Identity

Question 1

‘A shape, red with white wings around the face, a shape like mine’ (pg.18)

Answer 1

Handmaids self expression is restricted by the required dress code - red symbolises their fertility this reminding them of their only role

Question 2

‘Doubled, I walk the street’ (pg.23)

Question 3

‘’The door of the room - not my room’

Answer 3

refusing to admit it is hers and this would mean she belongs to the house
her later acceptance of this room as hers could be her resigning to her her role

Question 4

‘No twin went with me, on these occasions I’m solitaire’

Answer 4

he idea of the other handmaids being her twin again suggests the lack of differentiation and also links to the uncanny

Question 5

‘I don’t want to look at something that completely determines me’

Answer 5

The fact the her body is her only determiner is dehumanising and also depicts her sole purpose is to reproduce

Question 6

‘We grip each others hands, we are no longer single’ ‘we are one smile’

Answer 6

The pronoun ‘We’ shows the collective nature of the Handmaids in this moment and the breaking down of the separation between human connection in the Gilead regime. The collective pronoun also shows how Offred and the other Handmaids have lost any sense of individuality

Question 7

‘I must forget about my secret name’

Answer 7

Offred’s identity is being erased by Gilead meaning that she is losing her individuality

Question 8

‘I am thirty three years old. I have brown hair. I stand five seven without shoes’

Answer 8

This is the only physical description Atwoof gives of Offred and is very vague again stripping her of a lot of individuality

Question 9

‘I have viable ovaries. I have one more chance’

Answer 9

Offred using it as one of her descriptors shows the importance placed on fertility by society

Question 10

‘He was actually looking at me and I didn’t like it’/ ‘He was no longer a thing to me’

Answer 10

The Commander and Offred are beginning to see each other as individuals which makes the Ceremony more awkward for both of them

Question 11

‘Siamese twins’

Answer 11

This engages with the idea of the double

Question 12

‘If your dog dies, get another’

Answer 12

This is dehumanising to the Handmaids as they are not seen as real humans just objects that can be replaced

Question 13

‘The wreath on the ceiling floating above my head, like a frozen halo, a zero’ (p.200)

Answer 13

The zero is reminiscent of Offred’s previous metaphor to the bodies on the wall, she, like them, have become nothing as they have lost their individuality

Question 14

‘We must look good…picturesque, like Dutch milkmaids’ (p.214)

Answer 14

This juxtaposes the real injustices going on in Gilead - never judge a book by its cover - Atwood has also said she was inspired by her childhood fear for a Dutch milkmaid on a cleaning product logo

Question 15

‘He slips around my wrist a tag…like the tags for airport’ (p.235)

Answer 15

Offred is being objectified as almost the Commander’s belonging again stripping her of her identity

Question 16

‘They haven’t removed the mirror’ (p.243)

Answer 16

It is important for the workers to know what they look like so they can please the men - also showing them what they have been reduced to

Question 17

‘A mangled bulb or tubular’ (p.280)

Answer 17

The man has been dehumanised and stripped of any human appearance

Question 18

Henry Jaffels theory in identity?

Answer 18

social identity examines parts of our identity which are shaped by our relationships

Question 19

‘I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued’

Answer 19

reminding herself of her die ittt allows her to resist control

Question 20

‘I tell him my real name’

Answer 20

Offreds relationship with Nick gives her some autonomy
she wants to tell him her name like when she was with the commander and felt like she needs to forget her old name
her identity is based around men

Question 21

‘they slip away from me, ghosts at daybreak…I am forgetting too much’

Answer 21

ghosts are in the past - she blames herself which is a key teaching at the red centre - she is internalising Gileads teaxhings

Question 22

‘I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am’

Answer 22

apart from her reproductive organs everything around it is shapeless - she doesn’t exist as a person only her womb exists