The Handmaids Tale Chapter Summaries Flashcards
Chapter 1
The reader is introduced to the regime of Gilead through the setting of the gymnasium, where we are told the Handmaids-in-training have to sleep on army barrack beds.
Chapter 2
Offred, our narrator, describes her single room in the house she’s been placed in as a Handmaid - the Commander’s house - we are also introduced to ‘Marthas’
Chapter 3
The setting changes to the garden. We find out this is the Commander’s wife, Serena Joy’s favourite place. Offred recognises Serena Joy. It is a flashback
Chapter 4
The chapter switches into the present tense as Offred describes walking out of the house to go shopping. She sees one of the Guardians cleaning the Commander’s car We meet Ofglen
Chapter 5
Offred enters the old University town with her double, Ofglen, and realsies that this is where she used to live with her husband Lick and her child before the creation of the Republic of Gilead
Chapter 6
Offred and Ofglen walk back from their shopping trip past a church which is now a museum, housing pictures of the “ancestors”. The description of their clothing implies theur are 17th-century puritans. We are introduced to the Wall
Chapter 7
The focus moves to Offred. She is on her own inn bed, staring at the celiling. She is reflecting in the connotations of the verbs “lie” and “lay”. She has flashbacks of when her and Moria as university students and when her daughter was taken away from her.
