The Handmaid's Tale- C31

The Handmaid's Tale- C31

1. summary

   • Offred wishes she could have a petty argument with Luke
     • Offred and Ofglen go shopping. There are two dead bodies on the Wall, killed for belonging to the wrong religions. Many Jewish people, renamed Sons of Jacob by Gilead, were able to immigrate to Israel, but those who stayed and didn’t convert were being found and killed.
       • Ofglen tells Offred about the Resistance movement’s password, “Mayday,” which Ofglen had once tried saying to Offred. The Handmaids return home, and Nick’s crooked hat signals to Offred that she’ll have a nighttime meeting with the Commander.
         • Serena Joy asks Offred to hold her wool, explaining that Offred needs air. The curse serena says surprises Offred. Offred respects Serena Joy’s determination to knit, despite her arthritic hands.
           • Serena Joy tells Offred that she’s running out of time for a baby, and suggests that perhaps the Commander “can’t.” The women make eye contact, and Serena suggests that Offred try with another man. Offred points out the illegality of such an action. Thinks Nick might be suitable.
             • it’ll be a secret. Offred says it’s risky, but agrees quickly. Serena Joy encourages Offred by offering to obtain a picture of Offred’s daughter. Offred is powerfully angry and hopeful at once. Serena gives Offred a cigarette

2. narrator

   • feels like Gilead is like one big nightmare 'i will wake up in my own house..'
   • 'my body gradually seizing up, refusing'- feels like her body is giving up, regime is so taxing
   • has 'attack of sentimentality' and some days she does 'appreciate things more'
   • feels like regime is so serious and intense she wishes to argue to luke about something 'unimportant in the big scheme of things' she even 'scripts whole fights'
   • doesn't like 'grudeholding against the past'
   • 'i find it hard to believe in these whisperings'- feels it impossible for there to be so many people connected who resist
   • believes Gilead is a distortion 'a hangover from a version of reality'
   • Offred’s amusing flashback to her mother’s fiddling with safety pins recalls Offred’s wish for a more conventional mother. For a moment, it’s Serena Joy.

3. other characters

   • Offred misses Luke so much that she even wishes to have the bad parts of the past back 'thats what i want. an argument'
   • Ofglen and Offred now go out of their way so they can talk to each other and it has become a routine 'as usual for some open space' but it is 'amputated speech
   • ofglen 'tried' the password on offred 'once', of glen is smart 'isn't good for us to know about too many of the others'
   • Nick doesn't always push limits 'walks briskly off' once offred has seen signal
   • serena is knitting in the heat and offred thinks she 'possibly feels nothing, like one formerly scalded'- implying her past/regime has done to her
   • serena talks to offred impersonally and without respect 'yes, you' 'come over here. i want you' imperative
   • serena is predatory, puts 'skein of wool' over offred's hands 'leashed' 'manacles, cobwebbed'
   • serena could be having a dip/breakdown maybe knitting is 'medically prescribed'
   • O's mother used to collect 'safety pins' but forget about the chains and would be 'remnants of some lost intention'
   • O recognises that her and serena don't have 'much common ground, except' the anticipation of pregnancy
   • serena may only want offred to have a baby so she doesn't have any more 'humiliating sweaty tangles'
   • when serena and O agree about commander they 'look into each other;s eyes' for the 'first time'- seeing eye to eye
   • serena and offred have a moment where they are 'cronies' while discussing their plan 'some girlish stratagem'
   • serena gets others to do her dirty work, nick does her 'black-market errands for her'

4. plot development

   • serena uses a 'swear word' 'damn'
   • serena points out how offred's time 'is running out'- her fertility may go down or she may be transferred
   • serena has a 'weakness' 'her hands are getting worse' but offred doesn't offer help for Serena's sake
   • commander may be infertile 'maybe he can't'
   • serena suggests he has a baby with nick
   • serena offers O a picture of her daughter, she feels betrayed that serena didn't tell her any 'news'

5. setting

   • 'still summer' 'breathless days and sauna nights' 'hard to sleep'
   • to talk to each other they go to an 'open park' 'large old building on it, ornate late victorian, with stained glass'
   • commander's house seems perfect 'slabs of evergreen lawn'

6. themes

   • fertility- regime has 'labour day' but it is about 'mothers' now instead
   • rebellion- 'the grapevine' of rebels and 'theres a password'
   • gender roles- only women are blamed for infertility 'it's only women who can't...closed, damaged, defective' triadic asyndetic list
   • rebellion- serena and O planning to rebel by O having a baby with nick

7. literary devices

   • simile 'my bones leached of calcium and porous as limestone'- regime ageing and depleting her
   • metaphor wreath is 'a ring on water, where a stones been thrown'- there as a result is something destructive and disturbing
   • alliteration 'crisp cool cotton'- serena seems put together
   • adverbial of time 'all the time' to take fear out of having sex with nick
   • tag question 'will we?'- serena talking to O
   • juxtaposition triadic list 'sooner or later, one way or another..'

8. dystopian features

   • Gilead/regime is worse than prison 'there's no time here that can be done and finished with'- never ending
   • regime 'abolished' independence day, doesn't want people to feel connected to old lives/ make them feel independent
   • Offred feels like she's 'very old' even though she isn't- regime is ageing them
   • regime is machine like 'geometrical days which go around and around, smoothly and oiled'- repetitive and rigid in nature
   • 'other sect i don't recognise' there are so many crimes in regime
   • made jewish immegrants look like they were actually leaving on TV and looked 'as if they were posing'
   • offred will get help from serena to have a baby with nick secretly to make sure 'nothing went wrong' suggesting there are authority figures on the look out

9. context

   • feminism- moira knew lots of the things that went on, in 'earlier days of the university. if a woman went in there, they'd throw buns at her'
   • Harvard’s formerly single-sex education system illustrates how the world of Gilead and the real world aren’t so far apart. The sexism in the novel, even the law that women aren’t allowed to read, is unfortunately common in world history.