The Handmaid's Tale - Chapter 1 to 4 Summary

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  • The Handmaid's Tale
    • Chapter One
      • The narrator, whose name we learn later is Offred, describes how she and other women slept on army cots in a gymnasium.
      • Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrol with electric cattle prods hanging from their leather belts, and the women, forbidden to speak aloud, whisper without attracting attention.
      • Twice daily, the women walk in the former football field, which is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Armed guards called Angels patrol outside.
      • While the women take their walks, the Angels stand outside the fence with their backs to the women. The women long for the Angels to turn and see them.
      • They imagine that if the men looked at them or talked to them, they could use their bodies to make a deal. The narrator describes lying in bed at night, quietly exchanging names with the other women.
    • Chapter Two
      • The scene changes, and the story shifts from the past to the present tense. Offred now lives in a room fitted out with curtains, a pillow, a framed picture, and a braided rug. There is no glass in the room, not even over the framed picture.
      • The window does not open completely, and the windowpane is shatterproof. There is nothing in the room from which one could hang a rope, and the door does not lock or even shut completely.
      • Looking around, Offred remembers how Aunt Lydia told her to consider her circumstances a privilege, not a prison.
      • Handmaids, to which group the narrator belongs, dress entirely in red, except for the white wings framing their faces. Household servants, called “Marthas,” wear green uniforms. “Wives” wear blue uniforms. Offred often secretly listens to Rita and Cora, the Marthas who work in the house where she lives.
      • Once, she hears Rita state that she would never debase herself as someone in Offred’s position must. Cora replies that Offred works for all the women, and that if she (Cora) were younger and had not gotten her tubes tied, she could have been in Offred’s situation.
      • Offred wishes she could talk to them, but Marthas are not supposed to develop relationships with Handmaids. She wishes that she could share gossip like they do—gossip about how one Handmaid gave birth to a stillborn, how a Wife stabbed a Handmaid with a knitting needle out of jealousy, how someone poisoned her Commander with toilet cleaner.
      • Offred dresses for a shopping trip. She collects from Rita the tokens that serve as currency. Each token bears an image of what it will purchase: twelve eggs, cheese, and a steak.
    • Chapter Three
      • On her way out, Offred looks around for the Commander’s Wife but does not see her. The Commander’s Wife has a garden, and she knits constantly. All the Wives knit scarves “for the Angels at the front lines,” but the Commander’s Wife is a particularly skilled knitter.
      • Offred wonders if the scarves actually get used, or if they just give the Wives something to do. She remembers arriving at the Commander’s house for the first time, after the two couples to which she was previously assigned “didn’t work out.”
      • One of the Wives in an earlier posting secluded herself in the bedroom, purportedly drinking, and Offred hoped the new Commander’s Wife would be different. On the first day, her new mistress told her to stay out of her sight as much as possible, and to avoid making trouble.
      • As she talked, the Wife smoked a cigarette, a black-market item. Handmaids, Offred notes, are forbidden coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol. Then the Wife reminded Offred that the Commander is her husband, permanently and forever. “It’s one of the things we fought for,” she said, looking away.
      • Suddenly, Offred recognized her mistress as Serena Joy, the lead soprano from Growing Souls Gospel Hour, a Sunday-morning religious program that aired when Offred was a child.
    • Chapter Four
      • As she leaves the house to go shopping, Offred notices Nick, a Guardian of the Faith, washing the Commander’s car. Nick lives above the garage. He winks at Offred—an offense against -decorum— but she ignores him, fearing that he may be an Eye, a spy assigned to test her.
      • She waits at the corner for Ofglen, another Handmaid with whom Offred will do her shopping. The Handmaids always travel in pairs when outside.
      • Ofglen arrives, and they exchange greetings, careful not to say anything that isn’t strictly orthodox. Ofglen says that she has heard the war is going well, and that the army recently defeated a group of Baptist rebels. “Praise be,” Offred responds. They reach a checkpoint manned by two young Guardians.
      • The Guardians serve as a routine police force and do menial labor. They are men too young, too old, or just generally unfit for the army. Young Guardians, such as these, can be dangerous because they are frequently more fanatical or nervous than older guards
      • These young Guardians recently shot a Martha as she fumbled for her pass, because they thought she was a man in disguise carrying a bomb. Offred heard Rita and Cora talking about the shooting. Rita was angry, but Cora seemed to accept the shooting as the price one pays for safety.
      • At the checkpoint, Offred subtly flirts with one of the Guardians by making eye contact, cherishing this small infraction against the rules. She considers how sex-starved the young men must be, since they cannot marry without permission, masturbation is a sin, and pornographic magazines and films are now forbidden.
      • The Guardians can only hope to become Angels, when they will be allowed to take a wife and perhaps eventually get a Handmaid. This marks the first time in the novel we hear the word “Handmaid” used.

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