The Handmaids Tale TEST #2

Offred

The narrator and protagonist of The Handmaid's Tale. She belongs to the class of Handmaids, fertile women forced to bear children for elite, barren couples.

The Commander

Head of the household where Offred works as a handmade. He initiates an unOrthodox relationship with Offred secretly playing scrabble with her in his study at night

Aunt Elizabeth

She is one of the Aunts at the Red Center. Moira attacks her and steals her Aunt's uniform during her escape from the Red Center.

Serena Joy

The Commander's Wife, she worked in pre-Gilead days as a gospel singer, then as an anti-feminist activist and crusader for "traditional values."

Moira

Offred's best friend from college, she is a lesbian and a staunch feminist; she embodies female resourcefulness and independence. Her defiant nature contrasts starkly with the behavior of the other women in the novel. Rather than passively accept her fate as a Handmaid, she makes several escape attempts and finally manages to get away from the Red Center. However, she is caught before she can get out of Gilead. Later, Offred encounters her working as a prostitute in a club for the Commanders. At the club, she seems resigned to her fate, which suggests that a totalitarian society can grind down and crush even the most resourceful and independent people.

Aunt Lydia

She works at the "Red Center," the re education center where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids. Although she appears only in Offred's flashbacks, she and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Her slogans and maxims drum the ideology of the new society into heads of the women, until even those like Offred, women who do not truly believe in the ideology, hear Gilead's words echoing in their heads.

Nick

Nick is a guardian, a low level officer of Gilead assigned to the commanders home. He works as a gardener and a chauffeur. He and Offred have a sexual chemistry that they get to satisfy when Serena Joy orchestrates an encounter between them in an effort to get off read pregnant.

Ofglen

Another Handmaid who is Offred's shopping partner and a member of the subversive "Mayday" underground. At the end of the novel, she is found out, and she hangs herself rather than face torture and reveal the names of her co-conspirators.

Cora

She works as a servant in the Commander's household. She belongs to the class of Marthas, infertile women who do not qualify for the high status of Wives and so work in domestic roles. She seems more content with her role than her fellow Martha, Rita. She hopes that Offred will be able to conceive, because then she will have a hand in raising a child.

Janine

Offred knows her from their time at the Red Center. After she becomes a Handmaid, she takes the name Ofwarren. She has a baby, which makes her the envy of all the other Handmaids in the area, but the baby later turns out to be deformed—an "Unbaby"—and there are rumors that her doctor fathered the child. She is a conformist, always ready to go along with what Gilead demands of her, and so she endears herself to the Aunts and to all authority figures. Offred holds her in contempt for taking the easy way out.

Luke

Luke has an affair with Offred while he was married to another woman, and then got divorced from her and married Offred.

Offred's mother

Feminist activist. Offred sees her mother as a child on a video tape in the Red Centre as she is participating in the "Take Back The Night", anti rape march.

Professor Pieixoto

The guest speaker at the symposium that takes place in the epilogue to The Handmaid's Tale. He and another academic, working at a university in the year 2195, transcribed Offred's recorded narrative; his lecture details the historical significance of the story that we have just read.

Armed guards called ________ patrol outside

Angels

There is no _______ in their rooms

Glass/anything that they can kill themselves with

Handmaids wear

Red

Martha's (household servants)

Green

Wives wear

Blue

All wives knit scarves for ______

Angels

What are Handmaids forbidden?

Coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol

What are Eyes?

Spies assigned to test Handmaids

Republic of Gilead

New society that is taking place where women are protected/restrained

What does it mean when bodies are on the wall?

They were hung for committing homosexual acts

Econowives

Lowest rank besides an unwoman; forced to fulfill the roles of Martha, Wife, and Handmaid

(WEAR STRIPES red, green, blue)

What is the only word they have given the Handmaids to read?

Faith

Who's fault was Janines rape according to the Handmaids?

Janines because she led on the gang members

What does menstration mean every month

Failure (to become pregnant)

Handmaids only function

Childbearing

What bible story is drilled into the Handmaids head?

Rachel and Leah in Genesis

What is the punishment for a first offense

Beating of the feet

What is the punishment for a second offense?

Beating of the hands

What happens at the ceremony?

The commander reads the Bible with all of the girls in one room. They then all separate into different rooms. Serena (his wife) lays on the table fully clothed while the Handmaids lay their heads on Serena's stomach - naked. The commander then comes and had sex with the Handmaids and moved onto the next girl.

What does Offred steal the night of the ceremony?

Daffodil from flower arrangement

What three scenarios does Offred replay in her head?

1. Luke is dead

2. Luke is in prison

3. Luke made it safely across the border

Who were considered Jezebels?

Woman who got their tubes tied and couldn't fulfill their prophecy of having children

What does the Commander ask Offred to do in the study?

Play scrabble

Does Offred believe in God?

No

How did Gilead become?

The president was shot and congress was machine gunned. Then the army declared a state of emergency. Islam's were blamed for the government crashing. The constitution was then suspended. People started staying home and just watching the news. Then everyone got identification cards and women were no longer able to have jobs.

What does Serena promise Offred if she agrees to get pregnant with Nick?

A picture of her daughter

What are prayvaganzas?

Weddings for the wives' daughters

Who does Offred see in the hotel courtyard while out with the Commander?

Moira

Where does the story take place

Around Harvard University

Wives get executed for what 3 things

1. Killing a Handmaid

2. Adultery

3. Attempted escape

Who always goes shopping with Offred?

Ofglen

What happened to the old Ofglen?

She hung herself when she saw the van coming to arrest her

What happens in the last chapter of the book?

Serena confronts Offred saying she knows about the hotel and the affair with the Commander. She then decides how to kill herself before the torturers come. However, as she hears a van pull up Nick comes in and says she should go with the Eye. She then walks towards the van. The End

Themes present

1. Woman's bodies as political instruments

2. Language is power

3. Reproduction

4. Control in relationships

Symbols present

1. Red (color of everything handmaid, blood in menstration and birth)

2. The Eyes (the spies but also the eyes of God kindve like great gatsby )

utopian

idealistic or visionary, usually used to describe a perfect society

dystopian

a futuristic society that seems perfect, but really is not

What does Offred call the detention center where they are kept?

The Red Center

Why do all the shops have pictures instead of names?

Women aren't allowed to read

What is the password for Offreds rebel group

Mayday

What led to the low fertility rates

Chemical spills and pollution

How are the Handmaids names formed

"Of" plus the name of the commander they belong to