Why Did The Handmaid's Tale Change the World?
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is number 16 on BBC Culture's list of the 100 stories that shaped the world. Its power comes from a rule the author set herself: to describe nothing that had not already happened somewhere.
What The Handmaid's Tale Is
It is a Canadian novel published in 1985. In 2018, BBC Culture included it in its list of the 100 stories that shaped the world.
The narrator lives in the Republic of Gilead, the regime that has replaced the United States. A group of Christian fanatics has assassinated the president and Congress, blamed Islamic extremists and suspended the Constitution.
Pollution and disease have caused birth rates to collapse. The regime's response is a caste: the handmaids, fertile women assigned to powerful men to bear their children.
Who Offred Is and How She Lives
The protagonist has lost her name. She is called Offred, "of Fred", after the Commander whose household she serves. She dresses in red, with white wings around her face that stop her from seeing or being seen.
She is forbidden to read. Even shop signs are pictures. She does the shopping with another handmaid, Ofglen, and walks past the Wall, where the bodies of executed doctors and dissidents hang.
Through her memories she pieces together how it began. One day her card stopped working. Women's accounts were transferred to their husbands, and they lost their jobs. With her husband, Luke, and their daughter, she tried to flee to Canada. They were stopped at the border and her daughter was taken from her.
Then came the Red Center, where the Aunts, led by Aunt Lydia, indoctrinate future handmaids. There she was reunited with Moira, her friend from university, who escaped disguised as an Aunt.
The Plot: The Routine Breaks Down
Each month the Ceremony takes place, a ritual rape carried out in the presence of the Commander's Wife, Serena Joy. But the Commander begins summoning Offred to his study alone. They play Scrabble, which for her is a crime, and he lets her leaf through old magazines.
One night he takes her, in disguise, to Jezebel's, a clandestine brothel for the elite. There she finds Moira again, who has been recaptured. Meanwhile, Serena Joy, desperate for a child, suggests that Offred sleep with Nick, the chauffeur, in case the Commander is sterile. Offred agrees, and afterwards she goes back to see him on her own.
Ofglen reveals that she belongs to a resistance network called Mayday.
The Ending and the "Historical Notes" (Contains Spoilers)
At a Particicution, the handmaids must kill with their bare hands a man accused of rape. Ofglen strikes him first to knock him unconscious: he was a member of Mayday. Shortly afterwards, Ofglen hangs herself before she can be arrested, and another woman inherits her name.
Serena Joy finds the Jezebel's outfit. That afternoon a black van belonging to the Eyes, the secret police, arrives. Nick asks her to trust him: they are from Mayday. Offred gets in without knowing whether she is heading towards freedom or prison. Her account ends there.
The epilogue jumps to an academic conference centuries later. A professor reveals that the account comes from cassette tapes found in a trunk. He devotes almost his entire talk to identifying the Commander. Of the woman who recorded them, he cannot discover either her name or her fate.
Why It Changed the World
Atwood wrote the novel in the mid-1980s, as the religious right was gaining influence in the United States. She herself has cited precedents: the theft of opponents' children, laws that banned teaching slaves to read, and uniforms that mark out each group.
Gilead was not read as a distant fantasy, but as an assembly of real pieces. That was its breakthrough: dystopia stopped being speculation and became a warning.
The novel was adapted for film, opera and a television series. Atwood published a sequel, The Testaments. And the red robe left the page: protesters in several countries wear it, in silence, at demonstrations for reproductive rights.
Frequently asked questions
How does The Handmaid's Tale end?
Offred gets into a van belonging to the Eyes without knowing whether she is being taken to freedom or to prison. Nick assures her they are from Mayday, but the account ends without confirming it.
What does the name Offred mean?
It means "of Fred", the Commander whose household she serves. The regime takes away her real name, which she keeps secret.
What inspired Margaret Atwood?
She set herself the rule of describing nothing that had not already happened somewhere. She has cited precedents such as the theft of opponents' children and laws that banned teaching slaves to read.
Does The Handmaid's Tale have a sequel?
Yes. Margaret Atwood published a sequel titled The Testaments.
Informative article written with the help of AI tools from the verified script of the video. The video is in Spanish.