The Handmaid's Tale Chapter 7 Summary

Night

  • At night, the narrator gets to be by herself. She has to be very still but at least she can think.
  • She remembers hanging out with her friend Moira when they were in college, wearing makeup, getting to go out, and drinking.
  • Then she thinks of going to a park with her mother to watch people burn magazines. The narrator gets to help, even though she's little. The magazines are porn.
  • Then she has a memory blank. What happened? She was restrained, screaming. Someone told her she was not suitable. She saw a young girl with a strange woman in strange clothes taken away.
  • The narrator says she wishes this were a story so she could change the outcome. She has to tell it, not write it, because that's too dangerous. She has no audience, so she'll invent one.