The Handmaid’s Tale- Book vs TV

The difference between the book and the TV show.

Photo by Umid Akbarov on Unsplash

I am a big fan of Margaret Atwood, the book and the TV series. There are however quite a few differences between the two. Having recently listened to the Audible version read by Elizabeth Moss (which I highly recommend), I wanted to make a list of the differences.

• The book appears to be set sometime shortly after 1985. The TV series presents itself as set in the modern day.
• The book presents Gilead as an all-white nation. With all non-white people being resettled in ‘the National Homelands’, as the book described it. The series however has a much more diverse cast.
• In the book, Offred is the only name we have for our main character. And we never explicitly hear our narrator name herself. In the red centre, we hear a list of names that the girls whisper from cot to cot. And June is one of the names not attached to a character. The series has run with this idea and we now know our beloved handmaid as June.
• In the book, June is portrayed as slightly more meek, and when protests/Women’s marches took place, June did not go. In the series, June did take part.
• Serena Joy is portrayed very differently in the book, she is older and walks with a walking stick. In the series, she is roughly the…