The word "heroine" can mean two things, either a female who shows great bravery and courage in a certain situation or just the lead female role in a story. "Wimp" refers to someone who is weak and spineless, someone who is too scared to stand up for themselves.
Offred is the main character in Margaret Atwood's novel "A Handmaid's Tale", so she is definitely a heroine in that sense but the question remains as to whether she is brave and courageous or a weak, passive woman.
Offred's situation in the book is something that is almost completely unfamiliar to us. She is forced to be a surrogate mother for a woman she barely knows but lives with. She has a lot of time alone and is not allowed to engage in proper conversation, argue or be involved with anyone. She is entirely alone.
"I think about Laundromats. What I wore to them, shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself. I think about having such control.".
To us her situation seems dire and terrible. She has to be entirely alone with just her thoughts for most of the time and cannot live what we would perceive as a normal life, she acts like a slave to the heads of the household.
Because of this the audience feels a great swell of pity towards her, and therefore sees her as a courageous individual just because of her being able to tolerate her situation. In this sense she is brave and fighting who has to put up with a horrible every-day life and does so with dignity and self-respect. This could be seen as heroism.
However, there are parts of the story where Offred is selfish and she sometimes shows great indifference to her situation. A good example of this is when Ofglen, her shopping partner, asks Offred to snoop around in her Commanders office for the resistance, claming that Offred's Commander is so high in Gilead's hierarchy that she will be able to help. .
"He's way up there, says Ofglen.
