chapter 7 Flashcards
“lie lay… I don’t really know what men used to say. I had only their words for it”
through the use of puns, atwood is making the point that language is highly significant.
this is time, nor am I out of it
Offred plays with a quotation from Marlowe’s play
Doctor Faustus, in which the devil Mephistopheles, asked how he has managed to
escape from Hell to reach Faustus’ room, replies, ‘Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.’
Moira … yellow-ended fingers
Moira … yellow-ended fingers - The description of Moira immediately suggests that
she is a resolutely unconventional young woman.
Date rape.. date rapé
Offred puns on the unpleasant idea of date rape, suggesting
instead ‘fruit (date) which has been grated (rapé) ‘. Moira’s ironic ‘Ha ha’ suggests that
she is not amused to have the serious issue treated so lightly. Date rape might well
result from the ‘freedom to’ that has now become ‘freedom from’ (see chapter 4)
- women burning books
The reaction against pornography, which degrades
women, was a central issue of the feminist movement in the 1960s, 70s and 80s,
and is still an issue today. Atwood (a Canadian writer) would be well aware of the
radical American feminist movement called Women Against Pornography (WAP)
which was especially influential in the 1980s. (The Handmaid’s Tale was published
in 1985.)
- She’s in good hands
We realise that Offred’s daughter has been taken away
from her, to be adopted by another (childless) family. The forcible removal of
children from parents whom the regime thinks are ‘unfit’ has happened under
many governments - for example, under Hitler in Nazi Germany, or in China at the
time of the Cultural Revolution, where children of ‘undesirable’ parents were sent
away to be adopted by ‘acceptable’ couple
