u/LivingWindXYZ

It provides an interesting bit or world building letting the reader know that like any real world dictator ship Gilead also falls and is has long since been split up into individual countries in the 22ed century. (Margaret Atwood actually correctly predicted Nunavut would become its own territory it happened in 1999 14 years after the book was published) And at a symposium at the university on Gileadean Studies on June 25 2195, Professor Maryann Crescent Moon the head of the Caucasian anthropology department. And professor James Darcy Pieixoto from Cambridge. Together they give their historical analysis of Offred’s story which she had recorded over old music cassette tapes that were found in a basement in New England. Piexoto is more analytical and skeptical of The Handmaid’s tale as history has called Offred’s testimony of her life as a handmaid and doesn’t shy away from nitpicking at inconsistent historical details such as her claiming Serena Joy’s real name being Pam when it was apparently actually Thelma Waterford. But Atwood created this chapter to demonstrate that after Gilead becomes ancient history it’s gonna be looked back on with an analytical distance and Offred the woman is gonna take on this almost mythical figure (kind of in the same vein as Ann Frank)