The Handmaids Tale

Structure & Chapter Titles

I: Night II: Shopping III: Night IV: Waiting Room V: Nap VI: Household VII: Night VIII: Birth Day IX: Night X: Soul Scrolls XI: Night Xii: Jezebels XIII:: Night XIV: Salvaging XV: Night Historical Notes

Parts of Novel

The first section called "Night" is told in flashback, establishing the fact that this book takes place at a time when army blankets that say "U.S." are notably old, in a place where women sleep in a gymnasium surrounded by barbed wire. This sets a tone of danger for the following present-tense episodes, to contrast the passivity of the bland life described there.

The chapters of the novel alternate, with the even-numbered ones naming some place in town that the narrator goes to and the odd-numbered ones named "Night" (with the exception of "Nap" in Chapter V). This emphasized the distinction between the times when the handmaid's brain is allowed to be active and when it is supposed to be shut down in sleep; ironically, her life becomes more active and colorful during the "Night sections, usually because she uses her private time to remember, and later to carry on her affair with Nick.

It is significant that the trip to Jezebel's is not placed in a "Night" section, even though it occurs after dark and is a supposedly covert action, indicating that it could still be considered mainstream because it poses no threat to the power structure.

At the end of the novel, the "Historical Notes" section offers a lecture given in the year 2195 by the Director of Twentieth- and Twenty-first-Century Archives at Cambridge University. This jump to almost two hundred years beyond the events of the book allows readers to put these events into a larger perspective. This indicates that Gilead is not the fate of human kind, but also raises the question of how much we really learn.

The Handmaids Tale

Siddhartha

I: Night II: Shopping III: Night IV: Waiting Room V: Nap VI: Household VII: Night VIII: Birth Day IX: Night X: Soul Scrolls XI: Night Xii: Jezebels XIII:: Night XIV: Salvaging XV: Night Historical Notes

The Brahmins Son With the Samanas Gotama Awakening Kamala With the People Sansara By the river The Ferryman The Son Om Govinda

Comparison