The Handmaid's Tale

Being a handmaid in Gilead   In the second quarter of the book, we learn about the Ceremony. It is the ritual they do to get a handmaid pregnant. It first starts with a prayer. Then, the handmaid lies between the wife’s legs, fully clothed (except for her underwear) and pulls up her skirt to let the commander do what he has to do.   When a handmaid goes into labour, all the handmaids and the wives meet at the delivery’s home. While the handmaid gives birth, the other handmaids surround her and support her by telling her to breathe. In another room, the wife, eventual mother of the child, is celebrating with the other wives, congratulating her.   It is forbidden for a handmaid to go into the commander’s office. That’s why Offred, the main character, found it very surprising when the commander asked to see her in his office. Despite the prohibition, she decided to go. In the office, there are books and games. The commander offered her to play Scrabble. No handmaids have the right to read

     The beginning of an era  In the first quarter of the book, we meet the main character Offred, who is the Handmaid for the Commander Waterford in Gilead. We got a glimpse of what happened to all the people that practiced work that are now forbidden. We learned about where they went before becoming a handmaid and what does it implied. We also learned about the Eye, which is an association that watches people to make sure that everybody behaves, they are in the streets and shops to look over everything. Also, at the end of the quarter we learned that baths were reserved for a special occasion, but we will learn more about it in the next section of the book.

    The story takes places in New England, in a near fictional future. It takes place in a restricted area with big walls so that people cannot escape from their reality, otherwise there will be consequences. There is no freedom to do as they want or would like because of a health crisis that change the perspective of the world.   Now most young women are servants in houses and has no freedom of any kind. There only purpose is to be pregnant, something that is an exceedingly rare thing at that time. There is not economic system anymore because everything works with token, which are paper to give to the people at the shops so that they will give you what you need. But even if there is no money there is still social class and people that are unable to get those tokens.   In the society of the novel, most of the northern Caucasian societies birth rates are low. They are many reasons explaining this decline, but it’s still a mysterious phenomenon in the fiction. One of the reasons explaine