The main storyline is Offred trying to escape, or at least survive, the authoritarian regime of Gilead, marked by a misogynistic patriarchy. Under this regime, she is valued merely as a womb with legs since she is young and fertile in a world where fertility has vastly declined. Offred’s goal of survival also involves desperately wanting to get her daughter back. She also hopes that Luke is alive—hopefully in Canada, perhaps working toward saving Offred and their daughter from the authoritarian regime. The character stakes for Offred here run the full gamut. She fears losing both her life and, on a daily basis, her psychological health. Due to the regime, she has already lost her career and social status, as all women have, but especially those not of the elite class. Her loss of psychological health increases as she continually struggles to keep up hopes that her daughter and husband are still alive.

She’s faced with one dominant question, the dramatic question: As it becomes more apparent that she can’t escape the regime, not even through suicide, is it healthy to keep hope alive for her daughter and husband? Or should she consider them dead and focus on self-preservation? This self-preservation comes in the form of following the rules of the regime and giving in to the need for human intimacy—namely, falling into the arms of Nick, the young, handsome chauffeur of the Commander.

Secondary narratives, told largely through flashbacks:

• How the regime of Gilead came about. The reader learns how and when women lose rights and personal freedoms. This also includes the backstory of her husband Luke and how he was somewhat complicit in Offred’s loss of her rights, such as not putting up too much protest after Offred was blocked from their joint banking account.
• How Offred loses her daughter during the attempted escape with Luke. The storyline is interrelated with the family’s unsuccessful escape attempt after Luke realizes their lives are in danger. This narrative is the most heart-wrenching for Offred, reflecting on those events in her most troubling times in the current regime.
• The activism and later capture of her activist mother who is a second-wave feminist. Through this narrative, we find out how she and her mother were somewhat estranged growing up since the mother was always participating in activism. Also, her mother was quite disappointed that Offred didn’t hold many of the same views about the female role in society as she but, instead, went along with the current society’s status quo, including having a husband and child.

Told through current narrative, some with minor flashbacks:

• The story and character arc of Offred’s friend Moira. Moira is a feminist of sorts but represents not only freedom but also the more lascivious and reckless aspects of human nature which Offred usually tries to subdue. Offred admires Moira, often conjuring up her memory when faced with a decision to do something reckless herself, like secretly meeting with Nick. At times, Moira seems almost like a stand-in mother figure since her own mother seems somewhat like a child who must be cared for.
• The story and character arc of Janine. Her storyline is something of a cautionary symbol of someone becoming complicit within the regime for survival (especially with her relations with Aunt Lydia), but then causes her downfall when she couldn’t let go of her own baby.

Some other current narrative storylines that are important to follow:

• Offred’s relationship with Nick, the Commander’s chauffeur and possible member of the Mayday resistance movement. (Or is he really an Eye, the name of Gilead’s secret police?) This storyline is tied to many important subjects: survival or self-preservation; the need for human touch; increasingly, a symbol for whether her husband Luke is still alive or not. Most of all, Nick is a litmus test for what kind of person Offred views herself as. She questions if she’s engaging in the relationships for survival reasons or for purely selfish reasons. If the latter, she questions whether she is, to her core, a bad person, an idea Aunt Lydia and Serena Joy constantly try to convince her of.
• Offred’s relationship with Serena Joy. This is a nuanced relationship. Serena Joy despises all Handmaids due to their sole function, which is ironic since this system is one Serena Joy helped create. The relationship is marked by Serena being of a much higher rank in status and much more advanced age. She sees Offred as a useful tool for providing a child for the aging couple; however, due to her age and attractiveness, Offred is also a threat.
• Offred’s relationship with the house servants Rita and Cora. Though a frigid relationship with Offred in the beginning, these Marthas working in the Commander’s household also come to stand in as mother figures for Offred. Rita remains more frigid, perhaps like her actual mother. Cora, however, seems to show some affection for Offred as the narrative evolves.

Two related storylines of interest:

It’s interesting to see how Offred’s mother’s story intersects with Serena Joy’s. Their philosophies are diametrically opposed since Offred’s mother is a second-wave feminist and Serena Joy is a Christian fundamentalist (holding the belief that the woman’s place is in the home). Yet, a point of interesting and awkward commonality is seen concerning the nature of representing the woman’s body. Both her mother and Serena Joy are vehemently opposed to women being portrayed in pornography. These are the only types of books (or magazines) that Offred’s mother wants burned. Serena Joy wants to burn not only these but all books—especially those that would give women any empowerment.

By the end, Serena Joy ends up in a hell of her own making, ironically, but Offred’s mother ends up in a hell of the regime’s making: the Colonies are where women, who “don’t know their place,” go to clean up radioactive material. They all will eventually die there from radiation poisoning. Some interesting images and symbols that populate both narratives are that of the mutilation of women’s and men’s bodies. It begins when Offred’s mother takes her to a pornographic material burning by activists. We see, floating in smoky air, the mutilated bodies of women on magazine pages, mutilated by the tearing and burning of pages. We see this mutilation again in a film shown by Aunt Lydia. Then we see mutilation in the form of Serena Joy cutting flowers in her garden with garden shears. Offred also imagines, on many occasions, the mutilation and degradation of Serena Joy’s body. These images are often mixed with the mutilation of male genitalia and of the aging and decaying of Serena Joy.

Offred’s mother often voices her hatred of men in general, especially concerning Luke. She is portrayed as quite youthful by Offred, until she is spotted in a video taken at the Colonies. So, there are many possibilities of exploration for the reader and young scholar.