167 Fun Facts About The Handmaid's Tale

Since they may not read, what do Handmaids hand over at the shops to pay for food?

Tokens printed with pictures: each one shows what it buys, twelve eggs or a piece of cheese, and even the shop names have been painted out, leaving only signs such as a golden lily.

What do the Japanese tourists ask Offred and Ofglen through an interpreter in the street?

'Are you happy?' is the tourists' question; Ofglen stays silent, so Offred murmurs 'Yes, we are very happy', because not answering could be just as dangerous.

What is the primary color of the uniform worn by Handmaids in Gilead?

Red marks the Handmaids: Atwood took it from the blood of childbirth and from Mary Magdalene, adding drily that red is also easier to see if you happen to be fleeing.

In the novel's opening scene, the women being trained as Handmaids sleep on army cots in what kind of place?

A former school gymnasium: basketball hoops still hang over the cots, and the women, forbidden to talk, learn to lip-read so they can pass their real names from bed to bed.

What does the Gilead chain Soul Scrolls sell, mostly to Commanders' Wives who order by phone?

Machine-printed prayers roll out of printers the Handmaids call Holy Rollers and are pulped once recited; ordering them is a show of piety that helps a husband's career, so the Wives order plenty.

What activity does the Commander secretly engage in with Offred that is forbidden for women?

Playing Scrabble is the forbidden pastime: women in Gilead may not read, so the word games in the Commander's study are a real transgression, rewarded with old magazines and hand lotion.

What does Gilead call the infertile or disobedient women it ships to the Colonies?

Unwomen is also Aunt Lydia's word for the feminists of the time before; in the worst Colonies they clear toxic dumps and radiation spills, with three years at most to live.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Offred's shopping partner Ofglen belongs to which underground resistance network working to overthrow Gilead?

Mayday is also the network's password: Ofglen says it shows 'who is and who isn't', admits she once tried it on Offred, and warns her to use it only when she has to.

In the novel The Handmaid's Tale, what was Serena Joy's public role before Gilead?

A televangelist: in the novel Serena Joy sang lead soprano on the Growing Souls Gospel Hour, then made speeches urging women to stay home, a rule Gilead has now imposed on her.

What does the mock-Latin phrase 'Nolite te bastardes carborundorum', found by Offred, mean?

Don't let them grind you down: the mock Latin means 'don't let the bastards grind you down', a schoolboy joke scratched in Offred's cupboard by the previous Handmaid, who learned it from the Commander.

Which novelist did Atwood call 'a direct model' for The Handmaid's Tale?

Orwell: Atwood began the book in the real 1984 and published it the next year, saying she wanted to try a dystopia told from the female point of view, as Winston Smith's lover Julia might have seen it.

What does Gilead call the women who cook and clean in Commanders' households?

Marthas also run Gilead's unofficial news network, passing gossip from house to house: a stillbirth here, a Wife who stabbed her Handmaid with a knitting needle there. Offred longs to join in.

Which biblical story is often cited to justify the role of Handmaids in Gilead?

Rachel and Bilhah: the barren Rachel tells her husband to father children on her maid, a passage the Commander reads aloud from a Bible kept locked in a box, since women may be read to but not read.

What color uniform do the 'Wives' of Commanders wear?

Blue is the Wives' colour, a nod to the Virgin Mary's traditional blue robes in Christian art; Serena Joy wears it throughout the novel.

What does Offred hide from her dinner tray to rub into her skin, since Handmaids are allowed no lotion?

A pat of butter goes into the toe of her spare shoe until night; the Wives ruled out hand cream so the Handmaids would not look attractive, and the trick is one the women pick up in training.

What is the primary reason for the strict social stratification and control over women in Gilead?

To combat mass infertility: Gilead's birth rate has collapsed, which Atwood ties to radiation, chemical pollution and sexually transmitted disease, so fertile women are conscripted as Handmaids.

What does Gilead call the ritual in which Handmaids are incited to beat a condemned man to death?

Particicution ends the Women's Salvaging: at Aunt Lydia's whistle the Handmaids set on a man they are told is a rapist; Ofglen whispers that he was 'a political' and kicks him unconscious as a mercy.

What colour do the cooks and maids in Commanders' households wear?

Green, the dull green of a surgeon's gown, is the household servants' colour; Offred overhears the cook who wears it saying she 'wouldn't debase herself' the way a Handmaid must.

In The Handmaid's Tale, what do the women call the place where they are re-educated for life as Handmaids?

The Red Center is the women's own nickname for it, 'because there was so much red'; in its Testifying sessions they are made to chant that a classmate's assault was her own fault.

What does the phrase 'Under His Eye' signify in Gilead?

A warning that all is watched: 'Under His Eye' is Gilead's standard farewell, a reminder that God and the state are always looking, so citizens learn to keep watch on themselves.

What is the role of 'Econowives' in Gilead?

Wives of lower-ranking, non-elite men: Econowives are married to Gilead's poorer men and get no servants or Handmaids, so one woman has to be wife, cook and child-bearer all at once.

What forbidden treat does Serena Joy give Offred after proposing a secret way to get her pregnant?

A cigarette, plus leave to ask the cook for a single match: Offred thinks of hiding the match in her mattress instead, since with it she could burn the house down.

After each secret evening in his study, what does the Commander ask Offred to give him?

A kiss: 'Not like that,' he says the first time, 'as if you meant it'; Offred, braced for something far worse, is struck instead by how sad he seems.

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is best known for exploring which theme?

Women's subjugation and lost autonomy drive the plot, yet Atwood bristled when critics called it a feminist tract: 'novels are not slogans', she said, describing it as a study of power and how it deforms people.

In the novel The Handmaid's Tale, what becomes of the first Ofglen whom Offred meets?

She kills herself before arrest: the new Ofglen tells Offred her predecessor hanged herself when she saw the black van coming for her, rather than be taken and interrogated.

What is the primary function of the 'Eyes of the Lord' in Gilead?

To act as secret police and spies: the Eyes of the Lord seize suspects off the street into black vans marked with a winged eye, and anyone might be one, so Offred reads even a friendly wink as a possible test.

What does Gilead call the women who entertain officers at its secret, state-run club?

Jezebels work at a club in a former hotel, open only to officers, senior officials and foreign trade delegations; it is strictly forbidden, the Commander concedes, but only 'officially'.

In which Massachusetts city, around an old university campus, is the novel The Handmaid's Tale set?

Cambridge: Atwood set Gilead in the home of Harvard because the liberal university began life as a Puritan seminary, and her regime is built on those seventeenth-century Puritan roots.

Where in Gilead are the bodies of the executed hung on public display?

The Wall, once Harvard's, is where bodies hang with bags over their heads and placards showing the crime, such as a drawing of a foetus for doctors who performed abortions when they were legal.

In the Hulu series, what is the name of June's daughter, taken from her when the family is caught fleeing?

Hannah is taken because Gilead voids her parents' marriage: Luke had been divorced, so June is branded an adulteress and the girl is handed to a Commander's family; the novel never names her.

Which type of government does Gilead represent?

Theocracy: Gilead rules in God's name yet tolerates no rival creed, fighting Baptist rebels in the Appalachians and giving Jews the choice to convert or emigrate.

Which two pastimes fill Serena Joy's days in the Commander's house?

Gardening and knitting: Serena Joy tends her tulips and knits scarves for the Angels at the front, confined to the domestic sphere she once championed.

What is the primary purpose of the 'Ceremony' in Gilead?

A monthly ritual for procreation: the Handmaid lies between the Wife's knees, her hands held in the Wife's, acting out the Bible verse 'she shall bear upon my knees' so that any child counts as the Wife's.

In The Handmaid's Tale, which Old Testament-named movement drew up the blueprint for Gilead?

The Sons of Jacob met in top-secret think tanks to design Gilead; the coup that followed killed the President and Congress, was blamed on Islamic fanatics, and froze every woman's bank account.

What do the Handmaids call the van, siren wailing, that collects them when one of their number goes into labour?

The Birthmobile comes in two grades: Handmaids ride curtained off on benches, while the Wives follow in their own with upholstered seats, facing front, because they 'know where they're going'.

In The Handmaid's Tale's epilogue, Offred's account is found in a footlocker in which former US state?

Maine: the footlocker surfaced in what had been Bangor, a way station on the Underground Femaleroad, which the historians, to groans from the hall, have renamed the Underground Frailroad.

What are Gilead's routine police, men too young or old for the army, called?

Guardians of the Faith man the checkpoints and dig the Commander's garden; what they dream of is promotion to the Angels, which may bring permission to marry.

Which Christian denomination does Atwood portray as running an underground escape route to Canada?

Quakers run the Underground Femaleroad that smuggles women to Canada; with Gilead wiping out rival churches, Atwood wrote, going underground to run an escape route is what she suspected they would do.

What is the primary mode of transportation for Handmaids when they go shopping?

On foot in pairs: Handmaids walk to the shops two by two, and the pairing is surveillance as much as company, since each is expected to report on the other.

What is the color of the uniform worn by the Aunts?

Brown is the Aunts' colour, a khaki dress with military breast pockets; one trainee escapes simply by tying up an Aunt, putting on her outfit and walking out past the guards.

What purpose do the Handmaids' bonnets, the 'wings', serve?

To block side vision and hide the face: the wings work like a horse's blinkers, so a Handmaid cannot take in the sky or the street at once and learns, as Offred puts it, to see the world in gasps.

The title of The Handmaid's Tale echoes the component parts of which earlier work?

The Canterbury Tales: Atwood named the book partly in honour of Chaucer's storytelling pilgrims, and in the epilogue a professor credits a colleague with the title, relishing a bawdy pun on 'tail'.

The Handmaid's Tale won the inaugural edition of which science-fiction prize in 1987?

The Arthur C. Clarke Award, set up with a grant from the author himself, went to The Handmaid's Tale at its first presentation in 1987; critic David Langford joked that Atwood has been trying to live it down ever since.

Caught escaping, Offred's college friend chose what over the Colonies?

Working in the brothel was her pick once her captors had screened a film of the Colonies; she tells Offred it means three or four good years, with decent food and drink.

Which country's religious takeover served Atwood as a model for Gilead's rule over women?

Iran: its 1979 revolution imposed a strict dress code on women, and Atwood said the novel answers people who insist 'it can't happen here', by which they usually mean Iran can't.

Which Eastern Bloc dictator's ban on abortion and contraception did Atwood draw on for Gilead?

Nicolae Ceaușescu outlawed abortion and contraception in Romania to force up the birth rate, and Atwood lists Romania among the twentieth century's dictatorships.

Atwood rejects the sci-fi label for The Handmaid's Tale, insisting it belongs to which genre instead?

Speculative fiction is Atwood's label: her rule was to include nothing that had not already happened somewhere and no technology not yet available, 'no imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities'.

Atwood dedicated The Handmaid's Tale to Mary Webster, a possible ancestor, who survived what?

Being hanged as a witch: a Boston court had cleared Mary Webster, but her neighbours in Hadley, Massachusetts, strung her up anyway and she lived, earning the name Half-Hanged Mary.

Which Canadian prize did The Handmaid's Tale win in its publication year, 1985?

Governor General's Award: Atwood's second came for this novel, even as Mary McCarthy's review in the New York Times dismissed it, saying it gave her no shiver of recognition.

In The Handmaid's Tale, what is tattooed on every Handmaid's ankle?

Four digits and an eye: Offred calls the tattoo a passport in reverse, there to guarantee she can never fade into another landscape, because a fertile woman is a national resource.

In the novel The Handmaid's Tale, what colour scheme marks the Econowives?

Blue, red and green stripes: the Econowife dress is striped in the three colours of the women's castes because one woman must fill all three roles, and it is cut from noticeably cheaper cloth.

In the original novel The Handmaid's Tale, what colour do Commanders' unmarried daughters wear?

White is the daughters' colour until marriage: at a mass wedding Offred watches girls of no more than fourteen, veiled in white, married off to soldiers back from the front.

Where did Atwood begin writing The Handmaid's Tale in spring 1984?

West Berlin: Atwood began the novel in the walled-off city, where East German jets made sonic booms every Sunday to remind people how close they were.

To show that Gilead's horrors all had real precedents, what did Atwood collect while writing The Handmaid's Tale?

Newspaper clippings: her box marked 'Handmaid's Tale: Background' holds mid-1980s reports on abortion bans, falling birth rates and the privacy threat of debit cards, and she took cuttings along to interviews.

Besides 'of Fred', what other pun does Atwood build into the name Offred?

'Offered', as a sacrifice: Atwood says the name hides a religious offering or a victim offered up; nor is it hers to keep, since the Handmaid who replaces Ofglen simply takes over that name.

Which single word, stitched on a cushion, is the only thing Offred is given to read in her room?

Faith is embroidered on the worn window-seat cushion, ringed with lilies; Offred wonders where the matching Hope and Charity went, and can spend minutes at a time just reading the one word.

In the novel The Handmaid's Tale, which two women cook and clean in the Commander's house?

Rita and Cora: Rita, the cook, disapproves of Offred, while gentler Cora hopes for a baby in the house and drops the breakfast tray with a scream on finding Offred asleep on the cupboard floor.

What happened to the Commander's previous Handmaid?

She killed herself when Serena found out: the Commander admits his last Handmaid hanged herself over their secret study visits, which is why the light fitting in Offred's room was taken out.

Which Harvard building is the secret-service headquarters of Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale?

Widener Library, built in memory of a young book collector lost on the Titanic, becomes the secret police headquarters of a state that forbids women to read.

Atwood's manuscript 'Scribbler Moon', handed to Norway's Future Library in 2015, faces what fate?

It stays unread until 2114: Atwood was the first of 100 authors to give the project a text, and 1,000 trees planted outside Oslo will be cut down that year, when every manuscript is finally made public.

What does Gilead call the mass ceremonies where Angels are married to Commanders' daughters?

Prayvaganza is Gilead's mass rally; the women's kind is a group wedding of Angels to young brides presented by their mothers, and Offred reflects that within a few years such brides will remember no other way of life.

One of The Handmaid's Tale's three epigraphs comes from which satire by Jonathan Swift?

A Modest Proposal: Atwood borrows a line from the 1729 pamphlet in which Swift, with a perfectly straight face, proposes easing Irish poverty by selling the babies of the poor as food.

In 2022 Atwood tested a one-off 'unburnable' edition of The Handmaid's Tale with what?

A flamethrower: Atwood tried and failed to burn the copy, built from aluminium, steel and nickel wire, and it then sold at Sotheby's for $130,000 to fund PEN America's work against book bans.

Which Orange Is the New Black star plays June's best friend in the Hulu series?

Samira Wiley joined from Orange Is the New Black in 2016; her character reaches Canada in the first-season finale, wins asylum and goes on to work with other refugees there.

Which philosopher's social hierarchy has been compared to Gilead's Commanders, Guardians, Marthas and Handmaids?

Plato: critics have likened Gilead's castes to the Republic's philosopher-guardians, auxiliaries and producers, each citizen fixed in the function the state assigns.

Who plays Serena Joy Waterford in the Hulu series, which premiered in April 2017?

Yvonne Strahovski plays Serena Joy, a public campaigner for the traditional values behind Gilead who then has to live, silenced, inside the society she helped to create.

Who won a 2017 Emmy as Aunt Lydia?

Ann Dowd won the supporting-actress prize, one of eight Emmys for the first season, and stayed with Aunt Lydia long enough to carry her into the sequel series.

What Emmy milestone did The Handmaid's Tale set in 2017?

Streaming series winning Outstanding Series: the 2017 drama Emmy made Hulu, long overshadowed by Netflix and Amazon, the first streamer to take the top prize, beating Netflix's Stranger Things on the night.

Who created the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale?

Bruce Miller created the Hulu adaptation only after MGM's executive first turned him down, set on hiring a woman to write it; Miller, a devotee of the novel, kept asking until he got the meeting.

An earlier Handmaid's Tale series was developed for Showtime by the creator of which of its shows?

The L Word's creator Ilene Chaiken developed the earlier version, which stalled at the script stage; she left to run Empire, and MGM took the project to Hulu with a new writer.

Which West Wing star plays Commander Joseph Lawrence in the Hulu series?

Bradley Whitford was hired for a recurring part late in season 2; the character proved so central that he was promoted to series regular and stayed through the final season.

What role does Margaret Atwood hold on The Handmaid's Tale TV series?

Consulting producer with a cameo in episode one: Atwood gives feedback where the show expands or modernises the book.

Which cinematographer-turned-director made The Handmaid's Tale's first three episodes and won a 2017 Emmy for it?

Reed Morano had few television directing credits when MGM hired her on the strength of her vision for the show; her opening episode then won the Emmy for drama directing.

Where was the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale primarily filmed?

Toronto and other Ontario cities, among them Hamilton and Mississauga, stand in for Gilead's Boston, while Toronto also plays itself as the refuge where Luke settles after his escape.

In the finale of the Hulu series, June returns to the ruined Waterford house and begins doing what?

Recording her story: June sits in her old room with a recorder and starts with a chair, a table, a lamp, the same words that opened her narration as Offred in the very first episode.

Which talk-show host makes an uncredited voice cameo as a radio newsreader in season 2?

Oprah Winfrey, a fan of the show, recorded the radio bulletin June hears in a car; a year earlier she had been the presenter who handed its makers their Emmy.

Which star first directed with season 4's 'The Crossing'?

Elisabeth Moss first directed with 'The Crossing' in 2021 while still starring as June, and by the end she was behind the camera for the series finale as well.

Which Handmaid's Tale cast member, who played Emily, left in May 2022 saying she 'had to step away'?

Alexis Bledel left ahead of season five, yet came back for the series finale, where Emily reveals she has spent her absence fighting with the resistance inside Gilead.

Which late-night host has a voice cameo as a Radio Free Boston announcer in The Testaments series?

Stephen Colbert is the radio voice Daisy listens to; the showrunner says Colbert asked him whether he was meant to be playing himself or a fictional DJ.

Which weapon do Gilead's Aunts carry?

Cattle prods are what the Aunts carry in the novel's first chapter, where guns are kept for the Angels outside; in the series Janine is shocked with one for talking back to Aunt Lydia in the opening episode.

In season 2 of the Hulu series, what does reading aloud from the Bible cost Serena?

A finger: Serena reads scripture to the Commanders to argue that girls should be taught to read, and the law of the state she helped to create is turned on her.

In the Hulu series, what is June's surname?

Osborne: the series gives a full name to a narrator whose real name Atwood's novel never confirms; Bankole belongs to her husband Luke and Maddox to her mother.

In the Hulu series, what working name is June's best friend given after her recapture?

Ruby is the name June's friend is given once she is recaptured; June finds her resigned to it, but their reunion revives her will to escape, and she makes it to Canada.

In the Hulu series, how did the Waterfords' housekeeper lose her son?

Fighting in the civil war: Matthew was killed at 19, and it is his mother that June, as she is led away, trusts with the hiding place of the letters from Gilead's enslaved women.

In the Hulu series, Commander Lawrence is described as the architect of what?

Gilead's economy was Lawrence's design, yet in the season 2 finale he quietly delivers Emily to the truck that carries her out of the country he helped to build.

In the Hulu series, June's elder daughter is placed with the family of which Gilead Commander?

Commander MacKenzie and his wife raise the girl as their own under a new name, and Mrs MacKenzie warns June that another visit could get her executed in front of the child.

What was Janine's job before Gilead?

Waitress: before Gilead, Janine waited tables and was raising a son, Caleb, who, unknown to her, was killed in a car crash after the takeover.

What did the Putnams name Janine's baby, whom she calls Charlotte?

Angela is the Putnams' name for the baby Janine bears and always calls Charlotte; in the series finale Naomi at last hands the girl back to her mother.

Which actress plays June's outspoken feminist mother in the Hulu series?

Cherry Jones plays June's mother, long believed dead; in the final season June steps off a refugee train in Alaska and finds her alive.

Which actress plays Eden, the pious teenager married off to Nick in season 2?

Sydney Sweeney played Eden, the pious 15-year-old given to Nick as a bride in season two; when she falls for someone else, the pair refuse to repent and are drowned in a public execution.

Which Law & Order star plays High Commander George Winslow in season 3?

Christopher Meloni, the Law & Order: SVU veteran, plays High Commander George Winslow, who hosts the Waterfords in Washington, D.C. and is killed by June when he attacks her.

In the Hulu series, what is the title of Serena Joy's controversial book?

A Woman's Place is the book Serena was booed for promoting before Gilead; after the takeover she is shut out of power, and a flashback shows a copy going out with the trash.

What does Serena name the son she gives birth to in season 5?

Noah is born in a barn in no man's land with June, of all people, delivering him; Serena then offers the baby to June, calling herself only a vessel.

How does Fred Waterford die in season 4?

Beaten to death by June and former Handmaids: about to fly to Geneva and immunity, Waterford is instead traded back, and Lawrence and Nick deliver him to June in no man's land.

What name did June first give the daughter that Serena called Nichole?

Holly, her own mother's name, is what June calls the baby; yet when she hands her to Emily to be smuggled out, June says to call her Nichole, the name Serena chose.

How does Nick Blaine die in the Hulu series?

In a plane blown up by Commander Lawrence: in the penultimate episode the Commanders board early, so Lawrence carries the bomb aboard himself, and Nick joins the flight at the last minute before it explodes.

At season 3's end, how does June get a large group of children out of Gilead?

On a plane: June and other Handmaids pelt soldiers with stones so the children can slip aboard, and she is shot and left behind as it takes off.

In the novel The Testaments, what was Aunt Lydia before Gilead?

A judge in the family courts: arrested when Gilead seized power, Lydia became one of the founding Aunts to survive, and her secret memoir shows her quietly working to bring the regime down.

The Testaments shared the 2019 Booker Prize with which novel?

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo shared the 2019 Booker Prize with The Testaments, the judges breaking the rule against joint winners; Evaristo was the first Black woman to win.

What is the name of the Aunts' headquarters in The Testaments?

Ardua Hall is the Aunts' headquarters, where they keep privileges denied to every other woman, reading among them, and where Aunt Lydia secretly writes her own account of Gilead.

What are the Gilead missionaries who lure foreign women called in The Testaments?

Pearl Girls are Gilead's missionaries, sent abroad to recruit young women with the promise of a better life; Daisy poses as a street kid called Jade so that they will take her in.

How does Nicole carry the incriminating files out of Gilead in The Testaments?

A microdot in her cruciform tattoo carries Aunt Lydia's files across the border, and the scandal they expose among the regime's leaders goes on to trigger its collapse.

In The Testaments, where does Aunt Lydia hide the pages of her secret memoir?

Inside a hollowed-out book: Lydia stashes her pages in a copy of Cardinal Newman's Apologia, one of the forbidden texts that only the Aunts are permitted to read.

In The Testaments, Daisy's parents Neil and Melanie run which business as a front for the resistance?

A second-hand clothing store: Neil and Melanie's shop, The Clothes Hound, helps smuggle women out of Gilead, and Daisy learns only after their murder that they were never her real parents.

Who plays Agnes in the 2026 series The Testaments?

Chase Infiniti, fresh from the film One Battle After Another, plays Agnes, raised in Gilead as a true believer who begins to doubt everything she was taught; Lucy Halliday plays Daisy.

Which German director made the 1990 film of The Handmaid's Tale?

Volker Schlöndorff, the director of The Tin Drum, took over the 1990 film from Karel Reisz, with whom Harold Pinter had first worked on the screenplay.

Who played Serena Joy in the 1990 film of The Handmaid's Tale?

Faye Dunaway played Serena Joy opposite Robert Duvall's Commander; the film ends with the heroine killing the Commander, an act of open rebellion that Atwood's novel never gives her.

Which Oscar-winning composer scored the 1990 film of The Handmaid's Tale?

Ryuichi Sakamoto came to film as an actor: cast opposite David Bowie in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, he wrote its theme too, and went on to share the Oscar for The Last Emperor.

Composer Poul Ruders's Handmaid's Tale, which premiered in 2000, is what?

An opera: written to an English libretto, it was first sung in Danish translation in Copenhagen and was not heard in its original English until it reached London in 2003.

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in which Canadian city?

Ottawa: Atwood was born there in November 1939, but her father's research on forest insects meant she spent much of her childhood in the backwoods of northern Quebec and Ontario.

Atwood invented the LongPen so authors could do what remotely?

Sign books: Atwood says the idea came to her in Denver at four in the morning on a 2004 book tour; a robot arm copies the author's inscription in real time.

Which Atwood novel won the 2000 Booker Prize?

The Blind Assassin won the 2000 Booker Prize at Atwood's fourth shortlisting; The Handmaid's Tale had been the first of her three near misses.

What was Atwood's first novel, published in 1969?

The Edible Woman follows Marian, a market researcher who finds she cannot eat once she gets engaged; Atwood wrote it in 1965, ahead of the women's movement it seemed to anticipate.

Which Atwood novel, adapted for TV in 2017, reimagines a teenage maid convicted after an 1843 double murder?

Alias Grace reimagines Grace Marks, convicted at 16 of murdering her employer Thomas Kinnear, who was killed with his housekeeper; the real Marks was pardoned after almost thirty years and then vanished from the record.

Atwood's novella The Penelopiad retells which ancient epic from the viewpoint of the hero's wife?

The Odyssey: Penelope tells her own side from the underworld, interrupted by a chorus of the twelve maids who were hanged when Odysseus came home.

Which trilogy begins with Atwood's 2003 novel Oryx and Crake?

MaddAddam is the trilogy's name and its last book: The Year of the Flood does not follow Oryx and Crake but runs alongside it through other survivors, and the 2013 finale continues both.

Why did The Handmaid's Tale's creator step down as showrunner before the final season?

To focus on adapting The Testaments: the creator handed day-to-day control of the final season to two long-time writers, yet stayed on to write two of its episodes himself.

Which household brand's mascot, which scared Margaret Atwood as a child, inspired the bonnets in The Handmaid's Tale?

Old Dutch Cleanser's bonneted woman gave the Handmaids a look that real protesters have since borrowed for women's-rights marches around the world.

What made the one-off copy of The Handmaid's Tale that sold at Sotheby's for $130,000 in 2022 so unusual?

It was fireproof: Atwood tested the 'unburnable' edition with a flamethrower, and the sale raised money for PEN America's campaign against book bans.

Which talk-show host has an uncredited voice cameo as a radio newsreader in season two of The Handmaid's Tale?

Oprah Winfrey voices the broadcaster heard on a car radio. She had handed the show its Emmy the year before, and its makers asked her after hearing she was a fan.

The season two premiere of The Handmaid's Tale stages a mock mass hanging of Handmaids in which sports venue?

Fenway Park, home of baseball's Red Sox, holds the gallows: the fake execution punishes the Handmaids for refusing to stone Janine at the end of season one.

In Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale, what food does Offred hide in her shoe to use later as face cream?

Butter is her home-made face cream. When the Commander later lets her ask for something, hand lotion is what she requests.

Which landmark in the American capital has Gilead rebuilt as a giant cross in season three of The Handmaid's Tale?

The Washington Monument becomes the cross in the episode 'Household', where the capital's Handmaids turn out to be muzzled, their mouths held shut with metal rings.

In the season two finale of The Handmaid's Tale, how is Serena Joy punished for reading the Bible to the Commanders?

She loses a finger after proposing that Gilead's girls be taught to read scripture, proving her point by reading a passage aloud herself.

In the first episode of The Handmaid's Tale, what does Janine lose as punishment for being rude to Aunt Lydia?

Her right eye is taken out at the training centre. Two seasons later Aunt Lydia shows a softer side by giving Janine a patch to cover the socket.

What is the name of Offred's husband in The Handmaid's Tale, whose past divorce makes her an adulteress in Gilead?

Luke vanishes when the family is caught fleeing for Canada, and in the novel Offred never learns whether he is dead or in prison.

In The Handmaid's Tale, the colour worn by Commanders' Wives recalls traditional paintings of which religious figure?

The Virgin Mary is traditionally painted in the Wives' shade, but the status is fragile: a Wife whose Commander dies becomes a Widow and dresses in black.

In season two of The Handmaid's Tale, Offred hides in the abandoned headquarters of which real newspaper?

The Boston Globe building becomes her refuge, and she turns it into a shrine: a memorial of clippings for the staff who were executed there.

Which actress narrated the audiobook of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale that won a 2013 Audie Award?

Claire Danes recorded the novel in 2012, five years before the Hulu series, and Atwood herself joined her on a later full-cast special edition.

In Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale, where on Offred's body is the tattoo that marks her as a Handmaid?

Her ankle carries the mark in the novel, while the Hulu series gives Handmaids a tag in the ear instead, which the heroine cuts off in season two.

In season one of The Handmaid's Tale, a trade delegation led by Ambassador Castillo visits Gilead from which country?

Mexico sends the visitors, and Offred lies to them that she is happy. When she tells the ambassador the truth a day later, the ambassador says she cannot help.

Which Oscar winner guest stars in season two of The Handmaid's Tale as a Commander's wife exiled to the Colonies?

Marisa Tomei plays Mrs O'Conner, sent to the toxic wastelands for a sin of the flesh; Emily befriends her there, then poisons her.

What is Elisabeth Moss's character renamed in season three of The Handmaid's Tale, after leaving the Waterfords?

Ofjoseph marks her transfer to Commander Joseph Lawrence, whose house turns out to shelter a resistance cell run by its own servants.

In which American university town, where she held a teaching post, did Margaret Atwood finish The Handmaid's Tale?

Tuscaloosa, where she held a chair at the University of Alabama, saw the book finished. She had drafted it by hand, then typed it up on a typewriter.

In The Handmaid's Tale, what is the name of the van that collects Handmaids to attend another Handmaid's labour?

Birthmobile vans come in two liveries: one collects the district's Handmaids to attend the birth, and a second one brings the Wives.

In The Handmaid's Tale, what do the machines in the shop called Soul Scrolls print out for paying customers?

Prayers come to order: a customer phones in, keys in a prayer's number and an account number, and automated machines print the words out.

Which Canadian company premiered a dance version of The Handmaid's Tale, choreographed by Lila York, in 2013?

Royal Winnipeg Ballet added dance to a list of adaptations that already ran to film, radio, opera and the stage, with a television series still to come.

Which satirical essay by Jonathan Swift supplies one of the three epigraphs to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale?

A Modest Proposal calmly suggests that the poor sell their babies as food; its sincere voice making a monstrous case is the tone of Gilead's own rulers.

The third epigraph of The Handmaid's Tale, a proverb about not eating stones in the desert, comes from which tradition?

Sufi mystics supply the proverb, whose point is that nobody bothers to forbid the obvious; it sits beside epigraphs from Genesis and Jonathan Swift.

A slogan on ability and needs, repeated by trainee Handmaids in The Handmaid's Tale, reworks a line by which thinker?

Karl Marx made the line famous in 1875. Gilead's version changes the pronouns, so that women give what they are able to and men receive what they need.

A motto about pens and envy, taught to trainee Handmaids in The Handmaid's Tale, puns on an idea of which thinker?

Sigmund Freud's theory of penis envy is the target. In Gilead the pun has teeth: Aunts are the only women still allowed to read and write.

In The Handmaid's Tale, the Commander tells Offred that the Latin phrase scratched in her closet is what kind of saying?

A schoolboy joke, he says, showing her an old Latin textbook full of them; until then Offred had been whispering the words to herself without knowing what they meant.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Aunt Lydia says the old days gave women liberty 'to'; what does Gilead give them instead?

Freedom from is her name for safety: no more fear of running alone at night or opening the door to a strange man, in exchange for every choice women had.

The opening chapter of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale finds its narrator sleeping in what kind of former room?

A gymnasium in an old high school is the dormitory, where Aunts patrol with cattle prods and the women trade their names in whispers from bed to bed.

Offred's own narrative in The Handmaid's Tale ends as she climbs into what, unsure whether it means rescue or arrest?

A black van comes for her, and Nick tells her to trust him and go with the men; her story stops there, without saying whether he told the truth.

Which Christian text does Offred rework into a private version of her own in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale?

The Lord's Prayer is everywhere in Gilead, down to a shop called Daily Bread, but Offred's own version doubts that a just God ordered any of this.

Which Bible passage do trainee Handmaids hear at lunch in The Handmaid's Tale, with one blessing invented by Gilead?

The Beatitudes gain a forged line praising the silent, which Offred knows is fake; in the Hulu series she is shocked with a cattle prod for quoting the real ones.

Offred recalls in The Handmaid's Tale that the distress call behind the resistance password comes from which language?

French gave radio operators the call: it is how that language's words for 'help me' sound to an English ear, so a remark about a fine spring day can test a stranger.

What rule did Margaret Atwood set herself for the cruelties she put into The Handmaid's Tale?

Only things humans had done somewhere made the cut, so the forced births, stolen children and bans on reading all have real precedents, many of them Western.

In The Handmaid's Tale, the cushion in Offred's room is embroidered with which single word from St Paul's famous trio?

Faith survives in needlepoint although women are forbidden to read; of Paul's trio it is the only one Gilead has left her, with hope and charity in short supply.

Offred's claim in The Handmaid's Tale that telling her story makes a listener exist reworks which philosopher's dictum?

René Descartes proved his own existence by thinking; Offred turns the formula outward, willing a listener into being by telling them her tale.

The question of whether there is no balm in Gilead, echoed in The Handmaid's Tale, is asked by which biblical prophet?

Jeremiah asks it while mourning his people's slide into wickedness; the real Gilead was hill country east of the Jordan, known for its flocks, orchards and spices.

Gilead's butcher shop in The Handmaid's Tale, All Flesh, is named from a Bible verse that compares mortal life to what?

Grass that withers is Isaiah's image for mortal flesh. Gilead's shops carry such scripture on signs made of pictures alone, because women may not read.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Aunt Lydia promises trainee Handmaids that their new way of life will in time become what?

Ordinary is her word for what horror turns into with time; Offred recalls it while staring at the hooded bodies of doctors executed for performing abortions.

Offred says in The Handmaid's Tale that Handmaids are not concubines but two-legged versions of what?

Wombs on legs is how she sums up a Handmaid's worth to Gilead: a tool for breeding rather than a mistress, a wife or a person.

Which shop in The Handmaid's Tale is named for the miracle in which Christ feeds a hungry multitude?

Loaves and Fishes recalls five loaves and two fish feeding a crowd; every Gilead shopfront borrows scripture this way, from the grocer's to the dress shop.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Aunt Lydia's plea to forgive those who know not what they do repeats words Jesus spoke when?

At his crucifixion, among his last words; Aunt Lydia aims the verse at the Wives, whom Handmaids are told to pity because they cannot have children.

In the Historical Notes of The Handmaid's Tale, in which city were the tapes of Offred's story unearthed?

Bangor, Maine, had been a way station on the escape route to Canada, which suggests that Offred got at least that far north.

Offred's tapes in The Handmaid's Tale were recorded over old music cassettes, including one by which heavy metal band?

Twisted Sister shares the stash with Elvis Presley, Boy George and Mantovani; the band's name has been read as an echo of Gilead's warped idea of womanhood.

In the Historical Notes of The Handmaid's Tale, what container held the tapes that preserve Offred's story?

A metal footlocker held about thirty unnumbered tapes, so the scholars who transcribed them had to guess the order in which Offred told her story.

What do the Historical Notes of The Handmaid's Tale call the chain of safe houses that smuggled women out of Gilead?

The Underground Femaleroad borrows its name from the network that helped American slaves escape, and like the original it mostly ran north to Canada.

In the Historical Notes of The Handmaid's Tale, what became of the man scholars believe was Offred's Commander?

He died in a purge soon after Offred was taken away, accused of liberal leanings and of harbouring an enemy agent.

Margaret Atwood says the hopeful epilogue of The Handmaid's Tale follows the example of which earlier dystopian novel?

Nineteen Eighty-Four closes with an essay on Newspeak written in the past tense, proof to Atwood that Big Brother fell; her symposium does the same for Gilead.

What is the stated subject of the keynote lecture in the Historical Notes that close The Handmaid's Tale?

Problems of authentication fill the talk: the speaker treats Offred's testimony as a puzzle to verify, and wishes she had stolen a printout from the Commander's computer.

In the Historical Notes of The Handmaid's Tale, what does the keynote speaker urge his audience not to do to Gilead?

Judge it morally and you miss the point, he argues: such verdicts depend on one's own culture, and Gilead was a society under severe demographic pressure.

In the Historical Notes of The Handmaid's Tale, which first name do scholars propose for the real Serena Joy?

Thelma was the wife of the official the scholars favour as the Commander; she had once been a television personality, which matches Offred's account.

What do the Historical Notes of The Handmaid's Tale conclude about names in Offred's account such as Moira and Nick?

They were pseudonyms, most likely all of them, the speaker reasons, which he takes as a sign that the tapes were made while Offred was still inside Gilead.