I don’t understand how anyone is overlooking the Epilogue of The Handmaid’s Tale unless they just never finished reading the book. The narrative device of the novel is that of “the discovered manuscript/history.” (It’s similar to the plot device of The Scarlet Letter which was, coincidentally, about New England Puritans, the spiritual forebears of Gilead.) This informs everything we read in Offred’s story. There are also several allusions to academia. The title functions both as a sexual double entendre and an allusion to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The “Wall” and “Yard” and the “Gate” that are referenced in the story are real locations on the Harvard University campus. There actually is a sign over the gate that reads “Open the gates of the city and let the righteous enter therein.”
Another point people seem to overlook is that the academic people presenting at the conference are all from cultures other than American/European white. All the names referenced are from non white, currently non-dominant cultures. They are studying white American/Europeans as an ancient culture that has been superseded by the groups that it had previously colonized. However, the current ruling group has taken on the attitude of privilege and colonialism that was previously associated with white/Western colonialism. Now that they are the hegemonic group, they are studying Offred as a curiosity from another culture, as 18th century colonizers might have evaluated some random woman in a village in Africa. They view her as the Other, as an object, not a subject. This is why it’s not considered taboo to make jokes about the sexual breeding/enslavement of women in Gilead. It’s a matter of anthropological curiosity, not a narrative by someone like themselves.
