Don't forget to talk about structure in The Handmaid's Tale!

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Don't forget to talk about structure when you're talking about The Handmaid's Tale because it's so interesting and will help you so much to talk about several different themes. Remember for The Handmaid's Tale we've got the epigraphs first from Genesis of the give me children or else I die from Rachel with Jacob and Bilhah obviously as her handmaid. We've got the quotation from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift and we've got the Sufi proverb. So all of those three give us this idea of the meta ideas in the novel.

[00:00:29]When we introduce these ideas of reproduction, of ownership, of suggestions to make a better country that are embedded deeply with satire but also are introducing ideas of sacrifice and children and reproduction and it's control in particular and then this idea of irony as well as transgression and which boundaries we should not transgress even if we are at a desperate situation for example in the desert in that Sufi proverb. Then of course we have the narrative itself of Offred which is told to us seemingly very intimately by her.

[00:01:01]And as we can see as this goes through she continually flashes back and forth cross past and present and different times in the past as well which indicates to us that this is her story and she is even negotiating and rewriting it for herself. As she herself says this is for her a reconstruction and it didn't happen like that. And then we must remember as well the historical notes. So important as well to give us the ideas about Offred in the conclusion as well as thinking about the broader strokes of power and patriarchy, memory and history all of which are important themes in the novel. And particular we're thinking about Professor Pieixoto's lecture where it's revealed that The Handmaid's Tale is actually a title that was given to it by the professors who discovered and treated the audio tapes. And so then The Handmaid's Tale Offred's story is revealed to be a collection of cassette tapes. So audio tapes have been recorded and restored and transcribed by these professors who interestingly are men. So once again we have these oral traditions from women throughout history that have been lost or hidden or obscured by the power and the passage of time in history. And then we have the reconstruction of them. So, another layer of reconstruction with the professor's presentation as he tells us that he reconstructed it and made meaning out of it with his colleagues in order to make it make sense and make a clear narrative. And the structure of these three layers is interesting because it gives us different perspectives on these key themes of The Handmaid's Tale. It foregrounds them in the epigraphs and then it brings them to a further conclusion and extension in the historical notes. So, make sure you use those for your writing because it absolutely will help you with all of your themes in trying to address the extent and the patterns across the novel. Good luck for your exams. See you next time. Bye.