Agnes MacKenzie is a minor, yet important character in The Handmaid's Tale. She is the daughter of Offred and Luke. She was born prior to the rise of the Republic of Gilead, and was separated from her parents after a failed escape attempt[1][2]. She is one of the three narrators of The Testaments.
Profile
She is described as Caucasian and having blonde hair.
Story
Before Gilead
While shopping in a supermarket, a crazy woman tries to kidnap Offred's baby daughter [3].
After the Takeover
Luke and Offred purchase fake passports in order to escape. They tell their daughter they are going on a picnic and plan to give her a sleeping pill when they cross the border so that she would not be questioned or give them away. [4].
They reach the border and give the guard their passports. When the guard picks up the phone, they speed away in the car, and then get out and try to run through the woods[5]. Offred cannot run very fast, because her 5-year-old child slows her down. She remembers hearing shots. She and her daughter fall to the ground, hiding; Offred begs her daughter to be quiet, but she is too young to understand. After getting caught, her daughter is dragged away from her[1].
Offred wakes up screaming, demanding to know what they have done with her daughter. The authorities tell Offred she is unfit, and her daughter is with those fit to care for her. They show her a photograph of her child wearing a white dress, holding the hand of a strange woman [2].
In The Handmaid's Tale
Serena shows Offred a photograph of her daughter. In the photo, she wears a white dress and smiles. Offred senses that her daughter hardly remembers her. This tears at her heart.[6]
15 Years Later
Offred's daughter has been forcibly adopted by the MacKenzie household, named Agnes. Her original adopted mother is dead, and her father has married a string of teenage brides as her step-mothers. She is now a Daughter of marriageable age, and is permitted to wear a bright green dress instead of the whites of prepubescent girls.
The MacKenzies plan to marry her to a powerful Commander. Agnes does not wish to, and she is thus contacted by Aunt Lydia, who proposes to make Agnes an Aunt-in-training.
Agnes eventually meets her biological half-sister, Daisy, and is reunited with her mother. She later goes on to be reunited with Luke.