The Role Of Offred In The Handmaid's Tale

In The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood published in 1985, the main character, Offred, is a powerless handmaid for a wealthy family. Offred’s role as a handmaid is to have a baby for the commander and his wife because the wife is infertile. Offred has no rights and is not allowed to own any property. She is trained how to live a new life and follow all the rules of a handmaid to avoid punishment. According to Malak, “However, not all the female characters in Atwood's novel are sympathetic, nor all the male ones demonic.” It is evident that Malak is correct in his assertion because there are women in the novel that cause other individuals emotional and physical harm. Also the author shows that all men are not evil because the character Nick makes …show more content…
They were punishing her for not wanting to raise a baby with a man that sexually abused her which his absurd because no one would want to. The aunts made her feel bad about herself and her decisions while torturing her by putting her in front of all the handmaids. The aunts did not shown any sympathy for Janine after knowing she had to go through the pain of being raped. The aunts instead made Janine feel bad and ashamed about it even thought it was not her fault. Another way the reader should not feel sympathy for the aunts is because they torture the handmaids if they do something that the aunts do not like. Moira was miserable living in a gym where she had gotten all of her rights taken away and trained to be a handmaid, so she came up with a plan to escape. Moira did not make it very far in her attempted escape before she got caught by the aunts and sent to a science lab. In this science lab Moira’s hands and feet were smashed to the point where she could not use them. While the handmaids watched Moira being dragged out of the science lab aunt Lydia told them, “Remember, said Aunt Lydia. For our purposes your feet and your hands are not essential” (93). This was