jezebels

Question 1

‘your time’s running out’

Answer 1

getting old

moving on from the commander

Question 2

‘women do it frequently. all the time’

Answer 2

always corruption

have a a baby with nick

Question 3

‘he sits on the floor beside my chair, holding my hand. his head is a little below mine, so that when he looks up at me it’s at a juvenile angle’

Answer 3

sat below her

as if offred is in power

Question 4

‘men were turning off on sex, even. they were turning off on marriage’

Answer 4

pornography

oversexualisation

expectations of women

Question 5

‘you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs’

Answer 5

have to break things to create something new

women were broken in order to create gilead

Question 6

‘better never means better for everyone…it always means worse for some’

Answer 6

links to 1970s women’s working rights

bad for men since women were taking their jobs

Question 7

‘god is a national resource’

Answer 7

theocracy

political religion - lost spiritual meaning

uses god to justify the handmaids position in society

Question 8

‘it was a shredder after all’

Answer 8

something wrong with the baby

links to nazi aryan race

Question 9

‘people will doing anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning’

Question 10

‘my name’s janine. i’m your waitperson for this morning’

Answer 10

going back to before the regime

extreme psychological effects of gilead

Question 11

‘i knock on his door, hear his voice, adjust my face’

Answer 11

adjusts facial expressions to be treated nicely

feels as if she has to please the commander

Question 12

‘feathers, mauve and pink’

Answer 12

childlike colours

fantasy

Question 13

‘it’s an archaic phrase. surely there is nowhere, anymore, where a man can take a woman out’

Answer 13

how puritanical society has become

how far removed gilead is from the past - attempted to destory all remnants of the past

Question 14

‘both of us are functionaries’

Answer 14

only function in society is to tend the the commander’s desires

they are there to serve and nothing else - removes all identity and individuality from them

Question 15

‘my forehead is against his shoes…black, polished’

Answer 15

black is a symbol of power and authority

spatial deixis - head at the feet of the commander - he is clearly in power

Question 16

‘if anyone asks you’re an evening rental’

Answer 16

treated like property

can be disposed at will

Question 17

‘a movie about the past is not the same as the past’

Answer 17

doesn’t capture the accurate version of the past

commander’s fantasy

Question 18

‘the whole costume, antique and bizarre…how can this bedraggled costume appeal?’

Answer 18

things that women find attractive, men may not

different genders have different focuses

Question 19

‘just show them your tag’

Answer 19

objectified

Question 20

‘how can i expect her to go on, with my idea of her courage, live it through, act it out, when i myself do not?’

Answer 20

how can offred expect moira to rebel when she won’t even do it herself?

offred rebels vicariously through moira

we have to fight consistently for our rights - they can be taken away so quickly

we can’t rely on other people to fight for us

Question 21

‘we ascend in the glass half egg elevator’

Answer 21

reminded of her purpose in gilead every day - displays level of indoctrination

all offred thinks about is her fertility

Question 22

‘everything is the same, the very same as it was, once upon a time’

Answer 22

the past can’t be changed no matter how hard you try to erase it

uncanny

how offred and luke started - at the hotel

Question 23

‘i can’t quite believe it. surely her cockiness. her optimism and energy, her pizzazz will get her out of this’

Answer 23

hope is diminishing

getting worse

not even the most rebellious characters are able to defeat the system

Question 24

‘a bracelet, where the tattoo is, a braille he can read, a cattle brand. it means ownership’

Answer 24

tattooed - can’t go anywhere

dehumanised - animals are usually tattooed

in a position of subordination

Question 25

‘fake it, i scream at myself inside my head…let’s get this over with or you’ll be here all night’

Answer 25

pretend to enjoy herself for the commander’s sake

shows the power he yields over offred