Part I

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Offred, the main character, recounts her experiences as a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a twenty-first-century authoritarian society run by radical Christian fundamentalists. In this American dystopia, women have been reduced to the status of breeders. As Offred chronicles her days as a Handmaid, she gradually pieces together for readers the horrors of the totalitarian regime and her struggle for survival.

Offred begins her story with a flashback to her time at the Rachel and Leah Center. where she and other Handmaids received their training. She remembers the Aunts, who guarded and taught them, patrolling at night with electric cattle prods and leather belts. The Handmaids-in-training were confined to what used to be a gymnasium. except for twice daily walks within the chain-link, barbed wire fence. During the long nights the women communicated with each other in the dark...