Offred's birth
Offred's thirty-seven-year-old feminist mother (mid-1950s) disdains her mate, a useless man with memo rable blue eyes who lives on the coast.
late 1950s
At age four, Offred receives a pop-up book of reproductive organs. A year later, Offred and her mother attend a Saturday rally and porno graphic magazine burning in the park. A par ticipant gives Offred a magazine to burn.
late 1960s
At age fourteen or fifteen, Offred resents the illegal activities of her mother and other radi cal feminists.
mid-1970s
During their college years, Offred and Moira become friends.
late 1970s Before Luke's divorce, he and Offred enjoy a premarital affair and meet in a hotel for after noon trysts. During Offred's pregnancy, she and Luke lie in bed and monitor their unborn child's movements.
early to mid-1980s
In September of Offred's daughter's third or fourth year, repressive measures halt Pornomarts, Feels on Wheels, and Bun-Dle Buggies and cancel Offred's Compunumber. These events, prefaced by the President's Day Massacre and suspension of the Constitution, comprise a hostile fundamentalist takeover — the beginning of early Gilead.
2:00 p.m. the next day
Offred and other women are fired from their the jobs. Offred's mother disappears.
mid-1980s
In September of Offred's daughter's fifth year, Luke, Offred, and the child attempt to flee Gilead and cross the Canadian border. Offred and the child run through the woods and are apprehended and separated by unidentified pursuers. Luke's fate is unknown.
two weeks after
Janine is ridiculed as a crybaby. Offred Offred's placement at will take part in the ritual of public the Rachel and Leah humiliation.Re-Education Center
a week later
The authorities bring Moira to the Center for Handmaid indoctrination. Bruises suggest that she resisted arrest.
four days later
Moira and Offred make tentative contact and arrange a meeting in the end stall of the wash room at 2:30 p.m.
2:30 p.m.
Janine allows a group session to turn her testimony of gang rape at age fourteen into a unanimous accusation of seduction and criminality for having an abortion. Janine claims to have deserved the pain.
late winter or early
After service to a bald-haired man, Offred spring of Offred's is reassigned to the Commander.thirty-third year
