Handmaids
The Handmaids are the reproductive servants of the Republic of Gilead, a class of women stripped of their names, pasts, and legal personhood and reduced to their biological function of bearing children for the ruling Commanders and their Wives. Dressed in a uniform of long red dresses and white winged headdresses that obscure their vision and identity, they are both hypervisible as symbols of the regime's ideology and rendered invisible as individuals. Their collective experience—from the brutal re-education at the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center to the daily rituals of shopping in pairs, the monthly Ceremony, and the public spectacles of Salvagings and Particicutions—constitutes the central narrative of the novel, revealing how a totalitarian system operates through the control of women's bodies and the systematic erasure of their autonomy.
Identity and Indoctrination
The Handmaids are created through a process of systematic dehumanization. At the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, known as the Red Center, they are stripped of their former names and given patronymics derived from their assigned Commanders—Offred, Ofglen, Ofwarren—a linguistic marker of their status as property. They are subjected to constant surveillance by the Aunts, who use electric cattle prods and psychological manipulation to enforce obedience. The Aunts drill them in Bible verses twisted to justify their role, such as "Give me children, or else I die" and "Be fruitful, and multiply," and teach them that they are "two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices." The Handmaids are forced to memorize slogans like "Modesty is invisibility" and "Ordinary is what you are used to," designed to normalize their condition. They are fed a diet of bland, healthy food, denied alcohol and cigarettes, and subjected to monthly medical exams that treat them as breeding stock. The tattoo on their ankle—four digits and an eye—marks them as a "national resource," a passport in reverse that guarantees they can never fade into another landscape.
Daily Life and Surveillance
A Handmaid's daily life is a tightly controlled routine of isolation and ritual. She lives in a sparsely furnished room with a shatterproof window and a ceiling from which the chandelier has been removed to prevent suicide. She is not allowed to read or write; the Bible is kept locked up, and she can only hear it read aloud by the Commander. She goes shopping once a day, always in pairs, as her partner is also her spy. The walks are a rare opportunity for movement and, occasionally, for whispered exchanges of news or resistance. The Handmaids are forbidden from forming friendships, from being alone with Commanders, and from using the front door after their first day. They are subject to constant surveillance by the Eyes, the secret police, and by the Marthas and Wives within the household. The threat of the black van, the Wall with its hooks and hanging bodies, and the Colonies—where Unwomen are sent to die from toxic waste—hangs over every Handmaid, enforcing compliance through terror.
The Ceremony and Reproductive Function
The Ceremony is the central ritual of a Handmaid's existence, a monthly act of state-mandated rape designed to produce a child. The Handmaid lies on the bed between the Wife's legs, her hands held by the Wife, while the Commander performs the act. The ritual is intended to signify that the three are "one flesh," but in practice it is a performance of power and humiliation. The Handmaid is expected to be passive, to "lie still and picture the unseen canopy" above her, to detach herself from her body. The act is devoid of passion or desire; it is "serious business," a duty. Afterward, the Handmaid must rest with her feet on a pillow to improve the chances of conception. The entire process reduces her to a vessel, her body a site of political and biological control. The possibility of pregnancy is the only hope of salvation from being declared an Unwoman and sent to the Colonies, but it also means the child will be taken from her and given to the Commander's Wife to raise.
Resistance and Solidarity
Despite the regime's efforts to isolate them, the Handmaids find ways to resist and maintain solidarity. In the Red Center, they whisper through holes in toilet cubicles, exchange names from bed to bed, and share stolen sugar packets. On their shopping walks, they learn to lip-read and to speak in clipped whispers, passing news and warnings. The discovery of a message scratched in a cupboard—"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum"—becomes a secret prayer and a link to a predecessor who hanged herself. The Birth Day, when a Handmaid gives birth, is a rare moment of collective joy and unity, where the women chant together and feel "no longer single." The most significant act of resistance is the formation of the Mayday network, an underground organization that smuggles people out of Gilead. Ofglen, Offred's shopping partner, reveals herself as a member and offers Offred a way out. The Handmaids also engage in small acts of defiance: hoarding butter to use as hand lotion, hiding a match in a mattress, or, in Moira's case, a spectacular escape from the Red Center by impersonating an Aunt.
Change and Ending
The Handmaids' fates are varied and often tragic. Janine, who gives birth to a "shredder"—a deformed baby—is broken by her repeated failures and descends into madness, smiling vacantly after a Particicution. Ofglen, after her Mayday connection is discovered, hangs herself to avoid capture and interrogation. Moira, after a daring escape, is recaptured and ends up at Jezebel's, a brothel for Commanders, where she survives with a cynical indifference. Offred herself, after a secret affair with Nick and a confrontation with Serena Joy over the Commander's infidelity, is taken away by a black van. Nick, who may be a member of Mayday, tells her to go with them, whispering her real name. Whether this is her end or a new beginning is left unknown. The Handmaids' stories, as Offred reflects, are "fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force," but they are told in the hope that someone will hear them and believe them into being.
Thematic Significance
The Handmaids embody the novel's central critique of totalitarianism, patriarchy, and the weaponization of religion. They are the ultimate symbol of how a society can reduce women to their biological functions, stripping them of identity, autonomy, and voice. Their red dresses mark them as both sacred and profane, objects of reverence and contempt. Their collective experience demonstrates how power operates through the control of bodies, the manipulation of language, and the systematic erasure of memory and history. Yet the Handmaids also represent the resilience of the human spirit, the capacity for resistance, and the enduring need for connection and storytelling. Offred's narrative, told in secret and preserved on cassette tapes, is an act of defiance against the regime's attempt to silence her. The Handmaids' tale, as the Historical Notes reveal, becomes a document that survives the regime itself, a voice from the darkness that reaches across time to bear witness.
The Handmaids, as a class, are a direct extrapolation of historical and contemporary realities rather than pure invention. Atwood has emphasized that she included no scenario in the novel that has not already occurred in human history, and she specifically cited the Islamic revolution in Iran (1978–79) as an inspiration, where a theocracy imposed strict dress codes and drastically reduced women's rights—a situation closely mirrored by the Handmaids' enforced red attire and white wings. Atwood argued that such oppressive systems are built on existing foundations and require only a period of social chaos to reassert themselves, a view she supported by carrying newspaper clippings to interviews. The Handmaids' role as reproductive vessels sparked intense debate upon the novel's publication in 1985, with many critics placing The Handmaid's Tale alongside Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World as a cautionary dystopia. However, not all reviewers were convinced; Mary McCarthy's 1986 review in The New York Times argued that the novel lacked the "surprised recognition" necessary for readers to see their present selves in its distorting mirror. Despite this, the Handmaids have become an enduring symbol of patriarchal control, and their imagery continues to resonate in contemporary discussions of women's bodily autonomy.
