handmaid tale quotes

Defiance

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum - ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down.’

Existential thoughts

Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. What do I want?

Existential thoughts about her place in the world compared to that of other women

“But I envy the Commander’s Wife her knitting. It’s good to have small goals that can be easily attained.

What does she envy me?”

figurative language for how Gilead is

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze."

Mistrust and fear between women

“…she is my spy, as I am hers” (Ofglen)

Gaslighting of women/commander trying to justify why Gilead is the way that it is

“We’ve given them more than we’ve taken away, said the Commander. … Don’t you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn’t?“

Dehumanisation of women

My name isn’t Offred. I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter.

Dehumanisation of women to simply their reproductive organs (which explains the colour red symbolism), also dehumanisation of women as they are unable to be seen

“Everything except for the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us. … The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen”

criminalisation of doctors/people who disagree with Gilead

“These men, we've been told, are like war criminals. It's no excuse that what they did was legal at the time: their crimes are retroactive”

pitting women against each other

“It’s not the husbands you have to watch out for, said Aunt Lydia, it’s the Wives.“