1. What makes Baby Nicole such an important symbol inside and outside of Gilead?

2. What significance does Aunt Lydia’s retelling of Aesop’s story of the Fox and the Cat have in the novel?

3. Why does Becka insist that a person can believe in God or in Gilead but not both?

4. Describe and analyze the relationship between Aunt Lydia and her fellow Aunts.

5. Why do many of the characters have multiple names, and what is the significance of this multiplicity?

6. What do Agnes and Daisy have in common, and how are they fundamentally different?

7. What does it mean that the novel ends with a lecture delivered by a male historian?