Paper 2 Quotes

POWER AND CONTROL (THT)

"Freedom to and freedom from… now you are being given freedom from" — Doublespeak (regime redefines freedom as captivity) 

"I am a national resource"; Dehumanising language.

POWER AND CONTROL (BLC)

"Former opium growers… converted into 'poor peasants'… in charge of our re-education" Dramatic irony — gap between regime's claims and actual reality.

"Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao"; & "Peasants' faces softened under Mozart… like parched earth under a shower"

Identity (THT)

"Of-Fred" as possessive marker — Symbolic naming — she is property at the level of language. Regime erases identity before any force is needed

"I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it" — Metafiction — narration is how she holds the fragments of her pre-Gilead self together. Identity preserved through storytelling

Identity (BLC)

"The Little Seamstress" —Epithets,  named after her father's trade, never given her own name — Symbolic naming — identity assigned by patriarchal convention before she speaks. Defined by others throughout

"This fellow Balzac is a wizard… He touched the head of this mountain girl with an invisible finger, and she was transformed… She said having Balzac's words next to her skin made her feel good, and also more intelligent"

Storytelling (THT)

"You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else"; "By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you… I believe you into existence" 

"I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it" Modal escalation — narration is survival. Gilead controls her body but not her mind.

Storytelling (BLC)

"Peasants' faces softened under Mozart… like parched earth under a shower", Headman appreciation of storytelling.

"Jean-Christophe, with his fierce individualism utterly untainted by malice, was a salutary revelation. Without him I would never have understood the splendour of taking free and independent action as an individual" — p.110

Transformation & Ambiguity in Endings (THT)

"And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light"

In the end, Offred’s story was recollected by men, Irony.

Transformation & Ambiguity in Endings (BLC)

"She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price"

"The famous Count of Monte Cristo… was likewise fed to the flames of Luo's madness", Irony

Patriarchal Tendencies & Reclaiming Agency (THT)

(Key idea: both women are subjected to rigid patriarchal expectations of confinement, while offred resists through covert means, seamstress resists through overt means-> link to knowledge)

We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices"; lack of name.

Covert resistance:- stealing butter to use as lotion, meeting with nick” I went back to Nick. Time after time, on my own, without Serena knowing. It wasn't called for, there was no excuse ", yet reluctance for overt resistance. 

Patriarchal Tendencies & Reclaiming Agency (BLC)

“she's not civilized, at least not enough for me”; epithet of “little seamstress”, lacking name.

Overt resistance:- Change in appearance, identity and eventual departure

•  First, cutting her hair into a bob, white shoes, and a stylish jacket, resulting in an impractical but stylish look that impressed Lou who felt good for “re-educating” her. 

Relationships (THT)

Offred’s recollections of Luke and her daughter, constant flashbacks as a source of strength “She believes in all three possibilities for Luke at once, or else she feels that she can't believe in anything”, also her finding of love with Nick as a source of strength in present. "I no longer want to leave, escape, or cross the border to freedom. I want to be here, with Nick, where I can get at him"”

The memories guide her actions to some extent, help her exercise her agency in solitude 

Relationships (BLC)

Luo’s meetings with seamstress as an escape from reality rather than real love. The keys as symbol, they represent Luo's home in Chengdu, his real life, his future. The Seamstress dives to retrieve them, she literally helps restore his faith.

Seamstress using luo and her relationship to transform herself (“civilize”)

"She said she had learnt one thing from Balzac: that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price"; Balzac as an extension of Luo

Narrative Voice (THT)

Offred’s stream of consciousness and unreliable narration through recollections, indicative of her 

own fragmented and distraught identity. 

"All I can hope for is a reconstruction: the way love feels is always only approximate"”

"I made that up. I would like it to be true… I said: 'I know it wasn't like that. I made it up'" 

Narrative Voice (BLC)

Narrator’s transformation in narration aligns with transformation in identity, submissive and lacking voice in beginning to individuality and opinionated confidence in the end. 

"I was overcome by stagefright and was reduced to a mechanical recitation of the setting of each scene. But here Luo's genius for storytelling came into its own"

“I couldn't resist taking slight liberties, adding bits here and there by way of a personal touch… When I felt good old Balzac was running out of steam I would contribute little inventions of my own,”

Symbolism & Motif (THT)

The Color Red:

• Red symbolizes fertility/ripeness and blood(menstrual), closely associated with handmaids’ function in the society which is to reproduce.

Tulips in Serena Joy garden (Foreshadowing of Offred’s fate?):

• Offred draws parallel between handmaids and the red tulips in Serena Joy's garden, both are red, and contained/grown for a single purpose, and then gone. Tulips bloom and die on a seasonal cycle, mirroring how Handmaids are used and discarded if they fail to produce or produce a child within their assignments.

Symbolism & Motif (BLC)

Red-Beaked Ravens (Foreshadowing for seamstress)

• The red-beaked raven is a recurring motif associated with the looming end of the relationship between Luo and the Little Seamstress. The bird is an ominous portent that foreshadows their separation.

Luo’s Keys:

• The key symbolizes Luo’s hope and connection to the urban city life and desire to return home from “re-education”.

Setting (THT)

• The wall as a sign of propaganda (salvaging) and subsiding any form of resistance.(harvard allusion)

"We stop, together as if on signal, and stand and look at the bodies. It doesn't matter if we look. We're supposed to look: this is what they are there for, hanging on the Wall"

• Red center as a site of indoctrination and re-education, ( rachel and leah center, school transformed into center) 

The Rachel and Leah Center, a training camp for Handmaids in an old high school"

Setting (BLC)

• Phoenix mountain as site of indoctrination, (rebirth connect to re-education?, inaccessibility, jarring contrast between urban life and rural life, imagery helps understand the harsh realities)

“for any sign of civilisation — you had to tramp across rugged mountain terrain for two days”

Historical Contexts (THT)

1. - Puritanism and Colonial America 

• Parallels through similar strict religious laws shown(e.g. handmaid’s wear ankle-length skirt & wings around face restrict freedom to interact reminding of modest, religious Puritan attire)

• Emphasis of social hierarchy (e.g. color coded dressing system by societal role/rank) 

b) Salem Witch Trials 

Participation in violence to strip individual innocence and reinforce collective compliance (e.g handmaids stoning the “rapist” to death during the salvaging) 

- Women used against women: accusers of witchcraft were mostly female, mirroring the Aunts policing Handmaids

Historical Contexts (BLC)

• Mao’s Cultural revolution , Communist China, collectivism, anti-western influence

• Actual “Up to the mountains Down to the countryside”, ironic or symbolic?

Conflicts (THT)

Fragmentation of offred’s narration and recollections, self contradictions

Conflicts (BLC)

Narrator dilemma with seamstress, unable to express authentic feelings, self-contradictions

The Power of Art & Knowledge / Education (THT)

"A Palimpsest" / the fact that Offred cannot read most signs in Gilead — literacy itself is rationed as power

The Power of Art & Knowledge / Education (BLC)

"Jean-Christophe, with his fierce individualism utterly untainted by malice, was a salutary revelation. Without him I would never have understood the splendour of taking free and independent action as an individual" — you already have this under Storytelling, but it belongs here

The exchange of novels as currency (two books for the abortion) — literature as literally life-saving. Song creation (folk songs collected from Miller) as a way for Four-Eyes to get a job at a literary journal — literature as a way to escape re-education and start a new life outside of the village.