1. The significance of the History of Gilead and the psychology of Offred
By Daniel Edobor

2. What we learn within the Historical Notes of The Handmaid’s Tale and Atwood’s reason why
At the end of the novel, in a section called Historical Notes (Atwood’s version of an appendix) we learn about the history of Gilead - that the book itself was an amalgamation of thirty unnumbered tapes the character Offred left behind in an army surplus footlocker, at a way station of the Underground Femaleroad within Bangor, Maine. We see Gilead through Offred’s eyes.
When Atwood was asked at an interview why the reader comes into The Handmaid’s Tale through a journal with memories rescued and viewed from a time in the future, she answered:
“What I’ve written is only the view of one woman who lives in that society. I reveal Gilead through the eyes of that one woman. It would be cheating to show the reader more than the character has access to. Her information is limited. In fact, her lack of information is part of the nightmare.”

3. A patriarchal book written by men?
The tapes were formed into the book “The Handmaid’s Tale” was not written by Offred however by men who deciphered it in the future, which is significant for two reasons:
1) This could be a potential reason for Offred’s bland, almost emotionless personality in the book. It’s hard to believe Offred was not emotional whilst recording the tapes, yet the men who wrote the book did not portray this or simply couldn’t decipher how she was feeling. (This also discredits the emotions we DO see, as interpreting how Offred was feeling is subjective in itself, only she would know) Making it slightly more challenging for the readers to come to a conclusion of Offred’s true feelings towards Gilead.
2) The content of the tapes may have been slightly altered at points to fit the creator’s point of view. This may explain Offred’s lack of anger towards men within the book, despite it being argued to be an explicit patriarchal society. This could also explain why all men that have ever interacted were always portrayed good in their intentions and were never harsh with her – things may have been filtered.

4. Why would they try to change Offred’s story?
Piexoto, one of the speakers within the historical notes, consistently trivializes Offred’s story. He calls her story an “item” hesitating to use the word “document”, and he questions the narrative authenticity. In doing so, he also questions the story’s authority. He is unwilling to grant the story any narrative power or emotional impact, though he admits that it is “in its own way eloquent”. He just isn’t happy with Offred as a storyteller.
He goes on to even ridicule her education and wishes she “had a different turn of mind” for example “she could have told us about the workings of Gileadean empire,” he says “had she the instincts of a reporter or a spy”
In his drive to authenticate, he also appropriates, and Offred’s story becomes his own. As an editor of the tale, Piexoto forms Offred’s story, and as a historian, he assigns meaning to it; by extension, to Offred’s very experience.

5. Confabulation and triggering a schema
Piexoto, one of the speakers within the historical notes, states Offred may have escaped to Canada or England, but chose not to go public with her story out of fear of retaliation against her family. From this we can infer that the tapes must have come quite some time after her experiences within Gilead, which may have caused confabulation to occur. (A disturbance of memory, or a misinterpretation of them) which is very important.
Through Offred, we see how memory manipulates the present, and manipulates the emotional and psychological welfare, she’s almost stuck in her own past, which promotes the fact that Offred was confabulating during her recording. In Psychology, it’s known that humans tend to suppress traumatic memories (Gilead seemed like quite a traumatic experience to me) which is portrayed by how often Offred would have flashbacks to a time where things were going fine when things got too rough.
This is a problem, as Offred may have triggered a schema.

6. Confabulation and triggering a schema 2
Nobody has perfect memory, so Offred at one point most likely did indeed trigger a schema, therefore the gaps within her memory may have been recalled incorrectly with information a lot worse than it actually is.
For example, Offred remembered Moira’s feet being abhorrent - “swollen and broken” and that it “looked like a lung” – but it very well could have been it was simply slightly damaged, however since she couldn’t precisely remember what it was, she would have filled the gaps in by triggering a schema (based on how terrible Gilead was, it’s understandable)
However with us relying on Offred’s memory for the events which have occurred in Gilead, suddenly the line between reality and illusion becomes blurry -Gilead itself becomes a construct of the traits which defined it, as Offred may relate her experiences to how they would have been in such a terrifying society, rather than what they actually were.
What was the dystopia of Gilead really like?

7. Still patriarchal?
The historical notes of The Handmaid’s Tale suggests that the disruption of the symbolic order does little to change the patriarchal culture, that these strategies are far from liberating – as although Offred is able to tell her tale and uses language in a way that disrupts the symbolic order, ultimately her discourse changes nothing. This is through the perceived sexism of Piexoto.
Piexoto begins his lecture with a series of what seems to be sexist jokes, the first of which compares the sessions “charming Arctic Chair” to last night’s dinner, an “Arctic Char”, and suggests the audience “enjoys them both”. He goes on to comment about the title of the manuscript, claiming he’s sure all puns were intentional, “particularly that having to do with the archaic vulgar signification of the world tail; that being to do some extent, the bone, as it were, of contention in that phase of Gileadean society of which our saga treats” and then finally trivialises the Handmaids’ escape route, calling it “The Underground Frailroad”
These jokes ultimately indicate disrespect for women that survive through Gileadean times and into the twenty-second century.

8. Still Patriarchal? 2
However, in the historical notes, the chair of the symposium was someone called Professor Maryann Crescent Moon, whom we can infer is a female due to their game. This suggests that the society has moved closer towards gender equality as being the chair is quite a huge deal. We see progression, a form of hope for society in a sense that it can move on – but Piexoto attitudes heavily opposes this idea.
Regardless of this, in any way you look at it, society has improved a whole lot compared to the catastrophe of Gilead. It appears society has been stabilized, and the birth rate epidemic has been resolved in one way or another.

9. Why, Atwood?
Atwood may have introduced Maryann to emphasize the fact that no matter how much equality is achieved, there will always be little change to the patriarchal culture in both Gilead and our society, which is backed up by an interview with the independent (2009) when asked about her views on feminism, she stated she thinks women are hardwired to tidy up things like socks, saying “because we were the gatherers; men were the hunters”.
From this it could be argued Atwood sees a lack of hope, as if the foundation the human anatomy was built upon naturally repels social change, which is ultimately shown by the lack of social progression within Gileadean society.

10. What should we take from The Handmaid’s Tale?
During an interview with Atwood, someone asked the question: “What are we to learn from The Handmaid’s Tale?” And Atwood answered: “This is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusions. For example, I explore a number of conservative opinions still held by many—such as a woman’s place is in the home. And also certain feminist pronouncements—women prefer the company of other women, for example. Take these beliefs to their logical ends and see what happens. As a writer, you can choose to create a mainstream novel in which these issues appear only as the characters discuss them sitting around the kitchen table. But I decided to take these positions and dramatize them, carry them to their furthest logical conclusions.”

11. “This isn't a story I'm telling
“This isn't a story I'm telling. It's also a story I'm telling, in my head, as I go along. Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else.” - Offred