Margaret Atwood

Question 1

What is the name of the oppressive society in which Offred lives?

Answer 1

The Republic of Gilead

Question 2

What happened to Offred’s predecessor?

Answer 2

She hung herself from the light fixture in her room.

Question 3

What is the name of the Commander’s wife?

Answer 3

Serena Joy

Question 4

What is the Latin phrase Offred asks the commander about? What is its significance?

Answer 4

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum or “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

Though the message may seem at first to provide inspiration to Offred, when she asks the Commander to translate it he explains that it is a joke - fake Latin invented by school boys for fun, thus trivializing the message which had given Offred so much comfort and hope.

Question 5

What is the name of the chauffeur with whom Offred has an affair?

Answer 5

Luke

Question 6

What is Offred’s mother like? What happened to her?

Answer 6

She as an outspoken women’s rights activist. She is declared “Unwoman” and sent to the Colonies.

Question 7

What is the frame narrative for this story?

Answer 7

An academic conference in the year 2195

Question 8

What is the name of the secret liberation group?

Answer 8

Mayday

Question 9

What is the name for the secrete police?

Answer 9

The Eyes

Question 10

What happens to Offred?

Answer 10

Unknown; she leaves cassette tape recordings of her experience but it is unknown what happened to her after she records them.

Question 11

What is the main character’s real name?

Answer 11

It is not revealed in the book; her identity is lost to the past.

Question 12

What is the name of the keynote speech by Pieixoto?

Answer 12

“Problems of Authentication in Reference to the Handmaid’s Tale”

Question 13

Why is the book called “The Handmaid’s Tale”?

Answer 13

It is a name affixed to the document by a professor, a tip of the hat to Chaucer

Question 14

What inspired the design of the Handmaid’s uniforms?

Answer 14

The uniforms of German P.O.W.’s in Canada during WWII

Question 15

What two political figures had just come into power when Atwood first wrote this book?

Answer 15

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

These two elections embodied the rise of the religious right. Many feared that the election of these two conservatives would set back the advancement of Civil Rights, and particularly women’s rights, achieved in the 1960s and 1970s.

Question 16

To what literary tradition does this work belong?

Answer 16

Dystopia

Question 17

What is Offred’s husband’s name? How did they meet?

Answer 17

Luke; they were having an affair before Luke divorced his first wife.

Question 18

From what Quals author does Atwood take an epigraph? Discuss this significance.

Answer 18

Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal.

“A Handmaid’s Tale” can perhaps be seen as Atwood’s Modest Proposal. After years of speaking out against conservatism and threats to women’s rights, it may be that a society like Gilead is the solution to the world’s problems. Like Swift, such a proposal would be bitingly satiric.

Question 19

What is the name of the club Offred and the Commander visit?

Answer 19

Jezebel’s

Question 20

What happens to Moira?

Answer 20

Offred meets her again at Jezebel’s, where she has become a prostitute. Her rebellious nature seems to have been broken by the cruel regime.

Question 21

Why is this book set in Boston?

Answer 21

Boston was founded by Puritans, who fled England to escape being oppressed and then became oppressors themselves.

Boston, by the 1980s, was also a liberal bastion and center for higher education. By setting it here - sometimes even on the grounds of Harvard itself - Atwood suggests that this type of oppression isn’t limited to the “backwaters” of the South or Midwest.

Question 22

What is the traditional Gileadean farewell?

Answer 22

“Under His Eye”

Question 23

Where does Offred first encounter the phrase “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”?

Answer 23

Scratched into the floor of her closet

Question 24

Who are “the Children of Ham”?

Answer 24

Racist ideologies of the 19th century often held that black people were descended from Ham, a biblical figure (a cursed son of Noah forced to serve his brother).

Question 25

What are some suggested causes of infertility in Gilead?

Answer 25

Toxic waste and chemicals have made many people infertile or cause babies to be born with deformities. This was another major political anxiety of the 1980s.

Question 26

Who has a baby in this book?

Answer 26

Offwarren/Janine

Question 27

What is the name of the facility where Handmaids are “trained”? Who are the instructors?

Answer 27

The Red Center; Aunts

Question 28

Who is Offred’s shopping companion?

Answer 28

Ofglen

Question 29

What happens to Offred’s daughter?

Answer 29

After being taken from her mother, her daughter was taken to be raised in another family because children are so rare. Serena shows a picture of her to Offred where her daughter is wearing a white dress. Offred expects that her daughter probably no longer remembers her.

Question 30

What title is repeated for several sections of the book and seems to signal times of reflection for Offred, when she is removed from the world?

Answer 30

“Night”

Question 31

What is a Salvaging?

Answer 31

A large-scale execution Handmaids are forced to attend

Question 32

What is a Particicution?

Answer 32

An execution where all of the Handmaids take part, kicking/beating the accused until death. Because it is a collective effort, no one person is responsible, and it allows an outlet for some of the aggression building up inside of them.

Question 33

What happens to Ofglen (the first)?

Answer 33

One day a new woman meets Offred to go shopping. Their interaction is strained and stressful, but the new woman finally reveals that Ofglen hanged herself when she saw the Eyes van coming to arrest her.