chapter summary and analysis

Question 1

Epigraph-Jonathan swift,A modern proposal satirical essay

Answer 1

Swift uses real research and twists it so that it is far from the truth even though it is an unthinkable solution.Atwood does the same-she acknowledges her novel is satirical

Question 2

Epigraph-Genesis 30:1-3

Answer 2

-provides the biblical precedent for sexual practices in Gilead.
-feminist critique of a patriarchal society in which women are regarded as nothing but sexual commodities.

Question 3

Epigraph-sufi proverb

Answer 3

-suggests that in the natural world,the human instinct for survival can be trusted.It is a comment on the polluted world of Gilead where the balance of nature has been destroyed

Question 4

Dedication-Mary Webster and Perry Miller

Answer 4

Mary webster-atwood’s puritan ancestor-A03-puritan is associated with strict moral codes.
Perry Miller-director of american studies at harvard university
(contrast between traditional values and normal life-contrast between the seen and the unseen).

Question 5

Chapter 1 summary

Answer 5

The narrator describes a former gymnasisum that appears now to be like a women’s prison,patrolled by ‘Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth’ and guarded by ‘Angels’.

Question 6

Chapter 1 Analysis-confusion and fear

Answer 6

This dislocated opening emphasises the confusion and fear that characterises any totalitarian state.The sheets ‘still said US’’ suggesting that while the location is familiar,’U.S’ is no longer it’s name.This was Harvard which has undergone a transformation.

Question 7

Chapter 1 Analysis-Regime and resistance

Answer 7

evokes regimental discipline with aunts on patrol.
narrator’s ability to find ways of resisting the system of control
despite the strict living conditions,the women still have mental freedom to reminisce about the past and yearn for a different future.

Question 8

Chapters 2-3 summary

Answer 8

offred describes her red costume,her position and the layout of the house that belongs to the commander and his wife.
offred is assigned to do shopping.

Question 9

2-3-life as a handmaid

Answer 9

Offred describes a room.she refuses to think of it as ‘my room’.Offred’s actions follow a prescribed pattern,with time ‘measured by bells,as once in nunneries’’.

Question 10

2-3-the commander’s wife

Answer 10

Atwood draws a clear contrast between the two women-one young dressed in red and the other elderly dressed in blue.The rigid colour coding indicated that in this society their individual identities are lost to prescribed roles.

Question 11

Summary-C4-6

Answer 11

Offred sees Nick,the chauffuer.He winks at her and she wonders why.Offred meets Ofglen her shopping companion.
Offred makes a small gesture of defiance by teasing the guards.

Question 12

Summary-C4-6

Answer 12

offred recognises the university town they go to the shops in as she lived there with luke-her former husband and her child she yearns for them

Question 13

Summary-C4-6-significant encounters

Answer 13

1-preganant handmaid ofwarren
2-japanese tourists
in ch6 the handmaids pass the old landmarks and pause to stare at the hooded dead bodies of dissidents that are hanging from the wall.

Question 14

C4-6-analysis-slaves or dissidents

Answer 14

Offres,Ofglen and Ofwarren’s names symbolise their status as slaves to masters whose names they bear.

Question 15

C4-6-analysis-a repressive atmosphere

Answer 15

The handmaid’s walk to the shops presents the odd mixture of familiar and unfamiliar which characterizes Gileadean society,where ordinary domesticity and military regimentation exist side by side.Gilead’s double image of Christianity is confirmed in the visit to the churchyard and the wall.Offred determines to try and stay sane under this tyranny by refusing to believe in the distorted versions of reality which Gilead is trying to impose.

Question 15

chapter 7 summary

Answer 15

Offred remembers her college friend moira and her mother and her lost child.She comments on her relationship to the story she is telling and her uncertainty about who she is addressing,or whether her story will ever be heard.

Question 16

C7 analysis-private memories

Answer 16

Offred relives memories of the three most influential female figures in her life-her mother,moira and her daughter-Offred explains that storytelling is a survival tool.Atwood makes it clear that Offred’s private memories are a source of strength.Atwood gives her protagonist an imaginative outlet from the system of rigid behavioural controls.

Question 16

C8-10-small suprises

Answer 16

offred is alert to minor deviations from conformitydaily life-‘dishtowels’-these items are ‘the same as they always were’ and in a world where so much has changed.

Question 16

C8-10 summary

Answer 16

-serena joy’s history
-new commander looks in offred’s room and attempts to look in her face
-offred recalls ‘nolite te bastardes carborundorum’.

Question 16

C7 Analysis-Storytelling

Answer 16

Offred says at the end of this chapter that this is a oral narrative which might make us question how this story has survived and taken on a written form.
In the context of her loneliness and the loss of her daughter,her insistance that ‘you don’t tell a story only to yourself.there’s always someone else’ speaks of a desire to connect and communicate and of a hunger for friendship and love.

Question 17

C8-10 A03-faith

Answer 17

faith is one of the three primary christian graces-‘faith’ is embroidered on a ‘hard little cushion’ in offred’s room

Question 18

C8-10 A03-amazing grace

Answer 18

In chapter 10,Offred sings snatches of hymns like ‘amazing grace’-to relieve her boredom,such songs are outlawed.

Question 19

C11-12 summary

Answer 19

offred describes her visit to the doctor for her monthly check-up to assess her reproductive fitness.The doctor offers to give her a baby but offred refuses.

Question 20

C11-12-offred’s body

Answer 20

at her medical check up,offred feels like a dismembered body with only her torso on display and her face hidden.when the doctor offers to give her a baby she rejects because ‘the penalty is death’ she also fears that he may be a sexual exploiter trying to coerce her into a power game in