part 1: night and part 2: shopping

CH1: purpose of the vivid description of the gymnasium?

contrasts it’s former use as a place of freedom

CH1: examples of sensory description of the gym? 2 points

• ‘smell of old sweat’

• ‘the varnished floor’

CH1: significance of the gym being used to house handmaids? 2 points

• highlights the loss of autonomy

• gym is part of a school - an area once used to educate is now part of a sexist regime

CH1: significance of the line starting ‘felt-skirted as i knew from pictures…’?

focuses on freedom of expression, which is now outlawed

CH1: what do the angels and aunts symbolise?

control through fear and indoctrination - the dual methods of oppression

CH1: significance of aunts carrying ‘electric cattle prods’?

used to dehumanise women like animals

CH1: significance of aunts ‘[not being] trusted with guns’?

reflects ideas that women are too emotional to carry weaponry

CH1: significance of the women’s real names being read out at the end of the chapter?

highlights their individuality, especially considering they get renamed by gilead

CH2: purpose of the line ‘they’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to’?

gilead finds handmaids valuable and refuses to let them escape through suicide

CH2: significance of offred’s red dress?

it symbolises fertility, sexuality and visibility

CH2: significance of the white ceiling and curtains?

symbolises purity

CH2: significance of religious references; ‘as once in nunneries’, ‘a sister dipped in blood’?

shows gilead is built off of a perverse interpretation of christianity

CH2: significance of offred’s attention to detail and imaginative similes (‘like a path through a forest’)?

shows her escapism and coping mechanisms

CH2: significance of the ‘dull green’ dresses for marthas?

forced relation to nature

CH2: significance of the different colored dresses for the women?

represents roles in gilead’s hierarchy

CH2: significance of the marthas distaste for the handmaids (rita: ‘i wouldn't debase myself like that’)?

either jealousy or contempt for keeping gilead’s regime alive

CH2: significance of simile ‘…mournful as pigeons in the eaves troughs’?

pigeons were domesticated before being shunned and seen as pests

CH2: the marthas ‘gossip’ amongst themselves - significance of the handmaid ‘stabbed by a knitting needle’? 2 points

• traditional feminine activity contrasted with violence

• shows the contempt commander’s wives have for handmaids

CH2: importance of the narrative perspective?

1st person narration has an intimate, claustrophobic tone

CH3: significance of serena joy’s garden? quote to prove point

• symbolises female creativity, fertility, and acts as a replacement for a child

• ‘something…to order and maintain and care for’

CH3: ‘the tulips are red…as if they have been cut and are beginning to heal’ significance?

metaphor for the handmaids’ suffering

CH3: ‘from a distance it looks like peace’ significance?

implies the order of the gilead is only surface level

CH3: line proving serena joy wants a child of her own?

‘they aren’t scarves for grown men but for children’

CH3: serena asks offred ‘so you’re the new one’ - significance?

implies handmaids are disposable

CH3: offred narrates ‘i thought [i sounded like the] voice of a monotone, voice of a doll’ significance? 2 points

• relates to dehumanisation of women

• could imply false persona

CH3: why is serena joy’s past christian association important?

because the gilead is based off christian values, she may have had an advantage

CH4: offred describes parts of the garden as ‘like a hair parting’ and ‘pink, like lips’. significance of this humanisation?

relates the garden to women - obsession with female experience

CH4: significance of the commander’s car being the color of a ‘hearse’?

could foreshadow a death

CH4: the sidewalk is ‘red brick’ - signficance?

continues trend of red color codes - implies road paved with bloodshed

CH4: ‘steps like a trained pig on its hind legs’ - significance of this simile?

relates women to animals that are bred and disposed of

CH4: significance of relating the young commanders to ‘dogs’ and ‘sheep’?

implies they are like service animals following the regime