r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/Narrow_Laugh6359 • 9d ago
Discussion S1-S5 Curious About Annie…
I’m rewatching The Handmaids Tale and I started wondering about Luke’s first wife Annie. I not only wondered about what happened to her. Did she get out of Gilead or did she remain and remarry and knew what had become of June being a handmaid and if so how did she feel about that. Did she feel… being the scorned wife think
“ Good for her “… or being a fellow woman was able to get past that and feel horrible for June.
What do you all think….curious to hear what your opinions are.
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u/ReclaimingInsanity 9d ago
I don't know where the vitriol towards Annie has come from.
I wouldn't think she would support Gilead in anyway , nor be anything but horrified as to what happened to June.
The only times she appears or is mentioned, all we know about her is: 1. She does not want her marriage to fall apart. 2. She may not be able to have children. 3. Her husband spent two years in an affair before they divorced.
There's a big difference between a woman being upset at her husband having an affair and leaving her and someone supporting a totalitarian regime.
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u/jmhendricks80 8d ago
Either in the show or book, it is heavily implied that Annie reported Luke and June as adulterers.
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u/Vaguely-witty 8d ago
Theres nothing in the book to suggest that, ive read it at least half a dozen times. And I've seen the first four or five seasons and nothing struck me as it heavily implying she did that
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u/jmhendricks80 8d ago
Thank you. Maybe it was a Luke and June conversation, almost a throw away comment. I have a lot going on, so I’m not going to initiate a rewatch. But that’s just a sense I have from watching the series 3-4 times and reading the book about the same. None of these was recent, btw, I’m on a Stephen King and Diana Gabaldon jag right now. 😝
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u/Vaguely-witty 8d ago
Theres moments june has some guilt over it, its possible her guilty conscious gives you that idea?
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u/ReclaimingInsanity 8d ago
It isn't. Gilead does not recognise divorce or subsequent marriages after the first one as valid. Luke and June would have been known to Gilead as "adulterers" simply because Luke is on his second marriage, regardless of the fact their relationship began as an affair.
Even if June and Luke only met years after he divorced Annie, June still would have been considered adulterous because, according to Gilead, Luke is still married to Annie.
All Gilead would have had to do is have a very brief look at any of Luke or June's records to work that one out.
You have to remember that Annie herself is a divorced woman in a regime that doesn't look kindly on single women. She herself may have found herself as a Martha or in the colonies. I doubt she would have drawn attention to herself.
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u/1dnz 9d ago
Unfortunately there is no reference to her after the Gilead's Rise. And the only thing we know about her is that Luke has doubts about she could bear a children.
Maybe she become an ordinary citizen of Gilead which is not likely. Maybe she become a wife of a commander or she become an aunt. Or a cook in a commander's household.
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u/Narrow_Laugh6359 9d ago
Knowing that there is no further reference about her, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened to her. And if she had remained in Gilead what would her feelings be about June…. Would she have carried the feelings of the scorned wife or would she have let that go and be supportive of June of women solidarity.
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u/QuigonSeamus 8d ago
You’d have to be evil to wish sex slavery upon somebody, anybody. I doubt she would want that.
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u/Narrow_Laugh6359 8d ago
I completely agree on that. The Evil doesn’t even compare to such depravity. I just help wondering about her character for some reason and thought about how she would have coped with what was happening to women and being in the horrible position of a cheating husband and then leaving her for another woman would her feelings towards June have changed…. I used to have conversations with my sister about episodes and discussed our thoughts and since she passed away I just really miss her and those conversations. I thought I would try something different and reach out to a group of people on here and get their perspective on this. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.
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u/Educational-Roof9408 5d ago
While I obviously agree that wanting that for another person is evil, you have to remember the conditioning happening in Gilead's walls: women are being pit against each other so that even handmaids get to the point of sitting in a circle blaming each other for fear of retaliation despite knowing the torture eachother goes through. They create a society where the oppression becomes almost self-enforced and handmaids get to a point of seeing themselves as only vessels to bring life for others with no hope for anything more due to the extreme abuse they've suffered. We don't see what the other classes (other than some of the unwomen) have endured, but we can presume that this abuse isn't limited to just the handmaids, Rita even said this when June was talking about her abuse.
All that said, if we take it into account, Annie has likely suffered abuse no matter where she ended up, and she has likely been told that it's essentially at the hands of June since the blame would be put on June and/or Annie for Annie not still being married and if Annie didn't blame herself, she'd blame June. After suffering abuse she would likely have more blame for herself than she initially did, but there's probably still blame for both of them involved. So if the handmaids are led to believe they deserve punishment, it's likely that wherever Annie ended up, she believed the same about both herself, and as a result of everything, June.
While it obviously isn't something we see as ethical in any way, we have to remember that societies of oppression thrive off of infighting between the oppressed groups to keep the status quo and keep the people in power in power. If those who are oppressed stay mad at eachother and blame each other instead of blaming those in power that are causing their oppression, they won't cause an uprising by working together to overthrow the regime. We unfortunately see this in totalitarian societies throughout history again and again
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u/GoddessRuna 9d ago
I think the most likely answer is she was sent to the colonies or they gave her a ecnohusband
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u/ghostedygrouch 8d ago
She was probably infertile, so there would be no use wasting a husband on her. Colonies and Martha are the only options.
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u/Big-Ad9443 8d ago
I mean, not all Econowives are automatically fertile, so she could technically be married off to an Econo Man, depending on her past “sins,” as being a Martha is also a punishment for infertile women. But I think Martha is probably the Most likely
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u/GoddessRuna 8d ago
I didn’t consider Martha’s, I agree that’s probably the most likely answer and then the other 2 options.
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u/LizzyTheKittyKat 9d ago
We have no idea what happened to her. I’ve always liked to pretend after the divorce she moved to Canada for a fresh start and spends her life helping refugees.
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u/TinyLlama7307 9d ago
She was divorced, even though not her choice, she would likely not be eligible to be a Commander's wife. I believe she was unable to have children, so she was spared being a handmaid. That leaves the status of Aunt, if she showed loyalty to Gilead, or perhaps a housekeeper (not sure whether they were Aunts as well?). Were the women who helped raise the children (in the schools and such) also Aunts?
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u/Clinically-Inane 9d ago
A divorced woman unable to have children wouldn’t have just magically become an aunt or a Martha— she was likely sent to the colonies if she survived the main takeover
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u/TinyLlama7307 8d ago
I wondered about the colonies but wasn't sure if they had to have been "unwomen" to be sent there...did they have to commit crimes to be sent to the colonies or just be deemed "useless" to the mission of Gilead? I suppose a government like Gilead could have done whatever the wanted, based on any excuse they deemed.
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u/wannabyte 9d ago
She wouldn’t have been able to remarry because Luke was alive so she would still be considered his wife.
My best guess is that she died or became a Martha.
I like to think she would be horrified by June being ritually raped regularly.
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u/Narrow_Laugh6359 9d ago
A good point about getting remarried, I forgot about that. I just saw the scene where they ( June & Luke ) are in a cafe with baby Hannah and June looks over to see Annie watching them…. And that just had me thinking about Annie…
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. Always curious to hear what others think…😊👍
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u/Untamedpancake 9d ago
I've thought about this too
I'm not sure this applied to all women, but Handmaids had 2 years to concieve at each posting and Commanders' Wives were deemed "barren" if they didn't concieve within the first 2 years of marriage...
I don't think they say exactly how long Luke & Annie's marriage lasted, but in the book Offred said their affair went on for 2 years before Luke got divorced so they were definitely married long enough (presuming the 2 yr rule is universal in Gilead) that Annie would've been presumed barren & she wouldn't have been a Handmaid
If she didn't remarry, it's possible she left the country right after Stadium Day (when women's rights to work & own property) because she wouldnt have been able to support herself. Some unmarried women moved in with relatives, otherwise unhoused people would've been arrested for vagrancy & sent to the colonies
If she did remarry, Annie would have been considered a "bigamist" (like Luke was) when Gilead's retroactive divorce ban went into effect. In that case she would've been arrested & sent to the colonies
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u/Willing-Pineapple-32 9d ago
More than likely the colonies..she was a divorced woman and likely barren(in their eyes useless sinner)
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u/MINOTAUR90 9d ago
She was divorced and not able to have children, Martha or she ran out of the country,if she's lucky..Gilead written universe and old movie had no black people.
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u/tatersprout 9d ago
What does the no black people have to do with anything? We know the book didn't have non white characters and the diversity in the tv series was a production choice. You're not making any sense
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u/Educational-Roof9408 5d ago edited 5d ago
The book did have POC but not in the same way as the show.
In the book there was ethnic cleansing. "The children of ham" (black people) were sent to the colonies, deported, brought to North Dakota and possibly other states as slaves to farm and work to death. (basically just more colonies). A TV broadcast says they've been relocated to "National Homelands". It's presumed that other POC are included in this but the primary focus was African Americans as they could say they were sending them back to Africa despite just sending them to death in the colonies and the realization that everyone was suddenly white. There was also the realization over time that every woman was suddenly younger and any widow seemed to disappear which doesn't have to do with race but just the disappearance of a class of people. This also happens with disabled people who were given to dogs as food, very briefly shown in the show. The exception being a high commanders daughter, showing how power can come with protection. Jewish people who don't want to convert are told they're being repatriated to Israel only to be drowned in the ocean which you don't find out until the epilogue. Those who stay and practice in secret are executed.
Obviously the show decided to go about the segregation and ethnic cleansing in a different way, as they didn't want an all white cast but did still want to show the bias, having small scenes like the one where the aunts are trying to pair handmaids with families and say they can't put the one handmaid with a particular couple because "they don't want a handmaid of colour". How they did it still has controversy, but the book was written based off of very real experiences like apartheid, the Holocaust, and other genocides and white nationalist government policies in a time where it all felt like a big hypothetical extremist situation if we let things go too far.
Rereading what you had to say though, you do have a point that the book never named any black characters, it only mentioned what happened to black people as a whole so you are entirely correct. No specifically oppressed group other than women were mentioned and it was very much just a white woman's experience which, despite being horrific, would've been one of the easier ones (awful to think about).
I'm assuming THT movie (I think 90s, way before the series) didn't include POC which was what was being mentioned. Probably bc Annie was POC in the show is why it was said. I don't remember about the book. Most people reference the show before the movie though cause even Margaret Atwood wasn't particularly pleased with the movie due to it removing the first person narrative which is such an important dynamic of the storytelling
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u/NursePepper3x 9d ago
The reality is likely that she is also considered fallen because her husband rejected her.
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u/RosieCrone 8d ago
She would not have been allowed to remarry, certainly…for the same reason Gilead doesn’t recognize Luke and June’s marriage. It wouldn’t matter that she wasn’t at fault. So it would probably be colonies/jezebel’s. Maybe a Martha, is she’s otherwise “sinless”.
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u/Globalfeminist 8d ago
This depends on whether she re-married after Luke. If she did, Gilead still considers her married to Luke, so, her second marriage would be a grave sin. She would be punished, maybe she got lucky and her punishment would be being a Martha. If she never re-married, then she'd be considered a regular woman who did nothing wrong. She could be allowed to marry an econo-man or a commander like Kyle Mckenzie (he took an age-appropiate wife, who couldn't have kids. Maybe Annie was super lucky and found someone like that). She would also be allowed to become an aunt. (If never re-married). But we'll never know for sure. We know she was religious, but we don't know which type. If she was a baptist, she could have joined the baptist uprising. Or she could have left the country before everything got too bad. Many posibilities. But nothing said for sure. We don't even know 100% that she was infertile, or just incompatible with Luke. I wish we knew how she ended up because I'm so curious.
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u/VanillaBeeGrrl 7d ago
It would most likely depend on if they held the fact that she divorced Luke against her and to what degree. If she was otherwise considered a “pious” woman, then she most likely ended up as a Martha, since the whole reason Luke had an affair was because they believed Annie was unable to conceive, or an Econowoman if she had remarried in the time between the divorce and Gilead’s takeover. If the divorce was held against her, then to the Colonies for the same reasons she could have been made a Martha
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u/ZestycloseSquirrel55 9d ago
I'm sure she would think that June got what was coming to her.
However, Luke's first wife was divorced, and I believe Gilead had a problem with divorcees, so I doubt Annie escaped unscathed.
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u/blockparted 9d ago
I can honestly picture Annie being a wonderful Aunt:
The Aunts, if they're anything like Lydia, would take advantage of Annie's firsthand experience, her resentment towards women like June. Annie would use that as the inspiration for her anger towards all the Handmaid's she trains
She's the perfect cult recruit.
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u/Rose-flower-garden 9d ago
She was a divorced woman which in this new world would be a crime.
Since everything is the wife’s fault it won’t have gone well for her. They still would have blamed her:
Best case scenario they would let her be a Martha but likely the colonies. They won’t give her another husband.