Chapter 2: What is suggested by the fact that the narrator observes "they’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to?" What is implied by the sentence, "Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep"? What are the crimes the Marthas gossip about in their "private conversations"? Chapter 3: What evidence is there on the second page of this chapter that the revolution which inaugurated this bizarre society is relatively recent? What evidence to reinforce that idea was presented in the opening chapter? Epigraphs: Racheal and Bilhah from Genesis, in reference to Johnathan Swift’s "Modest Proposal" and sufi proverb that states "in the desert there is no sigh that says, thou shalt not eat stones." What do you suppose these epigraphs will mean in relation to the novel’s message?

Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale centers on a theocratic dystopia in what was formerly New England. Its main character, the narrator Offred, is a "handmaid," or a woman who is able to give birth and who is therefore forced to do so in order to produce children for the upper classes. As such, she is effectively a prisoner. When, in Chapter II, Offred describes a room consisting of "a chair, a table, a lamp," the sparse room she depicts is, accordingly, akin to a cell, and the comment that "they've removed anything you could tie a rope to" gives us some indication as to the state of mind of those who might be confined to it. In prison cells, rooms are often altered to prevent prisoners committing suicide by hanging; in the same way, this room has been altered so that those living in it cannot hang themselves. This tells us something significant about how people feel about living under these conditions—if this precaution has been taken, it may be because suicides by hanging have already happened.
Because of the nature of the society and its restrictions, "nothing takes place in the bed but sleep, or no sleep"—that is, the bed is not intended for sexual entanglements, but nor are the minds of the handmaids often easy enough to encourage good sleep. In Chapter I, we see how they whisper to each other in the dark, repeating their original names which have been stripped from them. This comment about the beds foreshadows what we will later learn about reproductive freedoms and behavior in this society, as do the Marthas' "private conversations," in which they allude to the ways in which women have performed backstreet abortions. "Stillborn," or "stabbed with a knitting needle," or "toilet cleaner," are some of the things they mention, suggesting that legal abortion has long since been done away with.
We know that the society as it is has not been long established. In the first chapter, we get hints of this from the description of the gymnasium, in which the handmaids are sleeping, the blankets that still say "U.S.," and the lingering smell of sweat. In Chapter III, Offred says that she "once had a garden," suggesting that her status has not always been, in her lifetime, as it is now. We also know that things "haven't settled down, it's too soon, everyone is unsure about their exact status." This indicates to us that the society we see depicted here is still in its infancy: those living within it have not yet come to accept it, just as Offred will not accept that her room is "my room." She remembers what came before.
The epigraphs to the novel all give us some indication of what is really going on in the society we are seeing. The "handmaids" are named after Rachel's handmaid, Bilhah, who, in the Bible, produced a son for Jacob—Bilhah was Jacob's concubine. Meanwhile, Swift's famous satire suggests that the children of the poor should be sold to the rich. Both of these epigraphs then clearly refer to the social order in which women are forced to produce children, against their will, for the upper classes. The Sufi proverb is less straightforward, but it seems to refer to the fact that the "desert" of this dystopian society has left people with nothing but those things which nobody had ever thought they would want—and yet, in their desperation and drive to survive, they may yet be able to make something out of "stones." All of these epigraphs offer us some insight into the story to follow.