The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood (1985)
“Written in 1984 by a woman who said she didn't put in anything that hadn't already happened somewhere. That detail never stops being terrifying.”
EraContemporary / Speculative Fiction
Pages311
Difficulty★★★☆☆ Challenging
AP Appearances9
Character Analysis
We never learn her name. She is named for her Commander — 'Of Fred' — a grammatical possession. Everything Atwood does with Offred's name is the novel's argument in miniature: the state names her for a man, and she must carry that name while preserving her self inside it. Her narration is the resistance: quiet, ironic, literary, precise. She is not a hero in any conventional sense. She survives. She watches. She records. That is enough.
How They Speak
Educated, literary, ironic interior voice; flat, compliant performed speech. The gap between inner and outer language IS her character.