key quotations

gender roles:

• “We are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important.” (Ch17, Pg103)

• “Aunty Elizabeth kneels, with an outspread towel to catch the baby, here’s the crowning, the glory… It slithers out… oh praise.” (Ch21, Pg132)

• “We are two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.” (Ch23, Pg142)

• “To refuse to see him could be worse. There’s no doubt about who holds the real power.” (Ch23, Pg142)

• “He gazes over the room, and our soft voices die. He doesn’t even have to raise his hands.” (Ch34, Pg226)

• “Women’s Prayvaganzas are for group weddings like this, usually. The men’s are for military victories.” (Ch34, Pg228)

• “I guess it’s supposed to demoralise the men, having to wear a dress.” (Ch38, Pg257)

• “Women’s Salvagings are not frequent. There is less need for them. These days we are so well behaved.” (Ch42, Pg281)

• “Judd… was of the opinion… that the best way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves.” (Historical Notes, Pg316)

fertility:

• "Now that she’s the carrier of life, she is closer to death, and needs special security." (Ch5)

• "Every month there is a moon, gigantic, round, heavy, an omen." (Ch13)

• "I do not say making love… nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for." (Ch16)

• "We are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important." (Ch17)

• "The greater the risk, the greater the glory." (Ch19)

• "Aunt Elizabeth inspects it: a girl, poor thing." (Ch21)

• “Aunty Elizabeth kneels, with an outspread towel to catch the baby, here’s the crowning, the glory… It slithers out… oh praise.” (Ch21, Pg132)

• "We are for breeding purposes." (Ch23)

• "We both know what my body is for." (Ch32)

• "She shall be saved by childbearing." (Ch34)

• "He stops at the foot… where the tattoo is, a Braille he can read, a cattle-brand. It means ownership." (Ch39)

• "Cora has begun to cry. I was her hope, I’ve failed her. Now she will always be childless." (Ch46)

rebellion:

• “We yearned for the future.” (Ch1, p.9)

• “Something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some trade-off, we still had our bodies.” (Ch1, p.10)

• “He has a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, which shows that he too has something he can trade on the black market.” (Ch4, p.23)

• “I think about laundromats. What I wore to them… My own money, money I had earned myself.” (Ch5, p.30)

• “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” (Ch8, p.58)

• “For every rule there is always an exception: this too can be depended upon.” (Ch22, p.135)

• “I’m not giving anything away: selling only.” (Ch23, p.144)

• “ ‘I thought this sort of thing was strictly forbidden,’ I say. ‘Well, officially,’ he says. ‘But everyone’s human, after all.’” (Ch37, p.244)

• “Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.” (Ch41, p.279)

love:

• “I hunger to commit the act of touch” (ch2, pg17)

• “we are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important” (ch17, pg103)

• “It’s so good to be touched by someone, to be felt so greedily” (ch17, pg106)

• “for him, I must remember, I am only a whim” (ch25, pg164)

• “love is not the point” (ch34, pg228)

• “the more difficult it was to love the particular men beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total” (ch34, pg233)

storytelling and memory:

• “what it reminded me of was geography classes, at my own high school thousands of years before” (ch20, pg123)

• “Moira said later that it wasn’t real, it was done with models, but it was hard to tell” (ch20, pg124)

• “this is a reconstruction. all of it is a reconstruction. it’s a reconstruction now, in my head…” (ch23, pg140)

• “context is all” (ch24, pg150)

• “I read quickly, voraciously, almost skimming, trying to get as much into my head as possible before the next long starvation” (ch29, pg190)

• “I’m a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I’ve left or been forced to leave” (ch35, pg235)

• “a movie about the past is not the same as the past” (ch37, pg243)

• “the fabric of his sleeve is raspy against my skin, so unaccustomed lately to being touched” (ch37, pg244)

• “the other names in the document are equally useless for the purposes of identification and authentication” (pg314)

offred:

• “I had a paper due the next day” (Ch7, pg43)

• “I am leashed, it looks like, manacled; cobwebbed, that’s closer” (Ch31, pg209)

• “I’m a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I’ve left or been forced to leave” (Ch35, pg235)

• “I have a fork and a spoon, but never a knife” (Ch35, pg236)

• “I’ve tried to make it sound as much like her as I can. It’s a way of keeping her alive” (Ch38, pg252)

• “The fact is that I no longer want to leave, escape, cross the border to freedom” (Ch41, pg279)

• “I scarcely take the trouble to sound regretful, so lazy have I become” (Ch41, pg279)

• “Ofglen is giving up on me. She whispers less, talks more about the weather” (Ch41, pg279)

• “I don’t want to be a dancer, my feet in the air, my head a faceless oblong of white cloth. I don’t want to be a doll hung up on the Wall” (Ch45, pg294)

the Commander:

• “For him, I must remember, I am only a whim.” (Ch25, pg164)

• “All that filth about universal daycare.” (Ch32, pg217)

• “There are things he wants to prove to me, gifts he wants to bestow, services he wants to render, tendernesses he wants to inspire.” (Ch32, pg217)

• “Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.” (Ch32, pg218)

• “What he wants is intimacy, but I can’t give him that.” (Ch32, pg218)

• “We’ve given them more than we’ve taken away, said the Commander.” (Ch34, pg227)

• “He wishes to diminish things, myself included.” (Ch36, pg237)

• “Perhaps he’s reached that state of intoxication which power is said to inspire, the state in which you believe you are indispensable and can therefore do anything.” (Ch37, pg244)

• “…and as he talks his spine straightens imperceptibly, his chest expands, his voice assumes more and more the sprightliness and jocularity of youth.” (Ch37, pg244)

serena joy:

• “She doesn’t make speeches any more. She has become speechless.” (Ch8, pg52)

• “Something like [collapsing] must have happened to her, once she saw the true shape of things to come.” (Ch8, pg52)

• “There is loathing in her voice, as if the touch of my flesh sickens and contaminates her.” (Ch16, pg102)

• “Serena Joy has tidy habits. She wouldn’t throw away anything not quite worn out.” (Ch19, pg116)

• “She hated me too and resented my presence.” (Ch26, pg166)

• “A mistake to notice weakness in her.” (Ch31, pg211)

• “With firmness; no, more than that, a clenched look, like a purse snapping shut.” (Ch31, pg212)

• “She’s made of wood, or iron she can’t imagine.” (Ch31, pg212)

• “‘You could have left me something….Just like the other one. A slut. You’ll end up the same.’” (Ch45, pg295)

nick:

• “He’s too casual, he’s not servile enough.” (Ch4, pg23)

• “He’s wearing the uniform of the Guardians, but his cap is tilted at a jaunty angle and his sleeves are rolled to the elbow.” (Ch4, pg23)

• “He has a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, which shows that he too has something he can trade on the black market.” (Ch4, pg23)

• “He puts his hand on my arm, pulls me against him, his mouth on mine, what else comes from such denial?” (Ch17, pg105)

• “He’s in his shirt sleeves, bare arms sticking shamelessly out from the rolled cloth.” (Ch28, pg186)

• “He’s only my flag, my semaphore. Body language.” (ch28, pg187)

• “Both of us are supposed to be invisible, both of us are functionaries.” (Ch36, pg240)

• “trust me” (ch46, 2nd to last page)

aunt lydia:

• “The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds.” (Ch5, pg29)

• “We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.” (Ch5, pg31)

• “She went on, with the smug authority in her voice of one who is in a position to judge.” (Ch20, pg124)

• “She’s wearing the kind of outfit Aunt Lydia told us was typical of Unwomen in those days.” (Ch20, pg125)

• “Love, said Aunt Lydia with distaste. Don’t let me catch you at it. No mooning and June-ing around here, girls.” (Ch34, pg228)

• “What we’re aiming for, says Aunt Lydia, is a spirit of camaraderie among women. We must all pull together.” (Ch34, pg230)

• “I’ve never worn anything remotely like this, so glittering and theatrical…such a sneer at the Aunts, so sinful, so free.” (Ch36, pg238)

• “From among us, incredibly, there is laughter…it’s the tension, and the look of irritation on Aunt Lydia’s face…this is supposed to be dignified.” (Ch42, pg282)

• “When power is scarce, a little of it is tempting.” (HN, pg316)

ofglen:

• “‘It’s a beautiful May Day,’ Ofglen says.”

• “‘Don’t talk when there is someone coming.’”

• “‘Don’t be stupid. He wasn’t a rapist… I put him out of his misery. Don’t you know what they’re doing to him?’”

• “‘I am Ofglen,’ the woman says. Word perfect…. That is how you can get lost, in a sea of names.”

• “She isn’t Ofglen.”

• “‘And Ofglen, wherever she is, is no longer Ofglen.’”

• “She saw the van coming for her. It was better.”

• “She died that I may live.”

• “She holds my stare in the glass level, unwavering... it’s like seeing someone naked for the first time.”

janine/ofwarren:

• “If I have an egg, what more can I want?” (Ch19)

• “Make way, make way!” (Ch19)

• “The Wife’s belly is massaged, just as if she’s really about to give birth herself.” (Ch20)

• “We are so happy.” (Ch21)

• “We stand between Janine and the bed, so she won’t have to see this.” (Ch21)

• “‘Hold, hold. Expel, expel, expel.’” (Ch21)

• “We are no longer single.” (Ch21)

• “Her form of procreation… turning out more and more yards of intricate and useless wool people.” (Ch25)

  • Serena Joy, artificial contrast

marthas: rita & cora:

• “It’s the red dress she disapproves of and what it stands for”

• “Bath day, Rita says without looking at me”

• “Nothing I bring fully pleases her”

• “[Cora] hopes, and I am the vehicle for her hope…”

• “Cora has begun to cry. I was her hope, I’ve failed her.”

• “Now she will always be childless”

• “He wouldn’t be able to intervene… jurisdiction of the Wives alone”

• “She was safe then, protected altogether, by the time Cora opened the door”

• “Instead she depends on me. She hopes, and I am the vehicle of her hope”

moira:

• “Moira was our fantasy… in the light of Moira, the Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd”

• “Moira had power now, she’d been set loose… she was now a loose woman”

• “Moira was like an elevator with open sides, she made us dizzy”

• “She is frightening me now… what I hear in her voice is indifference, a lack of volition”

• “ ‘Butch paradise, you might call it’ ”

• “ ‘I made up a lot of stuff. You do that, when they use the electrodes and the other things’ ”

• “She’d decided to prefer women”

• “You can’t help what you feel, Moira said once, but you can help how you behave”

• “If I were Moira, I’d know how to take it apart, reduce it to its cutting edges”

luke:

• “It’s only a job, he said, trying to soothe me”

• “I thought, already he’s starting to patronise me”

• “You know I’ll always take care of you”

• “How were we to know we were happy, even then? Because we at least had that: arms around”

• “We are not each other’s anymore. Instead I am his”

• “It occurs to me that he may not be alive”

• “Look at him, slicing up carrots. Don’t you know how many women’s lives… the tanks had to roll over just to get that far?”

• “Luke told me that… he liked knowing about such details”

• “I’m the outside woman, my job is to provide what is otherwise lacking”

  • in reference to being Luke’s mistress whilst he was married

offred’s mother:

• “She expected me to vindicate her life for her, and the choices she’d made”

• “Networking, one of my mother’s old phrases…”

• “A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women”

• “No mother is ever, completely, a child’s idea of what a mother should be…”

• “A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women”

• “It occurs to me that she might be a ghost…”

• “Networking… all it meant was having lunch with some other woman”

religion n theocracy:

• “Gilead is within you” (Ch5, pg29)

• “From each, say the slogan, according to her ability; to each according to his needs. We recited that, three times, after dessert. It was from the Bible, or so they said” (Ch20, pg123)

• “For every rule there is always an exception: this too can be depended upon” (Ch22, pg135)

• “There is no such thing as a sterile man any more…there are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren” (Ch8, pg67)

• “The problem wasn’t only with the women, he says. The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore” (Ch32, pg217)

• “Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some” (Ch32, pg218)

• “Already we were losing the taste for freedom, already we were finding these walls secure” (Ch22, pg139)

• “This isn’t a jail sentence; there’s no time here that can be done and finished with” (Ch31, pg205)

• “Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations” (Ch41, pg279)