Chapter 1 Discussion Questions Read the first sentence

Chapter 1: Discussion Questions • Read the first sentence. What can you tell about the time period just from this sentence? • People generally sleep in gymnasiums only in emergencies, after disasters. But this "had once" been a gymnasium, which implies that it was converted to its present use a long time ago. Some major change has taken place, probably not for the good. • A "palimpsest" was created when a medieval scribe tried to scrape clean a parchment in order to reuse it. Sometimes the scraping process was not complete enough to obliterate all traces of the original text, which could be read faintly underneath the new one. (We saw Orwell use this term to describe the Party’s revisionist history in 1984. ) • What is suggested by the fact that the immediate supervisors of the girls are women but these women are not allowed guns? • What is suggested by the fact that the girls have to read lips to learn each others' names?

Chapter 2: Discussion Questions • The setting has shifted. It is now much later. • What is the mood created by the narrator’s observation that “they've removed anything you could tie a rope to? ” • What is implied by the sentence, “Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep? ” • “Ladies in reduced circumstances” is a 19 th-century expression usually applied to impoverished widows. How does the narrator pun on it? • What is suggested by the existence of “Colonies” where “Unwomen” live? • What are the crimes the Martha's gossip about in their “private conversations? ”

Chapter 3: Discussion Questions • Describe the relationship between Serena Joy and Offred. • Why does Aunt Lydia say that being a handmaid is a “position of honor”? Come up with 2 details for ‘yes’ and 2 for ‘no. ’ • What do the Handmaids do? • What are the marks of being a handmaid? • What are the marks of being a Wife? • What evidence is there that the revolution which inaugurated this bizarre society is relatively recent?

Chapter 4: Discussion 1. There is lots of information and speculation about Nick on pages 17 and 18. What do we know? 2. What do we learn about Handmaids in chapter 4? 1. What is the other Handmaid’s name? What does our narrator think of her? 2. Do we know what Handmaids do yet? “Think of yourselves as seeds” (18). 3. What do we see in Gilead? How different is the setting from USA now? 4. How does someone get married in Gilead? (17, 22). 5. What does our narrator imagine about the guards?