Offred recalls Gilead’s right-wing takeover of American congressional government, when women were stripped of their economic, political and legal rights
During one of their meetings, Offred asks the commander the meaning of the Latin inscriptions in her room. At the end of chapter 29, Offred finds out that her predecessor committed suicide
What is the summary for section 11, chapter 30 and section 12, chapters 31-32?
Offred sees Nick and remembers their earlier encounter. She realises that Luke and her daughter are beginning to seem like fading ‘ghosts at daybreak’
Serena suggests Offred secretly sleep with Nick in order to conceive a child
To seal the bargain, Serena gives Offred an illegal cigarette and tells her where to find a match, and offers to let her see a photograph of her daughter. Offred is angry that Serena kept her daughter’s fate secret from her for so long
Offred thinks about her predecessor and about what she could do with the match
What is the summary for section 12 chapters 33-34?
Offred taken on another of the Handmaid’s compulsory outings, this time to a women’s Prayvaganza to celebrate a mass wedding. Offred describes it as being like a circus of theatrical performance
At the Prayvaganza, in the midst of the mass marriage celebration, Offred sees Janine, whose baby was deemed ‘a shredder’ and destroyed
Offred remembers Janine almost having a nervous breakdown at the Red Centre, from which Moira saved her before trying to escape
Offred remembers her commander explaining to her why he condones ‘Arranged marriages’ rather than ‘falling in love’
Ofglen reveals that Offred’s secret visits to the commander are known about and tries to recruit Offred into the resistance movement as a spy
