The historical notes are not part of Offred's narrative, they are a transcript of a symposium held at a university in 2195 - two hundred years from where we left the end of Offred's harrowing tale. The purpose of these notes if any, is to put Offred's narrative into a historical purpose to help these academics understand the life of Gilead. It seems to me that another purpose of these historical notes is to provoke a very strong reaction in the readers who have followed the emotional journey with the narrator Offred.

The significance of the university name `Denay, Nunavit' is that Atwood took the name from a group of people called Dene from Canada's North west territories and they are about to become the first self-governing group of...