The Commander is a high-ranking official in Gilead. Offred describes the structure of Gilead's society, including the several different classes of women and their circumscribed lives in the new theocracy. Interspersed in flashbacks are portions of her life from before and during the beginning of the revolution, when she finds she has lost all autonomy to her husband, through her failed attempt to escape with her husband and daughter to Canada, to her indoctrination into life as a handmaid. Offred describes her life during her third assignment as a Handmaid, in this case to Commander Fred who is formally referred to as The Commander.
The character is one of a class of women known as Handmaids who are kept for reproductive purposes by the ruling class in an era of declining births due to sterility from pollution and sexually transmitted diseases. The story is told in the first person by a woman called Offred (literally "Of-Fred"). In this society, human rights are severely limited and women's rights are unrecognized as almost all women are forbidden to read. The new regime, the Republic of Gilead, moves quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsory regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. They are quickly able to eliminate all women's rights, largely attributed to financial records being stored electronically and labelled by gender. Masterfully conceived and executed, this haunting vision of the future places Margaret Atwood at the forefront of dystopian fiction.The Handmaid's Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic military dictatorship formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America.īeginning with a staged attack that kills the President and most of Congress, an extreme Christian movement calling itself the " Sons of Jacob" launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford – her assigned name, Offred, means `of Fred’. Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States.
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