Prose Feature: Narrative Voice - The Handmaids Tale

Offred's Narrative Voice In Handmaids

Opening Of The Handmaids Tale

The opening is a first person retrospective narration of Offred giving a description of the setting of the gymnasium. In doing so, it shows how unreliable she is as a narrator as she switches between the past and present to describe the present day setting, making her narration fragmented as it serves both as a recollection and description of the present day events. However, she is self-aware of her unreliability as a narrator as she describes the gym as "A palimpsest of unheard music", here…