So Offred’s narrative is over and we have jumped a few hundred years into the future. We are at the Twelfth Symposium of the Giladedan Studies in Nunavut, the northernmost region of Canada, inhabited by Inuit (Native Americans of northern Canada referred to by the derogatory term Eskimo*). The fact that this area is now tundra, completely frozen, Atwood is possibly implying that the planet has warmed since the conference-goers have the option of fishing but need rain gear, not snow gear, and insect repellent.

From the names of the members of the International Historical Association and, specifically, Gileadean Research Association, we get a general sense of people from various areas of the world who have thrived, at least intellectually. There are a few Inuit names: Maryann Crescent Moon, Johnny Running Dog. There is the surname Pieixoto, which is Portuguese or Brazilian. He’s the keynote speaker of the conference. There are also Indian academicians. The ironic thing is that they are now all involved in “Caucasian Studies” the way Caucasians have historically studied all other cultures as, well, “other” and “exotic.” “Oriental Studies,” now renamed, is such an example.

We also have a Van Buren. Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States. He wasn’t a great president but he was influential in organizing and solidifying the Democratic Party whose core values were more like the conservative Republicans of today. Van Buren’s party believed in state and local rights over federal control. (This is one of the biggest issues today in the US: states vs federal rights. It rages on currently over funding for Covid-19 relief.) Of course, this is a central idea of Gilead. They, we presume, thought the government of the US had too much control over people’s lives, not letting them practice their religious beliefs. But as it almost always happens, one group’s utopia is another’s dystopia.

Van Buren is a professor at the University of San Antonio, Republic of Texas. When that area of Texas first became independent from Mexico (euphemistically speaking), it was its own nation (or republic) in 1836, with Sam Houston as its president. (Hence the name for the largest city, Houston). It became part of the US in 1846. During the fictive civil wars of our novel, it apparently has seceded from the US and become a republic once again.

Van Buren will discuss “The Warsaw Tactic: Policies of the Urban War Encirclement in 1940.” During WWII, Poland had put 400,000 Jews into a ghetto (ghetto=isolated city area, restricted to a minority group). As the Jewish people died off due to starvation or were sent to concentration camps, the Nazis kept reducing the area of the perimeter of the ghetto. The perimeter shrank and shrank as the population decreased to 60,000. In 1943, there was an uprising from within the ghetto by the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB). By the end of the uprising, however, 7,000 Jewish people died and the rest were sent to labor or extermination camps. So, this talk Van Buren will give makes the reader assume that this was a tactic used by Gilead on their own citizens (and that MayDay is similar to the ZOB. We can also wonder if this was a tactic by the surrounding country or countries used on Gilead. Most likely the former.

Professor Pieixoto, who will give the keynote speech, has written an essay comparing Iran and Gilead, two monotheistic regimes. Can we assume academia at the time can see theocratic regimes as a thing of the past? And why the emphasis on “monotheistic”? Are there polytheistic regimes now in play like the ones in ancient times? Or have all theocratic governments crumbled, so much in the distant past that it’s interesting to compare monotheistic with monotheistic, as opposed to the “polys” of the past?

Pieixoto begins his talk by discussing the difficulties with the manuscript. The title is soi-disant (self-proclaimed, so-called), meaning the recordings weren’t left with the title The Handmaid’s Tale. That title was given to the transcribed recordings by his colleague Professor Wade, now 200 years after the events. Wade’s reason for this was two-fold: 1) Because of Chaucer who wrote The Canterbury Tales (which included the “Miller’s Tale.”). 2) Like Chaucer’s characters, Wade has a dirty mind. We can see that locker room talk hasn’t changed in 200 years. “Tail” is a slang word boys and men are known to use when talking about women and sex. “Let’s go out tonight and get some tail,” the locker room talk might go. I’m sure Atwood, groaningly, is saying that this will never end, even among academicians. Pieixoto takes it to the next level, saying that the Female Road is sometimes referred to by them as the Frail Road, implying that females are weak and frail. At least some in the audience groan.

So, he begins discussing the nature and authenticity of the recordings, from which their transcript was compiled. There have been other authentic documents such as the Diary of P. and The A.B. Memoirs. (Could these be Agnes — Witness 369A and Nichole — Witness 369B from Atwood’s The Testaments? Again, speculation.) But there have also been many forgeries. However, where the cassette tapes were found, the container they were found in (an old army footlocker), and the technology used seems to make it all authentic. They had to get an antiquarian technician to make a machine to play the tapes. (An antiquarian is someone who loves old stuff.)

The first few minutes of each tape has songs on them in order to hide the true contents. All songs were from or prior to the 1980s. Twisted Sisters apparently, in the time of Gilead, played Carnegie Hall—usually reserved for high cultural events. Perhaps art and culture had greatly declined during the period, like in the movie Idiocracy. Elvis Prestly is mentioned — in his Golden Years. The speaker discusses how a woman’s voice (Offred’s) is then heard after the playlist of songs. However, the tapes were not found labeled or in order, so Pieixoto et al had to reconstruct what they thought the order of the tapes were in. This could account for some of the disjointed narrative we find in the pages.

Pieixoto then takes a moment to editorialize, or give his opinion. He’s apparently a cultural relativist, meaning that people of one culture can’t judge the culture of another. (Michel Foucault was for this idea, Noam Chomsky against. See their 1971 debate.) He says that perhaps those in charge of Gilead were justified due to the decreasing birth rates and infertility. The audience claps when he says their job is not to judge “but to understand” (302). The reader wonders if Pieixoto and the audience lean slightly toward the patriarchal side or whether this is a valid point. (It would seem more valid to me if they hadn’t discussed the “tail” bit with such glee.)

So he returns to discussing the credibility and authenticity of the tapes. He says, unfortunately, that the actual author could never be identified but that the tapes seem no less authentic. Everything said on the tapes corresponds to what they know about the early Gileadean period where children were confiscated from second-marriage parents and the young wives used as Handmaids.

We learn a few more things about Gilead next. We learn that later, in the middle period, all marriages not performed under state religion were deemed illegitimate. We learn that all Caucasians of North America had low birth rates, not just ones in the area of Gilead. The causes could have been both intended and unintended. There was a high use of contraceptives and more abortions. The unintended causes were things like sexually transmitted diseases and contamination of air and water supply by radiation from nuclear disasters (but not bombs), and toxic leaks from chemical and biological weapons (some legal, some not). There was also an overuse of pesticides and herbicides.

We learn that Rumania had anticipated low birth rates and made contraceptives and abortions illegal, giving monetary benefits to those with high fertility.

He then discusses the difficulty in completely transforming a society into a new one. Old ways must be incorporated into a new system. The KGB used ideas of old Tsarist Russia. Christianity had to adapt pagan rituals of the Mediterranean. So, racism was a good way for some in Gilead to see a little of the old life in the new. (As Hitler had done with the Jewish community to an extreme.)

After a snide remark about the education level of North American colleges of the past where Offred had been educated, Pieixoto says nothing much can be determined about her identity since she didn’t provide us with her real name. Her official records were destroyed by Gilead. The other names she used on the recordings were most likely false names (pseudonyms), so they were of no help. Only the Commander’s name of a household could give any clues. So, research into the Commander was necessary.

Because her Commander was so highly placed, he was probably among the original planners of the society. He was in the so-called Sons of Jacob Think Tank. Think tanks are, today, places where intellectuals share ideas and offer ideas for national policy. Some examples are The Brookings Institute, which is left-leaning. Also the Heritage Foundation, which is right-leaning. We also find out that the entire world was in crisis at the time. There was no major world-wide war. The problem was that each superpower was facing great upheavals, uprisings and/or civil wars, and so the superpowers came to an agreement that they could each do what they needed to in order to gain control of their own citizens. In other words, they could declare Marshal Law and limit the freedoms of the people. So, one faction, born in this Sons of Jacob Think Tank, was the group that overthrew the government (by gunning down congress and the president) and created Gilead. This was all pre-Gilead and into the early period of Gilead.

After the time that included Offred’s narrative, apparently, there was what came to be considered the middle-period of Gilead when a Great Purge occurred. So great was the purge that later historians capitalize the name of the event. During this purge, records of those first Commanders of Gilead were destroyed and the Commanders were discredited. So, we can’t find out about Offred and the Commander this way, either.

There were diaries kept, however, by a sociobiologist from that time named Wilfred Limpkin. A sociobiologist studies how we form societies due to our evolution as a species. Apparently, he had the idea that it’s natural for men to have many wives. It is natural (just like, as Pieixoto jokes, Darwinism (i.e. evolution) was used to justify the way humans acted before this newer idea). So this polygamy idea was used to justify the practices of Gilead. This scientist also wrote about the Commanders in his diary. He wrote about two men who could possibly be this Commander Fred. The diary makes a joke about how straight-laced one of the Commanders was. He’d rather play golf than have relations with women (hence the “foreplay” pun; “foreplay” means flirting; “fore” is what you yell when you might hit someone with your golf ball after a bad swing). This Limpkin diary had been saved only because he left it with his sister up in Calgary, Canada—afraid he wouldn’t survive Gilead.

One of the possible Freds, Waterford, was a marketing man. He worked on how to package the idea of the new regime. He even designed the Handmaid’s costumes (like prisoners of war outfits that were made for Germans in Canada during WW2). He’s also the one who came up with the Particicution and Salvaging Ceremonies. The idea for the Ceremony (“the collective rape ceremony”) came from a practice in Medieval England. Apparently, and this isn’t in the book, but there was a practice in the Medieval world that was meant to shame citizens into behaving according to the social norms of the time and place. It was called Charivari or Shivaree. Remarriage after a husband died, a wife beating a husband, anything gender issue out of the norm, usually concerning the female, could be punished by the citizens. Not just any citizens in those times. Often, it was the young men of the village or town, after a night of drinking, who would bang pots and pans, go to the offending woman’s home and demand money and wine. Sometimes they would beat the women. Sometimes rape them. This was actually often encouraged by the townspeople to ensure no one stepped out of line, sexually. So, Piexioto says that Gilead had no new ideas. The founders were genius in their synthesizing others’ ideas.

The other Commander Fred, Judd, was more into strategic planning and used the Russian KGB as a model—their ideas on destabilizing foreign governments, specifically. He was behind the takedown of the US and the ideas behind getting rid of the Jewish people (at the best profit). It was also his idea not to let marginalized groups (including women) read. How the Particicutions work was devised by Judd. It created fear and, as the notes affirm, do indeed create a scapegoat for the Handmaid’s to take their anger out on. After Offred’s time, in the middle period, these came four times a year during the solstices and equinoxes. They realized that invoking the rites of goddesses, using that female influence, was necessary for staying in control of the female population. It’s like earlier concerning having to keep some aspects of a culture (female role models, in this case), to ensure the transition into, and the sustained control over, a new way of living.

This can also help explain the use of the Aunts. It’s easier to control a population with dominant members of that population. (You actually see this often. There were Jewish capos in the Nazi prison camps. These captains would beat their own populations, keep them in line, in exchange for extra food and better treatment.) We also learn that the Aunts got their names from common household products used in the time before Gilead. (

We learn that many of the Commanders were sterile, quite likely, because of a failed experiment in pre-Gileadean times. Scientists tried to alter mump genes to put into the food of Russian elites. The virus spread (presumably among other elites of the world), however, and sterility was a byproduct.

There’s a problem trying to figure out if either of these Freds was the one in Offred’s narrative, however, because neither of these two had a wife named “Pam” or “Serena Joy.” Yet, Waterford’s wife had been a TV evangelist. More evidence is that Waterford was killed in the first purge due to having unauthorized books and magazines and such. Also for having a “subversive,” or someone going against the regime, in his household. This could have been Offred but most likely Nick. We find out that Nick was indeed a double agent. The Commander would have known about Nick being an Eye since all Commanders were directors for the Eyes. But he didn’t know he was really part of the Mayday underground group. So, this network of Commanders had quite a lot of control, especially since they were directors of the Eyes. But after this early period of Gilead, during Offred’s time, this changed. There was less power spread out among the Commanders. Power would have become centralized.

But more doubt is put on whether Waterford was the Commander of Offred. There’s just too much not known about Waterford and too much that Offred leaves out. But Pieixoto is grateful he does have what is provided in her narrative.

Pieixoto is unsure of Offred’s fate but he offers some possibilities. She might have escaped to Canada and then taken to England. But if so, why did she not make her story known? Maybe she feared harm to Luke or her daughter. She might also have been recaptured. She might also have made it out but couldn’t handle the outside world anymore and just stayed to herself.

Pieixoto then discusses Nick’s fate. Nick had known he was in trouble just as soon as Ofglen was detained after the Particicution. They’d most likely next torture and question Offred, who would give him away concerning their sexual relations which, even for an Eye, had terrible consequences. (He uses the word “Byzantine” to describe rules that are secretive and complicated, as those of the Byzantine Empire were known to be, used most often to benefit those in power.) But also, he felt for her. He might have even gotten her pregnant. Instead of assassinating her, he organized the Eyes (whether also from Mayday is unknown) to come and take her away. This might have led to Nick’s death, but there’s no record of that either.

So, Pieixoto ends on a poetic, mythological note. He compares trying to call Offred back from the past to Orpheus trying to call Eurydice back from the underworld. The few things Eurydice can say to Orpheus before his ascent back into the world is merely an echo, just like the echoes of history we get from the narrative of this Handmaid’s tale. Pieixoto ends by emphasizing one of the most important ideas or motifs that runs through the novel: we can never have any exact idea, record, representation of the past; all attempts are merely palimpsests, traces of past impressions that we try to piece together.