PROSE QUOTES

F preface describes how book was designed as an antidote to standard fare of contemporary fiction its author found so tedious - F’s language wild, foreign, uncontrolled - vertiginous terrain mutates into hazardous psychological territory that echoes the inner turmoil of protagonists

avoid the enervating effects of the novels of the present day

F shelley’s spirit

singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind

HM semantic field of military / violence in C1

army cots; rows; army-issue blankets; guns; barbed wire; cattle prods; chain link fence

HM Berlin 1984, Anti-Fascist Protective Wall, ever-present threat of state control

men with machine guns in the pillboxes either side of the road

HM restrictive measures against suicide (damaged property)

The window… only opens partly; Framed but with no glass; They’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to

HM Offred’s room (asyndetic - barrenness, functionality)

A chair, a table, a lamp

HM Hans Christian Andersen ‘The Red Shoes’

Flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing

HM surveillance guards painting, rewritten ancestors redefined + controlled

There they stand, their backs and mouths stiff, their breasts constricted, their faces pinched, their caps starched, their skin greyish white, guarding the room

HM punishment manifesting in treatment of women’s bodies

They didn’t care what they did to your feet and hands… For our purposes your feet and hands are not essential

HM omnipresent rulers of Gilead

They

HM symbolism of eyes (secret police - both name + insignia symbolise eternal watchfulness of God + totalitarian state)

blind plaster eye in the ceiling; tattoo: four digits and an eye; Under His Eye; Eyes of God

HM vocal acknowledgement of surveillance, submission

The right farewell

HM R&L surveillance

We learned to whisper almost without sound

HM allusion to The Changeling (1622) - sister = virgin forced to have sex w servant in return 4 murder + Revelations

A Sister, dipped in blood

HM Revelations 19v13 - winepress, annihilation of enemies

he is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and his title was the word of God

HM Karl Marx

From each, said the slogan, according to her ability; to each according to his needs… It was from the Bible, or so they said

HM words exploited as form of control

Blessed are the silent’. I knew they made that up, I knew that it was wrong

HM portmanteau, link to Moonies cult SK begun 1954 - mass control to prevent sex before marriage

Prayvaganza

HM commodification of faiths, hypocrisy on printed banner

GOD IS A NATIONAL RESOURCE

HM printed prayers, superficiality, hypocrisy of religion - reference e.g. to Mormonism, FLDS, appearance of piety masking corruption + abuse

Soul scrolls

F creature challenging assumed hierarchy (imperative) - neglect of responsibility entails loss of control

You are my creator, but I am your master; - obey!

HM hierarchy reinforced spatially (prayvaganza)

Ranking of folding wooden chairs have been placed along the right side, for the Wives… galleries above, with their concrete railings, are for the lower ranking women, the Marthas, the Econowives… Here there are no chairs... kneeling then on the cement floor

HM hierarchy reinforced spatially (pre-ceremony) - physical placement as revealing interpersonal dynamics (+ objectification also)

kneeling, near the chair with the footstool where Serena Joy will shortly enthrone herself… Possibly she’ll put a hand on my shoulder… as if I’m a piece of furniture

HM sj & O power imbalance (imperative)

Come over here. I want you

HM Luke 10:38-43 - Martha so distracted making preparations for Jesus fails to listen to his teachings - excluded from society, forced into domestic servitude

She puts the veil on to go outside, but nobody much cares who sees the face of a Martha

HM hierarchical impact on men, subordinacy of all members of household

A guardian detailed to the Commander; Ma’am; We are supposed to be invisible

F idolatry, mirrors PS’s introduction, ambition in aligning oneself w great works / creators

I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated

F the secrets

The secrets of heaven and earth that I desire to learn

F references to ‘imagination’ - supreme faculty of the mind, surpassing reason. human equiv. of creative powers of nature / divinity, allowing us to shape + constitute reality (Romantic idea)

guided by an ardent imagination; the lords of my imagination

F paradox of playing God & creating something diabolic

The filthy daemon to whom I had given life

F location of letter 2, foreshadowing tragic arc of novel by framing W’s quest w. ironic overtones of spiritual purpose

Archangel

F Promethean

pour a torrent of light into our dark world

F V Benthamite utilitarian ethical calculus (greatest good from greatest number), assuming 2 creatures wld share his egotistical desire to produce offspring who wld bless & revere them

My duties towards my fellow-creatures had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery

F V & W foils, exclamation + interrogative structures - moral judgement. metaphor - addiction, loss of clarity in face of potency of ambition. monomaniacal pursuit of knowledge

Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught?

F warning against pride, father’s friend Beaufort

could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence

cautionary tale - is instrument for S’s didactic purpose (term monstrous in Gothic fiction = etymogically tied to omens (Latin monstrum) and warnings (monere)

monster

F diabolical pursuit, distancing from own humanity, realisation of loss of innocence

I felt I shall survive to exhibit what I soon cease to be… pitiable to others and intolerable to myself

F postcolonial, enslaved by monster - savage, relationship reversed. political instability - french rev (revolutionary uprisings against oppressive regimes)

for an instant I dared to shake off my chains

F teachings that suicide = acceptable alternative to pointless suffering / dishonour

I will repeat the lessons of my Seneca, and die with a good heart

F text aligning with the philosophical disposition of the Romantics - allegorical (blind reason)

The Ancient Mariner

F victor’s lack of self-recognition (no agency, paints himself as victim of fate & circumstance)

unparalleled misfortunes; no creature had ever been as miserable as I was; The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence

B creation in terms of men

His painful labour; What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world & serious business. The Commander is doing his duty

HM reduced to biological capacity for reproduction

We are containers

HM biblical symbolism of birth & rebirth

If I have an egg, what more can I want

HM serena joy yearning for fertility

There’s a dried flower arrangement on either end of the mantelpiece

HM birthmobile

like a flower of sound opening into a trumpet

HM dangerous/ridiculous parading of women

their mouths too red, too wet, blood-dipped and glistening; or, on the other hand, too clownish

HM aunt lydia sex outside reproduction = sin

They said there was no sense in breeding… They were lazy women… They were sluts

HM sex vs reproduction

What’s going on in this room…is not exciting. It has nothing to do with passion or love or romance

HM exposure, ceremony - conflation of duty + desire

our functions were no longer as separate as they should have been in theory

HM women’s actions are merely consequences of his, inference oh childhood/school (ironic - reproductive veremony)

He stands. We are dismissed

HM women only exist if men want them to

This time he won't show mine, the one that's supposed to be mine, as I'm no longer in official existence, for now

HM - pseudo-scientific justification, hypocrisy, men must control women to control themselves

Nature demands variety for men

HM sj limitation of women’s desires

something for them to order and maintain and care for

HM a display of fanaticism in which all handmaids must become collaborators

I’ve leaned forward, in time with others… then placed my hand on my heart to show my unity with the Salvagers and my consent

HM both sj & O contribute to Gilead in ways the other cannot (power + fertility) - competing for value - directing oppressive energy at each other (like Aunts) > regime which defines their value

I am a reproach to her, and a necessity.

HM o still seeking reaction of a man

Does this make him angry or lustful or envious or anything at all?

HM 20th century feminist ideals reflected in Gileadan framework but distorted/contradicted (banning of pornography, sexualisation of women, eradication of sexual violence)

Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from

HM flashback to Offred’s mother feminism

the flames shot high, and then they began dumping the magazines; It had a pretty woman on it, with no clothes on

HM but I wasn’t sad to see them go. we all knew what a nuisance they’d been (ripe context for introduction of change)

Pornomarts, Feels-on-Wheels vans, Bun-Dle Buggies

HM mary webster - hanged as witch 1683 but survived, persecuted women, witchcraft (dedication). Salem Witch Trials (17^thc Massachusetts) – women demonised for deviating from Puritan norms, collective punishment

I would like a pet: a bird, say, or a cat. A familiar

HM (epigraph) satirical essay published as plea criticising ruling class. Recommends cannibalism & to treat women + children as cattle, as in THT loss of agency.

A Modest Proposal (Johnathan Swift)

F Elizabeth paragon of Christian piety, contrasting Occult + idealised

Bestowed on them by heaven; bearing a celestial stamp in all her features

F Elizabeth possession, cremamorphism

I have a pretty present for my Victor; my promised gift

F fear of female creature (sexuality)

she might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man

F V inability to sympathise with child

I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! - Great God!

F V extreme form of putative infanticide

I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed

F William Shelley (creature’s calculated strangling articulates both MS’s horrified recognition that she is capable of imagining the murder of her own child + her instinctive revulsion) - when nuclear family fails to mother its offspring, engenders homicidal monsters

same lively blue eyes, dimpled cheeks, and endearing manners

F parents - irony in his rejection of his projeny, crature

with this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life

F SHelley own life (family lack of attention due to eccentric lifestyle & occupation w. radical activities)

But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles… what was I?

F V isolation

I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime

F W isolation

I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be no one to participate my joy

HM post-modern, fragmented… metafiction, curated, implicates reader

I’m sorry it’s in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire, or pulled apart by force

HM unreliability, claims of text being a ‘reconstruction’

problems of authentication

HM form of offred’s narrative

Approximately thirty tape cassettes

HM gossip as storytelling

Or we would gossip. The Marthas know things

HM corruption of freud’s psychoanalytic theory (penis envy) - from birth, young girls are envious of male genitalia. ALSO knowledge/writing & male power

Pen is envy

HM words illicit, reduced to snatched iterations (washroom cubicle red centre)

Aunt Lydia sucks

HM cod-Latin - symbol of rebellion, rallying/mobilising appeal - direct systemic criticism, illusion of being intellectual (Latin) ironic, sardonic. such snatched moments of communication become cathartic micro-stories of their own

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

HM offred’s story is an existential necessity, means of constructing sense of self - pun on compose captures constructed nature of stories + also capacity of such stories to provide space for calm / disembodied reflection

I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech.

HM Descartes - philosophy built on radical doubt, storytelling is an existential act reaffirming her existence

I tell, therefore you are

HM night ‘chapter title’ - solitude, repossession of personal narrative / individuality (doesn’t have to maintain uniformity, no public scrutiny, memory). asserting distinctions between ‘lie’ and ‘lay’ - reclaiming understanding + agency (sexual, laid)

The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will… As long as I stay still. The difference between ‘lie’ and ‘lay’. Lay is always passive

HM words as sole link between irreversible temporal barrier – pre and during Gilead – alludes to unreliability of them

I don’t really know what men used to say. I had only their words for it.

HM metatextual, storytelling survival, reducing uncontrollable to her own form / understanding of it

If it’s only a story, it becomes less frightening

HM knowledge + manipulation, emotional impact of Scrabble

the commander likes it when I distinguish myself, show precocity, like an attentive pet, prick-eared and ready to perform

HM chronological reframing of her narrative by Peixoto + Wade - detachment, unwilling to moral judgement

Our job is not to censure, but to understand

HM delivers symposium on her narrative, undermining trauma, dismissed on an emotional level. suffering reduced to academic discussion

Any questions?

HM at centre of concentric narratives (+ physical textual centre) = letters recording story of Safie, = tangible evidence

They will prove the truth of my tale; Conviction of truth

HM nature as symbol of oppression + emotional distance within hierarchy

Not so her eyes, which were the flat, hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright sunlight, a blue that shuts you out.

HM yonic imagery, lost value in age, red like clothing

thrusting themselves up, to what end? They are, after all, empty. When they are old they turn themselves inside out, then explode slowly, the petals thrown out like shards

HM sufi proverb, there is no need to legislate against humanity’s further destruction (human survival instinct requires no instruction)

in the desert there is no sign that says, thou shalt not eat stones

F romantic, nature as creative force

Inspirited by this wind of promise, my day dreams became more fervent and vivid

F end of C5 resplendency, restorative, healing, contrasts prev chapter

my health and spirits had long since been restored, and they gained additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed ; serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy;

F nature can heal

Nature adorns her chosen dwelling places

F the sublime

While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific

F before monster setting house on fire. romantic emotion as force that overwhelms reason, terror

the blast tore along like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits that burst all bounds of reason and reflection

F philosophers + nature

They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic an earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows

F recesses

Penetrate into the recesses of nature

F belated realisation of man’s insignificance / god’s power through sublime

I ceased to fear, or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements

F Orkney islands - isolated, ungodly work away from humanity. barren landscape - distancing from sublime + divine. gothic landscape > romantic (like colonies, isolated areas of punishment)

It was a place fitted for such work, being hardly more than a rock, whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows.