Reading guide: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Forty years ago, Margaret Atwood’s cautionary tale was published – a novel that would go on to become one of the most defining dystopian works of modern times

Whether you’re new to The Handmaid’s Tale or have read it and would like to explore it more deeply, here is our comprehensive guide, featuring insights from critics and the book’s author, as well as discussion points and suggestions for further reading.

Written by Emily Facoory

Published April 4, 2025

Synopsis

Offred is a national resource. In the Republic of Gilead her viable ovaries make her a precious commodity, and the state allows her only one function: to breed. As a Handmaid she carries no name except her Master’s, for whose barren wife she must act as a surrogate. Dissenters are supposed to end up either at the Wall, where they are hanged, or in the Colonies, to die a lingering death from radiation sickness. But the irrepressible Moira shows Offred that it is possible to cheat the system.

The Handmaid’s Tale was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1986.

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The main characters

Offred

Offred is the narrator of The Handmaid’s Tale and lives in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian state that emerged after overthrowing the American government. As a Handmaid, she is assigned to a Commander and forced to bear his child due to his wife’s infertility. Before becoming a Handmaid, Offred was married to Luke, with whom she has a young daughter. Their attempt to escape the regime ended in separation, leaving Offred trapped in Gilead’s oppressive system.

Commander Fred

Commander Fred is a high-ranking official in Gilead and head of the household where Offred is assigned. He develops an interest in her, beyond her scope of duty, bringing her confiscated items and breaking many of the regime’s laws. Commander Fred claims that his wife Serena Joy does not understand him, and admits to feeling lonely.

Serena Joy

The wife of the Commander, Serena Joy is a former televangelist and is believed to be sterile. A staunch advocate for traditional values, she supports the regime despite being confined to a subservient role herself. She shows little empathy for Offred, treating her with coldness and resentment.

Aunt Lydia

Lydia is an ‘aunt’ in charge at the Rachel and Leah Re-education Centre, serving to reeducate women as they are trained to become Handmaids. She is cruel and controlling, and patrols the gymnasium with a cattle prod, where she spouts biblical passages, adjusting them to suit Gilead’s philosophies.

Nick

Nick is the Commander’s chauffeur and gardener, having been given the position of a low-ranking Guardian. He and Offred begin a sexual relationship, driven by the need for her to conceive, as she hasn’t been impregnated by the Commander yet. It’s unclear whether Nick is a loyalist to the regime or part of the resistance against it.

About the author

Margaret Atwood is the two-time winner of the Booker Prize and world-renowned author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin (winner of the Booker Prize in 2000) and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. She was also shortlisted for The Man Booker International Prize (the precursor of the current International Booker Prize) in 2005 and 2007 for her entire body of work. Her most recent publications are the poetry collections Dearly and Paper Boat; Burning Questions, a selection of essays; and Old Babes in the Wood, a volume of short stories.

What the critics said

Charlotte Newman, The Guardian

‘Fiercely political and bleak, yet witty and wise, the novel won the inaugural Arthur C Clarke award in 1987, but Atwood has always maintained that the novel is not classifiable science fiction. Nothing practised in the Republic of Gilead is genuinely futuristic. She is right, and this novel seems ever more vital in the present day, where women in many parts of the world live similar lives, dictated by biological determinism and misogyny.’

Kirkus Reviews

‘Atwood, to her credit, creates a chillingly specific, imaginable night-mare. The book is short on characterization—this is Atwood, never a warm writer, at her steeliest—and long on cynicism—it’s got none of the human credibility of a work such as Walker Percy’s Love In The Ruins. But the scariness is visceral, a world that’s like a dangerous and even fatal grid, an electrified fence. Tinny perhaps, but still a minutely rendered and impressively steady feminist vision of apocalypse.’

Mary McCarthy, The New York Times

‘The writing of ”The Handmaid’s Tale” is undistinguished in a double sense, ordinary if not glaringly so, but also indistinguishable from what one supposes would be Margaret Atwood’s normal way of expressing herself in the circumstances. This is a serious defect, unpardonable maybe for the genre: a future that has no language invented for it lacks a personality. That must be why, collectively, it is powerless to scare. ONE could argue that the very tameness of the narrator-heroine’s style is intended as characterization.’

Independent on Sunday

‘It’s hard to believe it is 25 years since it was first published, but its freshness, its anger and its disciplined, taut prose have grown more admirable in the intervening years… Atwood’s novel was an ingenious enterprise that showed, without hysteria, the real dangers to women of closing their eyes to patriarchal oppression.’

Peter Kemp, Independent

‘Out of a narrative shadowed by terror, gleam sharp perceptions, brilliant intense images and sardonic wit.’

What the author said

‘I began this book almost 30 years ago, in the spring of 1984, while living in West Berlin – still encircled, at that time, by the infamous Berlin Wall. The book was not called The Handmaid’s Tale at first – it was called Offred – but I note in my journal that its name changed on January 3, 1985, when almost 150 pages had been written. That’s about all I can note, however. Although I made numerous journal entries about the book I’d been writing just before beginning The Handmaid’s Tale – a many-layered saga set in Latin America that became waterlogged and had to be set adrift – I don’t find myself writing much at all about The Handmaid’s Tale.’

Read the full interview in Lit Hub

‘By 1984, I’d been avoiding my novel for a year or two. It seemed to me a risky venture. I’d read extensively in science fiction, speculative fiction, utopias and dystopias ever since my high school years in the 1950s, but I’d never written such a book. Was I up to it? The form was strewn with pitfalls, among them a tendency to sermonize, a veering into allegory and a lack of plausibility. If I was to create an imaginary garden I wanted the toads in it to be real. One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the “nightmare” of history, nor any technology not already available. No imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities. God is in the details, they say. So is the Devil.’

Read the full interview in the New York Times

Questions and discussion points

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the Handmaids wear red dresses with white bonnets. Offred reflects that ‘everything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us’. It is likely Offred is referring to menstrual blood, considering the Handmaids’ role is to be of reproductive value. The book offers no explanation, however, for the significance of the white bonnets, which restrict the Handmaids’ vision and are described as ‘wings’. Discuss the purpose of the Handmaids’ wings, and what they may symbolise.

Offred serves as the narrator in the novel, which is characterised by shifts between past and present, digressions, memories, and even fantasies. Offred also openly acknowledges her unreliability as a narrator. How does this narrative style impact the reader’s perception of Gilead’s society? And what are the advantages and limitations of having Offred as the sole narrator?

Gilead’s laws are justified through religious rhetoric. How does religion function as a tool for oppression, and how do characters like Offred and Serena Joy respond to this manipulation?

At one point in the novel, Offred says: ‘But if you happen to be a man, some time in the future and you’ve made it this far, please remember: You will never be subject to the temptation or feeling you must forgive a man as a woman. It’s difficult to resist, believe me. But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.’ (Page 140) What is your understanding of Offred’s words in this passage, and how might forgiveness be seen as a form of power in this context?

When writing The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood made a rule for herself: ‘I would not include anything that human beings had not already done in some other place or time, or for which the technology did not already exist. I did not wish to be accused of dark, twisted inventions, or of misrepresenting the human potential for deplorable behavior,’ she said. Can you think of examples where the ideas and behaviours in the novel reflect real-life events? What historical events or societal actions might Atwood have drawn inspiration from?

While there are some theories that Offred’s real name is June, her name is never revealed in the book. Atwood has mentioned that it was not her intention to imply this, ‘but it fits, so readers are welcome to it if they wish’. Discuss why Atwood may have decided not to reveal Offred’s real name in the novel. What impact does this decision have on the character and the themes of the story?

The novel ends with Offred being taken away by The Eyes, with the reader unsure of her fate. Why do you think Atwood decided to finish the book with such an ambiguous conclusion? If you haven’t read The Testaments, what do you think Offred’s fate might be – freedom, or further suffering?

Since its publication in 1985, the novel has had a far-reaching and lasting impact. The Handmaid’s costumes have become a powerful and well-recognised symbol of political protest, often worn in response to issues relating to the oppression of women’s rights. Why might this imagery have resonated so strongly? Despite the book being published 40 years ago, why do you believe it has continued to endure?

Many readers and critics have questioned what genre The Handmaid’s Tale belongs to. American author Ursula K. Le Guin argued that Atwood’s works ‘exemplify one of the things science fiction does, which is to extrapolate imaginatively from current trends and events to a near-future that’s half prediction, half satire’. On the other hand, Atwood actively avoids classifying her work as sci-fi, instead referring to it as speculative fiction, noting ‘that everything that happens in her novels is possible and may even have already happened, so they can’t be science fiction’. Having read The Handmaid’s Tale, and understanding each author’s view, how would you classify it?

The Handmaid’s Tale is often compared to George Orwell’s seminal work of dystopian fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Atwood has said her interest in dystopian fiction began with the novel, alongside Huxley’s Brave New World and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, stating that ‘once you’ve been intrigued by a literary form, you always have a secret yen to write an example of it yourself’. If you’ve read Nineteen Eighty-Four, what similarities have you noticed between the two prominent works, and in what ways does The Handmaid’s Tale stand apart?