THE HANDMAID'S TALE

The last line of The Handmaid's Tale  ends with, "Are there any questions?" (311),  to which the reader most likely screams, "YES!".  The entirety of the book is a question in itself.  No one is sure what happens to Offred after she gets into the van at the end of the story.  The professor in the Historical Notes epilogue clues us in on the fact that Offred did escape long enough to record the tapes, but no one knows if she survived.  To make matters more confusing, Margaret Atwood contradicts the validity of the entire book by stating that the tapes could be a forgery; "First, the tapes might be a forgery.  As you know, there have been several instances of such forgeries" (302).  Once again, The Handmaid's Tale leaves the reader wanting more in order to understand the ending.  Although, the ambiguous ending could be a rhetorical move.  Perhaps Atwood did not close the book with an ending because there is no end to oppression.  A long look at world history proves this to be true.  Without directly stating whether this story could be true or not, Atwood provides us with a clue that the reader may have missed.  Margaret Atwood tells the reader that this story could in fact happen in the first paragraph of the italicized font on page 299.  The paragraph gives the location of this seminar to be at the University of Denay, Nunavit.  This University title is a pun on the phrase "Deny none of it".  Through this hidden line, Atwood justifies that we should "deny none of it", as this story could become real if we do not change our views on women; thus proving further that this book is a major work of feministic literature.