In Fine (The End)

The close of the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, in which protagonist Offred is ushered into the ambiguity of a fatal darkness or an invigorating light, parallels the novel’s continuing theme of ambiguity regarding one’s place in society regarding the future wills and needs of surrounding characters. The reader is left unsatisfied as Offred climbs into a black van with a big white eye painted on the side, unsatisfied with the unknown. There is no absolute closure but rather an ending note of suspense not unlike the continual and everlasting precipice that Offred cannot help but teeter along with every action she takes, or rather does not choose to take. She is in no way entitled to a future by her society, and by the novel’s close, neither is the reader.

                The novel is rounded out by a final epilogue of historical notes that read like a transcript of a college symposia on Gileadean history, hundreds of years following the discovery of Offred’s tale. While these notes do not provide all of the answers they do however provide context regarding Offred’s life that not even she was able to fully access during her time as a Handmaid. Most notable of such information is the fate of her daughter; the anthropologist dictating the historical notes states that the children of the women who were to become Handmaids were adopted by foster families of a higher social status (likely, then, never to play the role of a Handmaid). It is interesting that this is the point in the novel, the point at which Offred sees the photo of her daughter and can only speculate as to how her fate will proceed, that Offred becomes significantly emotionally weakened, entirely passive, and faulted. Again, the society is coaxing complacency by only revealing so much, so little information, the rest lost to an ironically un-blissful ignorance. The Red Center must tell the Handmaids to wish their children dead or dying, knowing full well that they never can and they never will.

                The fractured loyalties of Nick present a complex network of motives in retrospect to his actions in the novel. This is the downfall of a first-person narrative such as the Handmaid’s Tale. The reader only knows what Nick does as it immediately relates to Offred, and the view of his true character is obscured by Offred’s favorative bias. When it is revealed by the historical notes that Nick is both a Rebel and an Eye, it creates again a fear of the unknown, a fear of who to confide in. When Ofglen acts overtly to reveal that she belongs to a resistance, Offred is hesitant to oblige; however, divulges everything to Nick. This portrays Offred as an incredibly fickle and emotionally-driven character. While clearly Offred was able to escape the society in some respect, it is nauseating to think that Nick’s manipulation of her confidentiality may have led to her downfall.

                The ability of the anthropologists to add humor to their lecture on Gilead reveals that they have become so disconnected from this almost mythical past that they, much like the reader, can view the society objectively through a lens.