Plot
The name of the club to which the Commander takes Offred
The class of women in Gilead who perform domestic activities.
What is a Martha?
The year that the Historical Notes takes place.
What is 2195?
Country where Atwood was born.
What is Canada?
Organization(s) that Gilead is at war with.
What is Baptists?
The order of soldiers/military in Gilead.
What are Angels?
The format or medium on which Offred's The Handmaid's Tale is found.
What is 30 unordered cassette tapes?
The male-centric model of society on which Gilead is built.
What is Patriarchy?
The means through which Nick/The Commander acquire items like cigarettes.
What is the Black Market?
The "bad place" of Gilead- which has been contaminated by toxic waste and is populated by political prisoners.
What are "The Colonies?"
The group of men forming the religious think tank responsible for the formation of Gilead.
What are the Sons of Jacob?
Name for the movement or era of advocacy for women during which The Handmaid's Tale was written.
Factor(s) behind the drop in birth rate in The Handmaid's Tale.
What is Pollution?
What is Toxic Waste?
What are STIs?
Mass prayer meetings held in Gilead for special occasions such as weddings.
What is a Prayvaganza?
Who is Frederick R. Waterford?
When did Atwood publish The Handmaid's Tale?
What is the year 1985?
Women's rights targeted first by Gileadean rulers.
What is women's bank access?
What is women's employment?
Resistance organization that conducts "safe houses" and assists in the escape of Gileadean fugitives.
What is "the Underground Femaleroad?"
Atwood's statement on the historicity/fictitiousness of the plot of The Handmaid's Tale.
Everything in The Handmaid's Tale has happened to somebody, sometime, somewhere.
"So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil. " Atwood, University of Toronto Quarterly. Article by Sally Neuman.
The Commander's twisted rationale for the role of women in Gilead.
"You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" (Atwood, 211)
"Better never means better for everyone ... It always means worse, for some" (211)