The Handmaid's Tale: What Happens To June In The Book

Hulu's adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale has gone well beyond Margaret Atwood's source material, but what happens to June, and how does The Handmaid's Tale book end? The Hulu Handmaid's Tale TV show significantly expanded the world of the 1985 novel, with characters much more fleshed out and the narrative from seasons 1-6 covering significantly more events. It's especially expanded the role of its protagonist, June Osborne, a.k.a. Offred, played by Elisabeth Moss. The Handmaid's Tale book, just like the show, takes place in a dystopian version of America, with the country overtaken by a religious sect called Gilead following the Second American Civil War.

Depicting a totalitarian theocracy, The Handmaid's Tale finds fertile women subjugated to child-bearing servitude, becoming known as Handmaids and birthing children that they don't get to keep. The TV series has won received lots of critical acclaim, especially for its first season, which scooped eight Emmys. The Handmaid's Tale show continues to move further away from the text to tell a much longer story, and with the show wrapping up in 2025 on season 6, many wonder how The Handmaid's Tale book ends (and if the show will mirror the climax).

June's Story Ends In The Same Place As Season 1

The First Season Of The Handmaids Tale Closely Follows The Novel

Elisabeth Moss and Max Minghella in The Handmaid's Tale Season 1 Finale

The Handmaid's Tale book ends around the same point in the narrative as the TV show, and what happens to June is relatively similar on both the page and screen. However, even season 1 isn't an exact scene-by-scene recreation. The Handmaid's Tale does make some changes to Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Talenovel, but mostly through necessity. The character of Offred/June and those around her are further fleshed out because the book is told from her point-of-view, with that scope expanded in the TV show. Still, earlier episodes of The Handmaids Tale hit most of the same plot beats as the book, and that includes the ending to its first season.

Ultimately, she gets in and the van drives off, leaving her fate unclear, just the same as The Handmaid's Tale TV show.

In The Handmaid's Tale's season 1 finale, "Night", June discovers that she's pregnant, a fact she confides to Nick, the Waterford's driver and father of her unborn child. Later in that same episode, a black van comes to take Offred away, unbeknownst to her Commander. Nick urges her to trust him, and June goes off into the van, which then drives away to an unknown location, and The Handmaid's Tale's first season comes to a close.

This is beat-for-beat what happens in the novel and how The Handmaid's Tale book ends, which was a very conscious decision by the makers of the TV series, who wanted to keep the ending the same despite knowing they'd be going beyond it eventually. We do get a more intimate view of Offred's uncertainty over whether to get into the van, who the people inside are, and if she is definitely pregnant. Ultimately, she gets in and the van drives off, leaving her fate unclear, just the same as The Handmaid's Tale TV show.

Gilead Eventually Falls And June's Diaries Are Found

The Handmaids Tale Novel Contains A Vast Time Jump

Yvonne Strahovski and Joseph Fiennes in The Handmaid's Tale Season 1 Finale

The Handmaid's Tale book ended in a way that inspired six seasons of TV storytelling. This was possible thanks to the book containing a time skip and revealing that June's story didn't end at the point the novel concluded -The Handmaid's Tale show simply continues where the book left off. The major difference between the book and TV versions of The Handmaid's Tale is what comes after June gets in the van. In the TV show, this is resolved in The Handmaid's Tale season 2, with June eventually taken to the former headquarters of the Boston Globe, which is now operating as a safe house, and the story continues to progress from there, including her return to Gilead.

It's very different in the conclusion of the books. Although June's story ends with her getting into the van, the novel does not. Instead, The Handmaid's Tale switches forms and ventures further into the future, with an academic lecture taking place in 2195. There, two key pieces of information are revealed. The first is that June's story (although her name is never actually confirmed) was recorded onto tape, allowing new generations to hear what had happened to her in Gilead. However, it's noted by the person giving the lecture, Professor James Darcy Pieixoto, that these tapes give an incomplete picture of the time period, although they do provide plenty of information about it.

Even more crucially, it's revealed in The Handmaid's Tale's epilogue that Gilead has fallen, with the tapes recovered years later. It's implied that society has returned to normal with the restoration of the rights of women, evidenced by the fact that the lecturer speaking at the event is Professor Maryann Crescent Moon, meaning women are allowed to hold such roles again. Of course, returning to 'normal' means sexism does still exist, with Prof. Piexixoto making a sexist joke about Prof. Moon and casting his own aspersions upon Offred's story. Even though this is the happier portion of The Handmaid's Tale on the surface, since Gilead has fallen, it's another damning commentary from Atwood on the patriarchal society we live in.

The closest the TV show has come to replicating these events is with the letters June received in The Handmaid's Tale season 1, which were written by Handmaids in the hope of them being made public outside of Gilead. That eventually happened in season 2, but only in Canada, with Gilead still going strong. It's quite possible, though, that when the show does end in season 6, it'll contain its own version of the book's epilogue.

June's Fate Is Left Unknown In The Book

Margaret Atwood Never Revealed What Happened To Offred

Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid's Tale Season 1 Finale

So, at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, June gets into a van, not knowing where it's going to take her. We're then given the lecture from the "Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies", which discusses June's story, but does not provide any further clarification. However, in the novel, June's fate is left completely uncertain, so how does The Handmaid's Tale book end on such an ambiguous note while still providing a solid foundation for the show's longer arc?

Since Atwood works as a consulting producer on the TV adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, it's not out of the question that much of what has made it into the show comes from her directly. She certainly helped with the expansion of the world beyond her source material, including the presence of the Colonies, and despite not writing the TV series may have had a hand in shaping Offred's story beyond the book as well. Still, there's something quite powerful in not knowing what becomes of Offred, because that mystery then becomes something of a choice for the reader, to believe she made it out or to think that, tragically, escape wasn't an option.

The New Handmaid's Tale Book Is Getting Its Own Series

The Testaments Will Continue The Stories Of Several Major Characters

Elizabeth Moss as June Offred in The Handmaid's Tale season 1

Margaret Atwood's latest The Handmaid's Tale book, The Testaments, came out in 2019. June's story is somewhat expanded upon in The Testaments, but her original ending, seeing her carted off in a van like the ending of season 1, remains her canonical exit. Instead, The Testaments follows the journeys of three women, one of them being Aunt Lydia. The Testaments takes place 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, and is narrated by Aunt Lydia, Agnes, a young Gilead woman, and Daisy, a young woman living in Canada.

The Testaments will become its own Handmaid's Tale spinoff series, and Ann Dowd will be reprising her role as Aunt Lydia. The Testaments chronicles the eventual downfall of Gilead, and these three women's part in bringing the nation to ruin. While June isn't in the new book, she is alluded to in the epilogue, many believing she was part of the Mayday resistance effort. It's sad that The Handmaid's Taleis ending with season 6, but at least there's Aunt Lydia's The Testamentsto further flesh out the universe.

Is June's Ending Likely To Be Different In The Show?

Her Story Has Already Parted Ways With The Source Material

With The Handmaid's Tale's 6th and final season hitting screens from April to May 2025, many fans are wondering if June's ending will be different from the book. However, those who are familiar with Margaret Attwood's novel know this is a bit of a moot point. How June's story ends in The Handmaid's Tale TV show will be different from the book because the show will actually give the character an ending, and this is because her purpose in the novel was changed for the Hulu series.

In The Handmaid's Tale novel, Offred/June may be the central character, but she's used as a lens through which the reader gets to experience the harrowing wider world she exists in. Offred vanishing in a van at the end of The Handmaid's Tale book was symbolic - it represented the unknown fate of millions of women in the dystopian future who, in turn are a metaphor for the many mistreated and abused women who exist in the present day. June didn't get a happy or sad ending, because she didn't get an ending at all, and this was incredibly powerful.

However, The Handmaid's Tale TV show is much more focused on June, and is more of a character-driven story, rather than one powered by its setting which uses a character as a focal point (as the source material did). June's book "ending" already came and went with the end of The Handmaid's Tale season 1. This means even the most diligent readers of the novel will be surprised by whatever happens to June, and it also means that where she'll be when her story comes to an end is impossible to predict. Even the epilogue of The Handmaid's Tale book and The Testaments didn't disclose June's fate. What will happen to June remains a mystery, but her story has already long since deviated from the source material.