Themes

• Survival is a core theme in the novel as Offred feels she is fading "I feel as if there's not much left of me"
• Offred feels she is failing to regain her autonomy "they will slip through my arms, as if i'm made of smoke, as if i'm a mirage, fading before their eyes"
• Offred stays surviving through hope "if its a story i'm telling, then I have control over the ending"
• Gilead follows a theme of a patriarchal society as women are not given freedoms to own property, or even their own bodies as they are reduced to a uterus; "I am a cloud congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am"
• Identity is a key theme as Offred feels she does not recognise who she is or who she once was; "My name is Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it is forbidden" "your name is like a telephone number, only useful to others"
• Women in Gilead, whether they are Martha's or Handmaid's, are reduced to functions of society as they cannot keep their names
• Key theme; fertility; "there are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that is the law"
• Patriarchy is also emphasised for men who are hung as punishment for "homosexual activity"
• Offred must leave the house through the "back door" referring to how in Victorian times, servants had to use the back door to establish a class divide