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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whose fault do the women say Janine’s rape was?

2. What do the Japanese want from the narrator in Chapter 2?

3. In Chapter 7, what did the gravestone have engraved on it?

4. What do the guards in Chapter 1 have that nobody else does?

5. What part of the Bible did the women hear at the center each day?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happened to Serena Joy that was traumatic in her earlier life?

2. What is carved on Offred’s desk at the center? Why is this significant?

3. Describe the narrator’s mother as depicted in Chapter 3.

4. If Luke is free in Chapter 7, what happened to him?

5. What is the narrator’s attitude towards her audience, at the end of Chapter 3?

6. Why does Offred have to be especially careful on this assignment, according to Chapter 2?

7. Why is it significant that the women discuss their names at the beginning of the novel?

8. What does Offred do after exercising in Chapter 5?

9. Why does the narrator start thinking about Moira at night in Chapter 3?

10. Who from the first chapter appears again later in the novel?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Every other chapter in the book is entitled “Night”. Why might this be the case? How is Night significant for Offred, and what is it placed in contrast to?

Essay Topic 2

Offred leaves the novel on a deliberately ambiguous note. If the novel were to continue, what would her next chapter look like? Use the ‘professor’s’ speech from the end notes as the basis for your fictionalized version.

Essay Topic 3

Women and their roles play an overwhelming part in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Is this a feminist work? In what ways might it be considered feminist? Are there indications that it may not be, as well?

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