COVE

Plot Summary

The world of the Handmaid’s Tale is one where climate change, pollution, and an unspecified nuclear event has caused a sharp decline in fertility rates worldwide. In an abhorrent attempt to remedy this issue, a group known as the Sons of Jacob, has taken over the United States in a military coup and replaced it with the nation of Gilead: a Christofascist state that severely limits the rights of all those within its borders, placing both men and women into strict hierarchies. The laws regarding women are especially strict. The group most notable within the women’s hierarchy are the Handmaids, a classification created by Gilead’s (male) leaders to address drastically declining birth rates. The Handmaids are fertile women who were deemed to have lived sinful lives prior to Gilead’s founding and were forced to become unwilling surrogate mothers for the Commanders: the ruling men of Gilead.

The events of the novel follow a Handmaid the book refers to as ‘Offred’ (Offred is not the name given to her at birth, rather, she is called this because she is ‘of’ her Commander: Fred). Prior to Gilead, Offred was married to a man named Luke, whom she’d begun seeing when Luke had been married to another woman. Due to her having facilitated infidelity (a sin), combined with the fact that she’d had a daughter with Luke (proving her fertility), the regime had stopped her family when they attempted to escape into Canada, separated them, and forced Offred to become a Handmaid. The fate of her husband, Luke is left ominously uncertain, and it is later revealed that Offred’s daughter, Hannah was placed into the family of another Commander.  

The novel follows Offred as she goes through her day to day life as a Handmaid: she runs errands with Ofglen, a fellow Handmaid, has strained interactions with the Commander’s domestic workers (who belong to a distinct class of women known as ‘Marthas’), Rita and Cora, as well as the household’s security guard and driver, Nick. As a Handmaid, she is forced to endure ritualized rape by her Commander monthly, and, as a result of living in his home, the Commander's bitterly jealous wife, Serena Joy, is an unfortunately frequent sight. In Gilead, privacy is a scarcity, especially for Handmaids, who are considered a national resource. Guardians, members of Gilead's police force, are manned on every street, and there is always the possibility that whoever you are speaking to is an Eye– a member of Gilead’s secret police. Offred is initially suspicious of her walking partner, Ofglen, for this reason. Rebellion is discouraged by the perpetual presence of law enforcement, but also with constant reminders of the consequences for violating Gilead’s laws. Handmaids are made to periodically attend public executions, called Salvagings, and occasionally participate in executions themselves: a special event called Particicution. Executed dissidents are displayed on what is referred to as the Wall– but was once better known as Harvard Yard (pictured in image three). Offred spends much of the narrative reflecting on her past: the friends and family she’s lost, the rights she never thought to appreciate, and how quickly they’d all been taken. 

The cruel monotony of Offred’s life is interrupted when she encounters those who violate the laws of Gilead. Her old friend Moira launches an impressive attempt to escape from her fate as a Handmaid (an attempt which Offred later learns to have failed). She discovers that Ofglen is part of an underground rebel movement known as Mayday. Even those who are meant to enforce Gilead’s laws violate them, like the Commander and his Wife. The Commander does so by having an affair with Offred, and Serena Joy, suspecting that her husband is infertile and wanting a baby to raise, no matter its origins, by commanding Offred to sleep with Nick. Offred and Nick subsequently begin to have an affair of their own. 

The main ending of the novel (there is an appendix written from the perspective of future academics analyzing the novel as a first-hand account of life in Gilead) is quick and brutal: Offred one day finds that the Ofglen she was familiar with has been replaced by a new one: the old one, allegedly having been discovered as a spy, is said to have killed herself to avoid interrogation. Soon after, she is taken directly from the Commanders’ home by the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police. Nick, who is revealed to have been an Eye, calls her by her true name, unknown to the reader, and tells her that these men are part of Mayday, and will help her escape from Gilead. We leave Offred as she is escorted into a black van, uncertain of what will become of her.

Author Bio

Margaret Eleanor Atwood (A picture of whom serves as image two) was born on November 18th, 1939, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She is a critically acclaimed author, and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Booker Prize, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. In an interview with PBS, Atwood describes herself as a “Strict agnostic”, with an interest in religion. Atwood was interested in writing from an early age, and received her Master's degree from the Radcliffe College of Harvard University, which could have led her to set the events of the Handmaid’s Tale in a Gilead-controlled version of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has claimed to be a descendant from a survivor of the Salem Witch Trials, Mary Webster, though she herself has admitted this claim is somewhat dubious. Regardless, this idea has led Atwood to write poetry inspired by Webster, and Webster is named in the dedication section of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Biblical Basis

The world of The Handmaid’s Tale is quite literally built off the Bible (in more ways than one), but if one Biblical story is to be said to serve as the basis for the novel, it is the story of Rachel and Leah, which can be found in Genesis, Chapters 29-30. Jacob, forbidden from marrying a non-Jewish woman, marries his cousin Rachel, in exchange for seven years of labor for his Uncle Laban. “So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, ‘Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.’” (English Standard Version, Gen 29.20-21) On the night of their wedding, Laban sends Rachel’s older sister Leah to join Jacob in bed, because according to him: ‘It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn’. (Gen 29.26) They strike a new deal, and Jacob works for seven more years in order to marry Rachel, in addition to Leah. God, noting Jacob’s preference for Leah over Rachel, renders Rachel ‘barren’ and blesses Leah with children: “When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.” (Gen 29.31) Rachel, jealous of her sister, declares “‘Give me children, or I shall die!’” (Gen 30.1) and tells Jacob to use her servant Bilhah as a surrogate mother. When Leah loses her fertility, she does the same with her own servant, Zilpah.

Intertextual Analysis

The Sons of Jacob use the story of Rachel and Leah (Depicted in a painting by 19th century Italian artist, Dante Rossetti) to legitimize Gilead’s practice of polygamy and (forced) surrogacy. Part of the monthly Ceremony which Offred must endure involves the Commander reading aloud specific excerpts from the Bible. This includes stories from Genesis: “It’s the usual story, the usual stories. God to Adam, God to Noah. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth”, (Atwood 88) as well as the story from Rachel and Leah: “Then comes the moldy old Rachel and Leah stuff we had drummed into us at the Center. Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees that I may also have children by her.” (Atwood 88) The latter part of this quotation (which is not present in the English Standard Version) is made literal in the novel, as during the Ceremony, the Handmaid is expected to rest her head on the lap of the Commander’s Wife. There are other, smaller references to the Bible found throughout the Handmaid’s Tale. The Beatitudes are used (and distorted) to encourage the Handmaid to avoid disobedience. “They played it from a tape… Blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed be the meek. Blessed are the silent. I knew they made that up, I knew it was wrong, and they left things out, too but there was no way of checking.” (Atwood 89) The name used for the Commander’s (female) domestic servants, the Marthas, is clearly a reference to the Biblical Martha, sister of Mary, who is shown to prepare meals for Jesus and his disciples in Luke and John. A secret sex club, meant for the use of Gilead’s Commanders and select tourists, is called Jezebels, after a Biblical figure associated with sexual immorality: “...that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.” (Rev 2.20-21) As a whole, the world of the Handmaid's Tale is a fascinating exercise in examining how societies are constructed, and the various ways in which a regime can twist a religion to their own ends.

Works Cited

Amrei, Marie. “Margaret Atwood at the Leipzig Book Fair in 2014 signing her novel ‘The Story of Zeb’.” 15 March 2014. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Margaret_Atwood_2014_01.jpg

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Vintage, 2017.

Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason. Bill Moyers and Martin Amis and Margaret Atwood. 28 July 2006. PBS. www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason106_print.html

Kent, Jessica. “A Walking Tour of the Handmaid’s Tale — Literary Boston.” Literary Boston, 8 Mar. 2024. www.literaryboston.com/articles/walking-tour-handmaids-tale.

Rossetti, Dante. Dante’s Vision of Rachel and Leah. 1855, Tate Modern, London.

Rycroft, Chris. “Taken in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA.” 17 December 2020. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johnston_Gate_in_a_snowstorm_(51306824076).jpg#/media/File:Johnston_Gate_in_a_snowstorm_(51306824076).jpg

Scan of the first edition book cover of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Wikipedia, 17 January 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale#/media/File:TheHandmaidsTale(1stEd).jpg

Wikipedia contributors. “Margaret Atwood.” Wikipedia, 15 Apr. 2025. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood.

Wikipedia contributors. “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Wikipedia, 22 Apr. 2025. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale.