Handmaid's Tale Quotes:

Question 1

Quotes about being monsters etc about the regime as a whole:

Answer 1

• A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze
• He was not a monster, to her.
• ‘a darkness which is composed of women’ …‘Below it the commander is fucking (…) i do not say making love because that is not what he is doing (…) nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here which i didn’t sign up for’
• they had electric cattle prods (…) no guns though’
• ‘He lives here, in the household, over the garage. Low status: Hasn’t been issued a wife yet, not even one. He doesn’t rate: some defect, lack of connections’

Question 2

Description of characters:

Answer 2

•‘nun dipped in blood’
•‘impair her vision’
•‘white wings hide her face’
•‘I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.’
•He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, offkey, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.
he has a French face, lean, whimsical, al planes and angles, with creases around the mouth where he smiles (…) then he winks’
•‘a light blue (…) veil is thrown over her wide gardening hat’,

Question 3

Chapter 1

Answer 3

• ‘we slept in what once had been the gymnasium’
• ‘later in miniskirts, and then one earring, spiky green streaked hair’
• ‘old ones that still said the US’
• ‘Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June’
• ‘Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth’
• ‘the angels stood outside it with their backs to us’
• ‘they still had their bodies

Question 4

Nightime/ historical note stuff

Answer 4

• night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will, as long as I am quiet’
• ‘where shall I go?
• ‘department of Caucasian Anthropology
• • ‘as long as we do this, butter our skin to keep it soft, we can believe that we will get out, that we will be touched again, in love or desire’
• ‘Something for them to order and maintain and care for’

Question 5

reliable narrator?

Answer 5

• ‘love it’s been so long, I’m alive in my skin, again, arms around him, falling and water softly everywhere, never ending’
• ‘says nothing, just looks at me unsmiling’
• not sure how it happened’ – ‘the way love feels is always only approximate’
• ‘I’m telling the story, then I have control over the ending’
• I am thirty-three years old. I have brown hair. I stand five seven without shoes. I have trouble remembering what I used to look like. I have viable ovaries. I have one more chance

Question 6

Ending

Answer 6

• ‘there’s nobody in the garden’
• ‘its reddish already’ ‘light is fading’
• ‘in my lap is a handful of crumpled stars’
• ‘you like back in the snow like an angel made my children and go to sleep’
• ‘your life has value to no-one’
• ‘trust me’ ‘its all im left with’
• ‘I am above him, looking down, he is shrinking’
• ‘and I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light’