Identity Flashcards
How is identity defined?
Our sense of who we are and can be shaped by our values, relationships, and affiliations.
What can shape ones identity?
Politics
Friends
Gender
Class
Hobbies
Class
Education
Where you live
Job
Religion
Favourite sports
These also make us become part of a group.
What affects identity in Gilead?
Taking away control is one of the key ways Gilead maintains control.
The loss of identity in women represents loss of power on a very fundamental level.
Without identity, there is no basis for individuality; it becomes easier to dehumanise someone.
In the essay, ‘Identity, Complicity and Resistance’ by Stillman and Johnson, how do they say Gilead uses identity?
“Gilead also adopts measures specifically aimed against women, their individuality and their identity.”
How do Handmaids lose identity?
Gilead’s policies make it so a person’s identity is limited to their prescribed societal role.
Offred is described as a, ‘Two-legged womb’ - Chapter 23
The things the Handmaids are prohibited from doing (e.g. having hobbies, owning possessions, being called by their name, having friends etc.) are all restrictions Gilead has placed in order to prevent them from having identities outside their procreative abilities.
Offred’s name
Offred’s name references the colour red which is an allusion to the red dress that Handmaids are required to wear, further tying her identity to that of a Handmaid.
Offred is also a pun on the word ‘offered’, which symbolises that she is a sacrifice or an offering.
How does Offred resist Gilead’s control?
Offred connects her name with being, ‘valued.’
By remembering her name and old life, she is privately resisting Gilead’s control and reminding herself of her individuality.
‘I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable.’ Chapter 17
Offred making mental notes on herself - Chapter 24
‘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.’
Offred forgetting her identity
She mentions she cant remember what she used to look like, even if she does describe and recall small things about herself.
By describing herself as, ‘viable ovaries’ the only part of her that is valuable in Gilead, Offred is reducing her identity to her reproduction.
Offred shows that forgetting her old identity as a person is crucial to her survival, not being sent to the Colonies.
What are ways Offred loses her identity?
Memories - Gilead uses this method to dehumanise and control the Handmaid, by making them forget their relationships, they are forced to adhere to their societal roles.
Friendships - Handmaids are prohibited from establishing new friendships. Without a social group, this aspect of social support and parts of their identities are taken away as well.
Clothes - A persons clothes are a form of self-expression and identity yet Handmaids are only allowed to wear a red dress with a white bonnet, therefore their sense of self-expression is limited and their identity is restricted.
Space - Handmaids are not allowed to occupy or won their own space, which dehumanises them and erases their identity.
Activities - Handmaids are only allowed to do activities that reinforce their identities as Handmaids, specifically they are allowed to practice birthing techniques.
Physical Self/Body - Offred expresses her resignation to her role as a Handmaid through using imagery to convey her sense of shapelessness. This shows that she doesn’t feel like a person and is losing her sense of identity. She also realises that by resigning to this idea, she is able to stay alive.
