The Handmaid's tale quotes

‘Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.’

chapter 6, Offred remembers Aunt Lydia’s words as Offred and Ofglen are standing by the Wall, looking at the bodies of people who have been hung by Gilead.

This quote reflects the theme of normalization of oppressive practices in Gilead, emphasizing how individuals can adapt to and accept even the most extreme situations over time. It suggests that what is initially shocking can become accepted as the norm through desensitization and conditioning. Natural revulsion is inhibited, as horror is transformed into normalcy, torture an tyranny become accepted.

Aunt Lydia’s words reflect the power of the totalitarian states, the repetition of the word ‘Ordinary’ perhaps draws emphasis on the concept of what is considered ‘ordinary’, also Aunt Lydia may be denouncing what is considered normality to the handmaids, reinstating Gilead’s lifestyles are the true ordinary, they are based on what the regime states is biological instinct.

‘I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.’

chapter 7

Present: Offred is describing the horror of Gilead as she experiences the oppressive reality of her life as a handmaid. This quote highlights her desire for narrative control in a world that strips individuals of their autonomy and agency. It reflects the human need to find meaning and hope in the face of trauma, suggesting that storytelling offers a way to cope with reality.

Storytelling becomes an act of rebellion, Offred speaks out against the silencing of Gilead towards women, Offred speaks out, even if it’s only to an imaginary reader.

Offred’s creation of a story gives her, as she puts it, “control over the ending.”

Offred’s creation of a narrative gives her hope for the future, a sense that “there will be an ending’ ‘and real life will come after it.”

Context: ‘For Mary Webster and Perry Miller’ dedication at beginning of novel

Mary Webster: A puritan woman living in England in the 17th century who was hung for accused Witchcraft.

Perry Miller: Influential historian and scholar of American Studies. Expert in American Puritanism, mentored Margret Atwood at Harvard University.

Attire (clothing)

Clothing organised by colour signifies the the regimented and organised nature of Gilead, doubles biblical figures through colour associations

Offered references nunneries- She wears clothes that hide her figure, life of chastity .’Time here is measured by bells ,as once in nunneries. As in a nunnery too, there are few mirrors.’ (chapter 2) identity stripped, autonomy is dangerous and threatens Gilead.

‘Everything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us.’- Blood is shameful, links to menstruation, Handmaids should be giving birth not having a period, but as well symbolizes fertility. Appears like a nun’s habit with it’s wings and ‘The skirt is ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts’

• She sees herself as a ‘parody of something, some fairy-tale figure in a red coat’- links to Offred’s narrative, storytelling and recalls how far Gilead is from her former life, it feels like a piece of fiction.

  • As well an allusion to the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood,” in which a young girl dressed in a red cloak is eaten by a wolf pretending to be her grandmother.

CONTEXT: Atwood states the deep red colour came from various places. For one, “German prisoners of war held in Canada [in WWII] were given red outfits because they show up so well against the snow”

Red was also the colour depicted in medieval, early renaissance paintings of the colour worn by Mary Magdalene — who is often remembered, many would say mistakenly, as a fallen woman.

Cattle prods symbolism and quotes

‘electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts’- In return for working under the Gilead regime, the Aunts are given substitute penises (the implication of masculinity and sexual connotations in regards to the term ‘cattle prods’ is strongly implied by ‘slung on thongs from their leather belts’) phallic imagery provided

Reference of Sigmund Freud’s theory of ‘penis envy’ in women. In On Narcissism (1914) he described how some women develop a masculine ideal as "a survival of the boyish nature that they themselves once possessed".

Electric cattle prods are too a symbol of control and hierarchy- Linking to the fact they were used by police in Alabama and other southern American states to control African- American protestors during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

The implied comparison of of the Handmaids to ‘cattle’ is significant: they are, essentially, breeding stock.

• ‘No guns, though’- the most dangerous penile analogues are reserved for men

Sex as a biological instinct, attraction is beyond any regimes barriers

Chapter 1:

‘old sex’- which ironically was experienced by the young in this gymnasium

The adjective ‘old’ implies that Gilead has moved on from such things, but the novel clearly establishes the indestructability of ‘old sex’ which is seen to motivated many key characters in the novel

‘As for my husband, she said, he’s just that. My husband. I want that to be perfectly clear. Till death do us part. It’s final’

Serena’s pauses, reflect her uncertainty her straightness but too her a sense of concern, she recognises that her husband despite Gilead’s rules as a commander, may infiltrate the handmaid’s role, she recognises desire and lust and addresses it covertly.

• This is a religious allusion to the wedding vows first written down in the Book of Common Prayers (1549) for prayers used in England’s Anglican Church

First meeting with Nick:

chapter 4

‘I think of how he might smell. Not fish or decaying rat; tanned skin, moist in the sun, filmed with smoke. I sigh, inhaling.’

sensory olfactory imagery, links to sex pheromones, smell often the sense most highly associated with sexual arousal

‘He takes a final puff of the cigarette, lets it drop to the driveway, and steps on it. He begins to whistle. Then he winks.’

Rebellion: each character including Nick, a member of the eyes, each character commits rebellious acts, highlighting both the unliveable horror of Gileadean society, and the unsteadiness of its foundations.

‘Perhaps he saw the look on my face and mistook it for something else. Really what I wanted was the cigarette.’

cigarette-phallic imagery again, foreshadows Offred and Nick’s sexual encounter

Shopping chapter- The Guardian Checkpoint:

‘I raise my head a little, to help him, and he sees my eyes and I see his, and he blushes. His face is long and mournful, like a sheep’s, but with the large full eyes of a dog, spaniel not terrier. His skin is pale and looks unwholesomely tender, like the skin under a scab. Nevertheless, I think of placing my hand on it, this exposed face. He is the one who turns away.’

imagery of like the ‘skin under a scab’ simile, primitive nature of sexual attraction, it always laying bellowing the surface despite Gilead’s attempts to repress. Natural.

‘sheep’s’ suggests passivity, sense of being controlled

"the large full eyes of a dog, spaniel not terrier" introduces a contrast: the eyes are imbued with a sense of emotion. Spaniels are seen as affectionate and gentle, which could suggest that the character might possess inner warmth or kindness despite an overall sorrowful appearance. The complexity of the characters of Gilead, they are layered but still have potentials, they are not devoid of their own desires and emotions under the surface.

Fertility and science, men as monsters

The science of fertility is what the government abuses for their own agenda

The Commander even refers to himself as a scientist, ch 29 and Offred makes the connection between herself and a lab rat “A rat is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze”. P70

The relativity of the concept of ‘freedom’, dystopian societies help us reflect on our own mazes in society, we do not live in a utopia. Our world has more in common with Offred’s than we think, eg government control: tracking phones for national security purposes, cookies etc Roe vs Wade being overturned in certain states

Offred’s world does still experience small freedoms, eg some women can choose to be a jezebel rather than a handmaid, choice is given in some respect, religious compliance allows some women to keep their families as econowives

households give handmaids their own rooms, form of freedom

This quote related to Offred and Ofglen sometimes taking different ways to and from their shopping trips and as well that handmaids are free to go out of the house without direct supervision, though only as far as the city walls- they are just as much in a jail cell as prisoners to their own maze.

Some mazes are, obviously, more forgiving than others but maybe Atwood is trying to say there is always something confining us

THT/

Gilead is a science experiment. , life is replaced with a routine system. Everything is white and empty is very clinical, which likely enables those running the regime to feel more like scientists than dictators, creating a setting where they are the ones doing a ‘service’ to humanity and are the trusted professionals

 

The ‘eyes’ act like hidden cameras – “The eyes of God run all over the Earth”, observing the behaviour and testing for any ‘anomalies’ or ‘defects’ in the system. Offred even describes Gilead’s early system as not having all the ‘bugs ironed out’ yet.

 

The variables are controlled by the lack of knowledge or news the women are given

 

In ‘Handmaid’s Tale’, people are sorted based on their gender and reproductive capabilities, and once put into a caste, they cannot change

The maze reflects social policy and the danger of hierarchy, the maze is not concrete, it is malleable

‘He doesn’t mind this, I thought. He doesn’t mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other’s, anymore. Instead, I am his.’ women despite liberation movements

The handmaids are test subjects and they control outside variables- shipping ‘bugs’ in the system they can’t ‘iron out’ off to colonies

narrative and epilogue

herstory now under a male frame as revealed in the epilogue

Offred’s sexual servitude mocked: The way he links the word ‘enjoy’ as in satisfying appetite at the conference dinner last night ‘artic char’ and now enjoying the ‘Artic Chair’, the world enjoy also may signify being charmed y the chair and then precludes the obsolete third in that ‘sexual satisfaction’ can be implied.

‘Tail’ is referred to imply a bottom, Offred’s sexualised and commodified still in this utopia.

 

Glorified view on men as the woman’s stories are erased , Pieixoto attempts to identify Offred by identifying the commander

Piexoto states ‘there was little that was truly original about Gilead: its genius was synthesis’ Though not explicit moral praise of Gilead, the word ‘genius’ demonstrates a certain level of respect for the totalitarian regime

Pieixoto credits the women’s uniforms as unoriginal referring to Waterford’s help in design, stating they were borrowed from German POW camps in Canada during WW2

‘The Undergroung Frailroad’, ‘The Underground Femaleroad’ said as a pun to suggest women are frail- Offred’s story discovered in Maine, in this city, Bangor was a prominent station referred to the quoted names above, the Underground Railroad was used by escaping slaves fleeing from the US to Canada in the early 19^th century, connection between slaves and handmaids, and the names quote are another misogynistic sidesweep which produces audience laughter.

Feminism- context

The first wave of feminist activism related to the idea of the “‘New Woman’ – an ideal of femininity that challenged the limits established by male centered society”

First-wave activists put into question women’s restrictions in matters of work, education, marriage, property, and their right to vote i.e., women’s suffrage.

The second wave emerged post-war during the early 1960s and was active until the late 1980s. During this phase, feminists focused on questioning “the constituents of gender roles and women’s sexuality” Feminism’s second wave was influenced by deconstructivism; it showed interest in the distinction between womanhood as a social and cultural construction and subjective experiences of femininity

eco feminism

.Ecofeminism presents itself as “a new way of seeing old problems: the linking of the devaluation of women and the earth”. While the movement’s primary focus during its first years was indeed the connection between the subjugation of women and nature.

D’Eaubonne’s first two books on ecofeminism offer her views on the disproportionate role that women play in society in contrast with men, and the lack of female voices in decisions regarding their own bodies, particularly the freedom to embrace or reject a role in human reproduction

Moreover, d’Eaubonne’s quote points to patriarchal capitalism as the cause for the destruction of nature as the cause for the destruction of nature, since according to her, men have appropriated themselves of the fertility of the soil and later industrialised and overexploited- Radical ecofeminist views

The French feminist links women’s lack of agency and men’s authority over questions of reproduction to overpopulation and environmental issues

Atwood’s concerns about women’s rights intertwine with her ecocritical perspective, as shown in her connections between environmental damage and the exploitation of female bodies.

Flowers and gardens and fertility:

Serena Joy’s gardening is recognised by Offred as the wife’s way of occupying time as a substitution for children- sowing seeds substituting for children different means of reproduction

Allusion to Parable of The Mustard Seed- how the kingdom of God can grow through believers and a small number of followers into something even greater

“Many of the Wives have such gardens, it’s something for them to order and maintain and care for.” (Atwood, Handmaid 12). The Wives’ gardens are an interesting example of a liminal zone which problematizes the nature-culture divide because “it constitutes a hybrid between nature and civilization or civilized nature. A way women can direct their nurturing duties

CH 4 : Aunt Lydia advices the girls to “think of yourselves as seeds”, a metaphor alluding to Handmaids’ passive role as seeds to be planted by the elite of Gilead to assure the survival of its population. As well an example of chremamorphism (giving humans the characteristics of objects) to symbolise the total eradication of the Handmaids' identities as they are only required for their wombs

Coding for fertility ‘Blessed be the fruit’