Margaret Atwood, in The Handmaid's Tale, presents her protagonist, Offred, in the context of a narrative in which past and present are intimately juxtaposed. The palimpsest reference on the first page of the novel gives the reader an indication of both this approach and the attitude of the narrator/protagonist toward past and present. This attitude is that the past, full of human love and freedom, is gone forever, and the present, lacking such love and freedom, is all that remains, full of regret and loss and fear. The free past, in the context of the palimpsest reference, is erased, and the fascist present is written over the erased past. (As we learn in the Notes, the actual recording of Offred's tale on tape---recorded over previously recorded music
---is a literal example of palimpsest.) Of course, the very fact that Offred remembers the past nullifies the suggestion that it is gone forever. Offred may take her memories with her into death, or wherever her captors take her at the end of the book, but the reader is meant by the author to be the recipient and carrier of Offred's memories beyond her end. It is the thesis of this study that Atwood has written this book to affect the reader, to create in that reader a deeper appreciation for love and freedom, and an awareness that, step by step, that love and freedom can be taken away as it was taken away from Offred. The fact that Offred is a woman, and that the book has a feminist perspective, does not prevent both women and men from identifying with Offred's awful experiences. The use of the palimpsest narrative, in which the beloved past is erased for the sake of the imposition of a dreaded present and future, specifically serves this aim of causing enlightenment in the reader. The symbolic significance of Offred's story is clear. She represents all of us and the fact that our freedoms are fragile and should never be taken for granted, lest they be taken from us, step by step. I...