The Handmaids Tale follows a woman named Offred who lives in the Republic of Gilead. Offred wasn't always her name, but it has been since she was captured by the government and brought to the training facility. In the Republic of Gilead, they take all fertile women and put them in the homes of upper-class couples to help them conceive children. The government trains these women to conform to the new rules set in place: be quiet, modest, and indifferent. Since the fall of reproduction rates, women have lost all rights, except those of bearing children.
Handmaids only have one purpose: to have a baby for the commander and wife of the home she is placed in. In order to do this, they have a monthly ritual set at a specific point in the Handmaids menstrual cycle. The Handmaid lays down in between the legs of the wife grasping her hands while the commander has sex with her. This ritual will continue until the Handmaid is pregnant. Then if she has a healthy baby, she is allowed a few months to breast feed the child and then will be relocated to a different household to start the process over again. To make matters worse, most of the commanders are old enough that they are sterile and can no longer have children. This forces the Handmaids to find more unconventional ways to get pregnant. Offred remembers living in a time where she had a husband and daughter, when she could work, drive, read, and speak on her own terms. That is prohibited now, even for the wives. The only time Handmaids are allowed out of the house is on their daily shopping trips where they walk in pairs to the store and back. Everything they do is watched by the Eye, which is their form of police enforcement. It seems to Offred that there is no escape.
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