Summary Of The Handmaid's Tale

Offred lived a normal, American life when all of the sudden, her family was taken from her so she could go have somebody else’s baby. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a woman’s tale of her life, her story, and her struggles in a new society and how she got there. This story by Margaret Atwood tells the life of Offred, a handmaid for a wealthy couple and her daily struggles trying to adapt to her new world. Offred tells how she makes deals with her Commander and his Wife with hope of getting out and how that changes her life. The progress in this book is not as one would probably describe progress, but it is as follows: the government and society had to make major changes in order to bring about the new system and laws, Gilead is thinking of and executing ways to raise the birthrate in their country, and handmaids and women in general are protected at all costs. The government had to make drastic changes so that they could make this seemingly perfect government and world. Everyone in the times before the Republic of Gilead, people used paper money and had the right to their own freedoms, now, society has changed. “They shot the president, machine-gunned the Congress… The entire government, gone like that,” (Atwood 174). To make the changes for fertile women to bear children for other couples, there had to be subjection of the majority of the
The fertile women, the handmaids, are very well protected. There are guards all about the town and every precaution was taken so the handmaids wouldn’t die or be attacked. “Women were not protected then,” (Atwood 24). In the time before the Republic of Gilead was founded, women were free to do practically anything they wanted, but with that, there was freedom for everyone else. Women could be raped or killed, and even commit suicide. “They’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to,” (Atwood 7). Now, there is no chance for any of that. They are an important part of