Ofglen—The second of three Handmaids “of Glen” during the story, this current Ofglen serves as a daily shopping companion for Offred three weeks after her arrival at the Commander’s house. Giving the impression of exhibitionistic piety, Ofglen asks to divert their return from town so that she can pray at the churchyard. Later, Ofglen reveals that her sanctimony is pretense, a cover-up for “us,” an ill-defined rebel group. A rabid participant at the Salvaging, Ofglen, a target of the Eyes, hangs herself before she can be arrested. Her replacement becomes the novel’s third Ofglen.
Rita—Serena Joy’s tight-lipped, over-sixty kitchen servant frowns at Offred and rifles officiously through the groceries in her basket. Rita, who envies Offred her freedom to walk to the market, exerts limited domestic power by unlocking a cupboard and parceling out a single kitchen match to Offred.
Cora—Serena Joy’s fiftyish cleaning woman discovered Offred’s predecessor hanging from the bedroom light fixture and later finds Offred sleeping in the closet and fears a subsequent suicide. A childless, dull-witted drone, Cora offers the semblance of friendship to Offred by concealing an untouched breakfast. Out of frustration for the family’s lack of children, Cora weeps as Offred is led away.
Offred and Luke’s Daughter—A small girl, she is only a sweet, ephemeral memory of Offred’s past. The child was kidnapped briefly from a shopping cart one Saturday when she was eleven months old. Offred and the child were separated when the child was five. A single Polaroid picture confirms that she survived capture and is being groomed as a whitegowned Daughter.
Offred’s Mother—An ardently militant feminist, she gave birth to her daughter at age thirty-seven and would be seventy at the time of the story, if she survived. Offred’s mother maintained a platonic relationship with her mate and engaged in harmless badinage with son-in-law Luke, but was in deadly earnest on the Saturday when her companions burned pornographic magazines in the park. In Offred’s dim memories, after a pro-feminist balloon release, her mother fades into the crowd as though losing her identity in mob mentality. At the time of the takeover, she lives in Boston and makes frequent visits to Offred’s residence. Moira recognizes Offred’s mother as an Unwoman in a documentary film about the nuclearpolluted Colonies, where the life span of clean-up crew members averages three years.
Janine/Ofwarren—A former waitress, mother, and fellow Handmaid-in-training with Moira and Offred, she loses herself in the “ecstasy of abasement” and consults privately in Aunt Lydia’s quarters. Before other inmates at the Red Center, Janine testifies publicly to gang rape during the decadent period preceding the formation of Gilead. Her trance-like state alerts Moira and Offred to her tenuous hold on reality. Aunt Lydia rebukes Janine for maudlin displays of piety, but calls on her to spy among the other girls for information concerning Moira’s escape.
In later encounters, Offred observes Ofwarren’s self-important display of a rounded abdomen during the late months of pregnancy, a violation of rules protecting expectant mothers from unnecessary public exposure to injury or harm. After the birth of baby Angela, Ofwarren weeps “burnt-out miserable tears.” Her triumphant delivery of a healthy child assures that she will never be sent to the Colonies or declared an Unwoman. Later, the baby proves to be a “shredder,” a failure that Janine blames on herself. During the Particicution, Janine, her eyes denoting madness, benignly smiles at the savagery she participates in.
Aunt Elizabeth—A key authority figure at the Red Center, she guards the washroom on the day of Moira’s escape. Although Aunt Elizabeth suffers assault, stripping, feet-to-neck trussing, and confinement behind the furnace for seven hours, the authorities treat her as a possible collaborator by conducting an official interrogation. As birth master, Aunt Elizabeth supervises Ofwarren during childbirth and smiles as she delivers baby Angela.
Delores—She is a Handmaid-in-training who wets the floor rather than leave an afternoon session of Testifying.
Offred’s Predecessor—The Handmaid who previously occupied Offred’s room, she visited the Commander in his den, accompanied him to the club, and scratched a doggerel Latin phrase in the closet. Serena’s discovery of the illicit affair led to the former Offred’s suicide and the removal of the bedroom light fixture from which she hanged herself. The current Offred, who ponders the personality and fate of the doomed Handmaid, calls her “my ancestress, my double.”
Ofcharles—She is a Handmaid who is executed for an unnamed crime at a Salvaging during the summer of Offred’s third year at the Commander’s house.
Alma—A Handmaid who whispers her real name to Offred during the birthing ceremony, she offers to report any clues about Moira’s whereabouts. Offred suppresses the urge to ask about Luke, whom Alma would have no reason to know.
Professor Maryann Crescent Moon—She is a glib, mildly humorous chair of the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies and a professor at the Department of Caucasian Anthropology at the University of Denay, Nunavit, a fictional setting in the Arctic region.
Professor James Darcy Pieixoto—The tediously pedantic director of the 20th and 21st Century Archives at Cambridge University, England, he serves as keynote speaker at the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies.
Wilfred Limpkin—A sociobiologist during the early Gileadean period, he was present at meetings of the Sons of Jacob Think Tank. Limpkin kept a diary in code and, foreseeing his demise, hid it with his sister-in-law in Calgary. His interest in “the odder practices of the regime” produce documents that convince him that Offred was Handmaid to Commander Frederick R. Waterford.
Frederick Judd—According to Limpkin’s diaries, Judd was a “hard-liner” Commander of the Eyes from Gilead’s early period and was responsible for banning literacy for women. He masterminded the President’s Day Massacre as well as the National Homelands and Jewish boatperson plans and used scapegoating through Particicution as a relief of tensions among Handmaids.
