1. The Handmaid’s Tale By Margaret Atwood Rebecca Weingart, Anne Kroeger, and Rachel Fenton

2. Plot Synopsis w Offred, a Handmaid, lives with her Commander, a Handmaid’s Tale is her journal that holds the story of her stay in Gilead.

3. Characters w Serena Joy: “She doesn’t speak to me, unless she can’t avoid it. I am a reproach to her; and a necessity”(Atwood 13). w Commander: “I ought to feel hatred for this man… but it isn’t what I do feel” (58). w Nick: A Guardian that works for the commander that we can assume helps Offred to safety.

4. Characters continued…. w Ofwarren: Another Handmaid that befriends Offred on their walks to the market. w Moira: A defiant and independent woman who chose her future and didn’t let the government pick it out for her. w Luke: Offred’s husband that was taken from her.

5. Protagonist vs. Antagonist w Antagonist: The Government and everyone that agrees with the government. w Protagonist: The people that are against the government.

6. Setting w 2100, the republic of Gilead inside the Commanders home. There are flash backs to Offred’s home and to the Gym where she stayed before she became a Handmaid.

7. Conflicts w Internal: Offred misses her family, home, and fertility rights. She yearns to touch. Not lustfully, but purely. She yearns to feel like a human again instead of a uterus. w External: Her relationship with people and the nuclear war.

8. Conflicts continued... w Man vs. society: Nick is vs. the “system” of Gilead and the bad treatment of women. “M’aidez”, help me in French, is a code of help and faith against this male chauvinist pig country.

9. Themes and Overall Tone w “Nolite de bastardes carborundorum,” (Atwood 52). Don’t let the bastards get you down, a hope quote. w “I get paid you get laid, I rhyme in my head,”(262). w “Faith,”(57).

10. Recommendation w Positive: Well written, very interesting, keeps the reader’s attention. w Negative:Can leave the reader depressed, uses very sexual/abusive/discriminating terms. w Recommendation: Great book, a fast read, women would especially enjoy reading it.

11. Biography w Margaret Atwood Born November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Ontario. Attended four colleges from 1961-67 College professor in universities across America. Spent two years writing in Australia [Http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk]