Offred

1. how reliable is her memory?/would she have any reason to distort the truth deliberately?/who is her audience?

1.1. She acts against the rules sometimes eg when she meets Moira at the bathroom and talks to her when she is not allowed to - tricks Aunt Elizabeth. Eg. Making eye contact with a guardian even though its not allowed.

1.2. My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. (14.37)

1.3. I am thirty-three years old. I have brown hair. I stand five seven without shoes. I have trouble remembering what I used to look like. I have viable ovaries. I have one more chance. (24.6)

2. how she behaved in the time before;

2.1. She was living a normal life eg going to college and smoking.

2.2. The narrator regrets the absence of mundane things, like being able to do laundry or have silly fights with her husband. The trivial things from her previous life have now become profound: I think about Laundromats. What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself. (5.9)

2.3. she was a mother to her daughter, which she had with her husband Luke

3. how she responds to the repressive regime of Gilead: is she merely passive or are there hints that she may eventually rebel?

3.1. With the repressive regime, most of the time she starts to follow its rules eg attacking Janine.

3.2. when the doctor offers her "help" at her monthly appointment, her first thought isn't that he could help her get pregnant (which is what he means). She hopes he has news about her hubby: Does he know something, has he seen Luke, has he found, can he bring back? (11.15)