Key Points in Every Chapter Flashcards
1
Q
Chapter 1
3
A
Offred describes the old gymnasium where she has been sleeping with the other women on army-issue cots.
Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth keep watch, carrying cattle prods.
Although Offred and the other women are not permitted to talk, they whisper at night and tell each other their names.
2
Q
chapter 2
4
A
Offred describes a bedroom with nondescript, decor, including a plastered-over hole in the ceiling that reminds her of an empty eye socket
Offred describes the uniform of the Handmaids, including shoes, gloves, and a long modest dress. She wears white wings around her face.
Offred recounts her interaction with Rita and Cora who says she might have been a Handmaid. if she was younger and hadn’t had a sterilizing operation.
Rita gives her the food tokens and tells her to go to the shops to get fresh goods.
3
Q
chapter 3
5
A
Offred walks through the garden on the way to the shops. Offred notes that the red tulips have bloomed and look as though they’ve been cut and are healing.
Serena Joy takes care of the garden with the aid of Nick and knits elaborate scarves for the Angels at war.
Offred describes her smoking an illegal cigarette and we learn that this is her third (and last) assignment to a Commander.
Serena Joy states that this is a purely practical, business-like arrangement.
Offred recalls where she has seen Serena Joy before Gilead as a televangelist.
4
Q
Chapter 4
4
A
- Offred continues her walk to the shops, walking past Nick who winks at her. She fears he could be an Eye.
- Ofglen approaches, and they greet each other saying, “Blessed be the fruit,” and “May the Lord open.” She is worried that Ofglen might be a truly faithful Handmaid.
- The Guardians show respect to the Handmaids by saluting them. One of them looks at her face and she imagines that he might be thinking about her coming back secretly at night.
- Offred walks away in a seductive manner, enjoying the sense of power that she gains from this act.
5
Q
chapter 5
4
A
Offred and Ofglen continue shopping, passing sights like the old Harvard University.
She remembers walking here with Luke and their dreams of having children. She remembers the time when women had to take precautions with men, reflecting on Aunt Lydia’s comment that Gilead offered “freedom from” rather than “freedom to.”
They pass shops which are distinguished by images rather than signs because reading is illegal for women. They see the pregnant Janine from the Red Centre.
A group of tourists approaches them on the street wearing modern, revealing clothing which Offred finds repulsive. The interpreter, with a winged eye pin, asks for pictures which Offred refuses.
6
Q
chapter 6
3
A
The two go by the church and walk by the graveyard.
They then go to the red-brick wall that six dead men hang from, their faces covered by white bags. There are signs around their necks which indicate the reason for their execution: fetuses. Offred is glad that none of the men are Luke.
Ofglen appears to be crying beside Offred but she isn’t sure if this is real emotion or just for show.
7
Q
chapter 7
4
A
- Offred lies in bed, thinking about the difference between lie and lay. She remembers Moira before Gilead, most notably her liberal and expressive dress. She recalls that she wrote a paper on date rape.
- Offred then remembers going with her mother to see women burning books and magazines.
- She then remembers finding out about her daughter being taken away, the authorities told her that she is with a better family and showing her a picture.
- Offred wishes that she could believe “that this is a story I’m telling” because she would be able to choose the ending. She imagines the audience that she could be talking to.
8
Q
chapter 8
6
A
- The weather is warm, reminding Offred of the old days of dresses and ice cream. Her and Ofglen go to the Wall and see three new bodies hanged for ‘gender treachery’.
- As they walk away, Ofglen comments on the beautiful May Day, reminding Offred of how this used to be used in war for pilots to signal distress.
- They see a small funeral procession of Econwives with the jar of her dead fetus.
- They say goodbye, “under his eye” and Ofglen looks like she wants to say something else but refrains.
- Offred sees Serena Joy sitting in the garden, imagining that she must be angry now that she can’t give speeches.
- When she returns to her room, the Commander is stood outside but walks away when she arrives.
9
Q
chapter 9
2
A
- In her room, Offred thinks about the previous Handmaid. She explores the details of the room and sees the message “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” Although she doesn’t know the meaning, she is happy to receive the message.
- She asks Rita about the previous Handmaid and pretended to know her, mentioning her freckles. Rita refused to explain why she left.
10
Q
chapter 10
5
A
- Offred sings “Amazing Grace,” a song now banned for the word “free.” She then sings a song about loneliness that she remembers from her mother’s cassettes. She sometimes hears Serena Joy listening to illegal recordings of herself.
- It’s hot so Offred will soon be able to wear cotton summer dresses. She remembers Aunt Lydia disdaining the scantily-clad women of the past, whom she said looked like cooking meat.
- As she speaks of the past, Aunt Lydia begins to cry, saying that she is trying to do the best for the Handmaids.
- Offred recalls Moira again, remembering how she planned an ‘underwhore’ party. In the present day, she muses about how she and others ignored the gradual changes that lead to Gilead, including the discoveries of the beaten corpses of women. She thinks about how easy it is to ignore bad things when they happen to other people.
- She sits with a ‘faith’ cushion and sees the Commander and Nick, not being able to figure out her emotions towards him.
11
Q
chapter 11
A
- Offred went to see the doctor for her regular monthly checkup. She remembers the event in the present tense.
- A Guardian with a red armband escorts her. In the examination room, there is a red screen with an eye painted on it. There is a sheet that blocks the doctor’s view of her face.
- He is more talkative and calls her “honey” before offering to help her and touching her sexually. He says that many Commanders are sterile (a forbidden word) and says that he could get her pregnant instead. Although she doesn’t accept, she realises that she is afraid of the opportunity to change her life.
12
Q
chapter 12
7
A
-Offred takes a bath which has no mirrors, razors, locks, or other items which could allow the possibility of suicide.
- Cora sits outside. Offred feels strange to be naked and see her body because it is “something that determines me so completely.”
- In a flashback, she remembers her daughter as a baby and remembers when a stranger tries to steal her at the supermarket. Luke dismissed the woman as crazy.
- She then remembers how Luke liked to tease Offred’s mother about the differences between the sexes.
- She wonders if her daughter can remember her. She would be 8 now. She thinks that it is better to imagine her daughter as dead, which is less painful than hope.
- Cora brings Offred dinner. She is pleased that she bothers to knock at the door. Rita has overcooked the chicken to show her dislike of Offred.
- Offred imagines the luxury and freedom of Serena Joy’s dinner downstairs. She saves a piece of butter for later.
13
Q
chapter 13
5
A
- Offred thinks about how she has too much blank time, wishing she could have a hobby.
- Offred remembers Moira’s arrival at the Rachel and Leah Centre, three weeks after her own. They try to be subtle about their friendship but manage to schedule an appointment to talk in the bathroom, at 2.30 during Testifying.
- Offred remembers the previous week when Janine began crying and the others called her a crybaby. She then admits that it is all her fault.
- In one stall, there’s a peephole where she manages to make contact with Moira.
- Back in present time, Offred thinks about her body and her failure to become pregnant. She remembers running through the woods with her daughter, whom she drugged to be quiet. Shots are fired behind her, so she drops and protects her daughter, momentarily fascinated by a red leaf. She loses her consciousness, feeling her daughter pulling away.
14
Q
chapter 14
4
A
- Offred goes downstairs, passing an eye-like mirror. She kneels in the sitting room which is decorated in Serena Joy’s mixed style of quality and sentimentality. Her perfume, lily of the valley, makes her feel sick.
- Cora, Rita and Nick enter, his foot touches Offred’s and moves towards her again.
- The Commander is late, so Serena Joy turns on the TV news, Offred is unsure as to whether this footage is actuality or fake.
- Offred remembers when she had her old name, getting into a car with her daughter and Luke as they secretly planned to escape to Canada, with fake passports prepared.
15
Q
chapter 15
4
A
- The grey-haired Commander arrives, wearing a black suit. He unlocks the Bible from its box and begins to read. Offred recognises his power.
- Offred remembers meeting up again with Moira in the bathroom. Moira planned to escape by pretending to be sick and seducing the ambulance drivers.
- In the present time, the Commander finishes reading. Serena Joy cries silently.
- Offred remembers seeing Moira carried to an ambulance for appendicitis but right afterward she was dragged back into the Rachel and Leah Centre and the staff tortured her feet.
16
Q
chapter 16
2
A
- Offred lies on her back on Serena Joy’s canopy bed, clothed except for her underwear. She lies between Serena Joy’s legs and they hold hands. The Commander has sex with her lower body, in an impersonal style.
- After finishing, he leaves quickly which Offred finds amusing. Serena Joy makes her leave immediately, although she is supposed to lie down for 10 minutes to increase the chances of conception.
17
Q
chapter 17
5
A
- Offred returns to her bedroom and uses the butter as a face moisturizer.
- She lies in bed, imagining the plastered eye in the ceiling staring at her.
- She misses Luke and decides to steal something. She walks downstairs carefully and resolves to steal a daffodil.
- She hears Nick who is also breaking the rules. They touch each other but she longs to do more.
- He tells her that she has to go to see the Commander tomorrow.
18
Q
chapter 18
5
A
- Offred lies in bed, disturbed by her encounter with Nick. She remembers spending time with Luke when she was pregnant.
- She believes in several different fates for Luke. First, she sees him as a corpse lying in the forest, hoping for a quick death from a bullet.
- Then she imagines him alive in prison, with a gash as red as tulips on his face.
- Finally, she imagines him safely over the border, making contact with a resistance movement and finding a way to rescue her and keep their daughter.
- She believes in all these possibilities for Luke at once, or else she feels that she can’t believe in anything.
19
Q
chapter 19
5
A
- Offred dreams that she has seen and picked up her daughter. When she wakes up, she wonders if she has been drugged. She slowly eats breakfast, noting that her eggcup looks like a skirt and takes pleasure in looking at the egg.
- A birthmobile arrives to pick her up as the Handmaids and wives go to Ofwarren’s birth. The probability of her delivering a healthy, living, normal-bodies baby is just one in four, because of the problems that lead to sterility.
- Offred remembers the Rachel and Leah center. Aunt Lydia explained that some women self-sterilized because they thought the world was ending. As she talks about the importance of the Handmaids, Offred wants to kill her.
- In the present day, the birthmobile arrives and we learn that Ofwarren is Janine.
- Women must give birth without painkillers or medical intervention because that is what is in the Bible.
20
Q
chapter 20
5
A
- Offred sees the birthday buffet laid out for the Wives.
- The wife of Warren lies on the floor as though she’s also about to give birth. Aunt Elizabeth helps Ofwarren.
- Offred has a flashback to the Rachel and Leah Centre, remembering the weekly films time where Aunt Lydia showed sadistic porn films and even a film of a woman being killed. She also shows films of Unwomen, feminists in this context, but without the volume, so the Handmaids cannot hear their ideas.
- In one of these films, Offred saw her mother. This memory leads to another flashback of her mother talking about her decision to have a baby. She remembers how her mother and Luke would argue over dinner. Her mother joked most of the time but she also stressed the fact that young people did not understand the sacrifices of other feminists and cried about how lonely she had been.
- Offred feels that her mother put a burden on her to justify her mother’s existence. She longs to have everything like it was.
21
Q
chapter 21
6
A
- At Janine’s birth room, there is an animalistic smell. The Handmaids chant and breathe together.
- Offred asks about Moira but no one has heard anything of her. Offred also feels pain like she too is going to give birth.
- As Janine starts to scream, Aunt Elizabeth prepares the two-seat birthing stool.
- The Handmaids feel as though they are one with Janine as the baby comes out. Offred remembers hers and Luke’s joy at the birth of their daughter.
- Warren’s wife lies on the bed, holding the baby, naming her Angela.
- The Handmaids are taken home and Offred ponders her own lack of success.
22
Q
chapter 22
2
A
- Offred goes to her room, exhausted. She flashbacks to Moira’s great escape from the Rachel and Leah Centre where she managed to block the toilet and called in Aunt Elizabeth before threatening her and stealing her uniform to leave without scrutiny.
- The story serves as a secret source of strength for the Handmaids as Moira has never been found.
23
Q
chapter 23
4
A
- In the present time, Offred muses about how all her memories are reconstructions.
- Offred tells the reader that the Commander asked her to kiss him, before going on to an explanatory flashback.
- After dinner, she goes to meet the Commander in his office where he says that he wants to play scrabble with her.
- Offred wins the game at first, then she lets him win. In the end, the Commander thanks Offred and asks her to kiss him. He asks for one that seems more meaningful and looks sad.
24
Q
chapter 24
4
A
- Offred goes back to bed, we learn basic facts about her including her hair colour, age, and height.
-Offred realises that she now has the power to ask the Commander for things. - She remembers a documentary about WWII that she saw as a child. She muses about how normal all the Nazi behaviours must have seemed to those living there.
- Offred starts laughing uncontrollably and ends up hiding in the closet to keep quiet.
25
Q
chapter 25
4
A
- Offred wakes up suddenly when Cora drops the breakfast tray. She had fallen asleep in the closet which alarms her. She says that she fainted which causes Cora to be excited about the prospect of pregnancy.
- The narrative jumps forward to the summertime where Offred sees Serena Joy cutting off the tulips’ seed pods, destroying the fruit to make next year’s flowers better. Offred wishes she had the shears.
- Offred and the Commander continue to meet in secret, when Nick signals, either by polishing the car when Offred walks by or wearing his hat incorrectly.
- The Commander gave Offred a Vogue magazine to read. On their third meeting, Offred requested lotion which he offered to keep in his office.
26
Q
chapter 26
5
A
- Offred found the next ceremony awkward as she felt self-conscious and shy about her body.
- She enjoyed her small power over Serena Joy but also feels guilty and jealous.
- At one point during the ceremony, the Commander seemed to try to touch Offred’s face, and later she warned him to be careful.
- Aunt Lydia said that in future generations, there will be enough Handmaids to stay in each household and live like a family.
- Offred feels that she’s become a traditional type mistress to the Commander.
27
Q
chapter 27
4
A
- Offred and Ofglen go shopping on a hot summer day. Ofglen has become more familiar and slightly outgoing.
- The Handmaids pass a chain store called Soul Scrolls. Customers, including Serena Joy, can remotely order one of five prayers, which the machines pronounce aloud and print onto paper.
- Both admit that they thought the other was a true believer. Offred is happy to learn that Ofglen is a rebel and that there is a secret, organized Resistance.
- The two fearfully watch the approach of a black van with the winged eye symbol painted onto it. Two Eyes come out, grab a man on the street, knock him out and put him in the van. She is relieved that they didn’t come for her.
28
Q
chapter 28
9
A
- Offred delves into a specific memory of talking to Moira, talking about how they couldn’t create the perfect life by ignoring men. They laugh about how they sounded like Offred’s mother.
- Offred ponders about the fact that millions of women used to have jobs.
- She thinks about how Gilead took over. At first, the president was killed and ‘Islamic fanatics’ were blamed.
- Offred was shocked at the sudden collapse of the government, but Moira understood that there were deeper goals than chaos.
- Offred’s boss at the library fired her and all the other female employees, saying that the law required him to.
- There were small protest marches after but they were quickly controlled by the army shooting all the protesters.
- Offred goes back further to remember a time from being a teenager when her mother came back from a march about abortions.
- Back in present time, Offred watches Nick go out into the garden, seeing his hat askew meaning that she will meet the Commander later.
- Offred remembers back to the day she lost her job when Luke wanted to have sex but she didn’t. She felt the power balance had shifted, that she was now in Luke’s possession.
29
Q
chapter 29
4
A
- Offred plays scrabble in the Commander’s office, she finds him friendlier than Luke.
- She asks him about what the Latin phrase means and he explains that it means ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down.’
- Offred simply asks what became of the Handmaid before her. He tells her that she hanged herself and Cora found her.
- Offred realises that the Commander has been spending time with her to raise her spirits, so she wouldn’t do the same as the previous Handmaid. She realises that his own guilt is motivating his kindness.
30
Q
chapter 30
4
A
- Offred sits by the window. She sees Nick in the garden and he sees her in the window, a moment she sees as romantic. She knows that Nick and Luke can’t be substituted for one another.
- Offred remembers their escape attempt with Luke and their daughter, recalling how Luke had to kill their cat before they left.
- In current time, she prays out of the window, acknowledging how God would not have wanted this.
- She thinks about how she could hang herself on the closet and wishes God would respond, feeling very alone.
31
Q
chapter 31
4
A
- Offred and Ofglen fo shopping. There are dead bodies on the wall, killed for their belongings to the wrong religions.
- Ofglen tells Offred about the Resistance movement’s password ‘mayday’.
- Serena Joy calls Offred as she walks by. She tells her that she is running out of time for a baby, and then suggests that the Commander may be infertile so she should try with another man.
- Offred asks about the Commander and she says that it will be secret. Although it is risky, she agrees.
- Serena Joy offers to obtain a picture of her daughter. She gives Offred a cigarette and tells her to get a match from Rita.
32
Q
chapter 32
A
- Rita is annoyed by the request for the match but won’t disobey Serena Joy’s instructions. She considers saving the match to burn the house down.
- She flashes back to the previous night. Ofglen told Offred that the Commander is very high ranking. He explained that one of the problems before Gilead was that the men didn’t have feelings anymore.
- The Commander asks Offred’s opinion on what Gilead has done.
- She lets him know her feelings by asking if he considers Gilead better. The Commander explains that “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”
33
Q
chapter 33
3
A
- Offred and Ofglen walk to the Women’s Prayvaganza, and she is aware of how identical they look.
- Ofglen points out that Janine is with a new Wife because the baby girl turned out to be a ‘Shredder.’
- Offred goes back into a flashback from the Rachel and Leah centre. Janine sat on the bed in a trance, whispering greetings like a waitress. Moira slapped her to try to bring her back to the present, telling her she’d get killed for such behaviour.
34
Q
chapter 34
7
A
- Back in the present day, the Commander in charge of the Prayvaganza enters. he gives a speech and then twenty blue-clad mothers give twenty white-veiled daughters in arranged marriages to Angels.
- Offred flashes back to an evening with the Commander when he explained that Gilead actually made things better for women, saying that women no longer had to worry about finding a husband or fitting a certain standard of beauty.
- He asks what the authorities left out and she said love. In response, the Commander claims that the Gileadean system is more natural.
- The Commander in charge of the ceremony reads from the Bible about how women must be modest and silent and kept under man’s authority since Eve lead Adam astray.
- She flashes back to the Rachel and Leah Centre, remembering when Moira made fun of her words, insinuating that she had made Janine into a sex slave.
- Back at the Prayvaganza, Offred realises that Moira was right to make fun of the powerful.
- In the ceremony, Ofglen whispers to Offred that she knows about her secret meetings with the Commander. She tells her to learn anything she can, and report back.
35
Q
chapter 35
4
A
- Offred goes back into the flashback of their failed escape attempt across the Canadian border. They gave fake passports, which covered up Luke’s past divorce to a border guard but sped away after seeing him call someone.
- They stopped by the side of the road and desperately ran into the woods with their daughter. Offred breaks off the story there, saying she doesn’t want to tell the story. She thinks about the futility of the previous Handmaid’s Latin slogan.
- She then thinks about her conversation with the Commander about love, thinking that it is hard to remember the feeling of being in love. She cries and asks the audience for forgiveness for being nostalgic.
- Serena Joy knocks at the door with a photo of her daughter, looking tall in a white dress. Offred doesn’t see in the photo any signs that he daughter has remembered her, and wishes that she hadn’t seen the photo.
36
Q
chapter 36
3
A
- At night, Offred goes to see the Commander who seems already drunk. He says he has a surprise for her and presents her with a skimpy sequined leotard as a disguise so they can go out.
- Nick drives them both and she worries about what he is thinking. He makes Offred hide on the car floor to a place where Wives are prohibited. They go through the back entrance, and Offred understands that the Commander has been there before.
- The Commander tells Offred to pretend that she is an evening rental.
37
Q
chapter 37
3
A
- The enter the courtyard of what used to be a hotel. The Commander thinks it looks like the past and explains that men naturally need different women.
- He tells her that the men are high-ranking officials and foreign businessmen.
- He encourages her to have a drink. She sees Moira across the room, wearing a slutty animal costume. They gesture to each other to meet in the bathroom in five minutes.
38
Q
chapter 38
5
A
- An Aunt with a cattle prod tells Offred she has fifteen minutes. Moira comes out of the bathroom and hugs Offred.
- Over the course of two bathroom trips, they exchange stories with each other.
- Moira made it to Maine but someone tipped off the authorities and they came for her and the couple helping her. Aunt Lydia enjoyed torturing her. In the Eyes’ van, she said that she wanted to commit suicide but was unable to.
- They showed her videos of the Colonies and she picked Jezebel’s over the Colonies.
- Offred notices that Moira has lost her bravery and spark. She wishes that she could tell a story about her managing to escape but she doesn’t know what came of her since they never saw each other again.
39
Q
chapter 39
2
A
- The Commander brings Offred up to a hotel room. She flashes back to the conversation between her and Moira where she mentioned that she saw her mother in one of the videos of the colonies.
- Back in the hotel room, Offred looks in the mirror at her garish outfit. Tomorrow is the ceremony, so she must be back by midnight to have sex with Nick. She exits the bathroom and joins the Commander on the bed. She finds him disappointing and she tries to fake arousal.
40
Q
chapter 40
A
- Serena Joy comes in at midnight to lead her to Nick’s apartment. The two are overwhelmed with love and passion.
- Offred backs up, saying “I made that up.” She then gives the real version of events. He looks at her seriously and she feels judged. He comforts her, brings her to the bed and kisses her, telling her “no romance.”
- Offred says it wasn’t like that either. She feels like she betrayed Luke by responding so enthusiastically.
41
Q
chapter 41
5
A
- Offred wishes her story made her seem better. She apologises for her painful and disjointed story, imagining the audience into existence.
- She describes how she started to spend a lot of time with Nick without Serena Joy’s endorsement, sometimes just after seeing the Commander.
- Offred trusts Nick and tells him everything (except about Luke).
- On shopping trips, Ofglen encourages to find out whatever she can and look through the Commander’s papers.
- Offred thinks she might be pregnant and remembers that Cora thinks so too. Offred is relieved when Ofglen stops pushing her to help with the Resistance.
42
Q
chapter 42
2
A
- The Handmaids enter Harvard’s campus for a district Salvaging. Aunt Lydia comes onto the stage and Offred hates her. She gives a speech about duty and says she will not let them know about what the women did wrong to avoid copycat crimes.
- The Salvagers prepare to hang OfCharles. As the women are hanged, the Handmaids in the audience put their hands on a rope in the grass connected to a noose, to show that they’re taking part, to show that they’re taking part in the execution.
43
Q
chapter 43
3
A
- Offred notices how the three hanged women look like dancers in the air. Aunt Lydia instructs them to form a circle, acting as though she’s giving them a gift.
- The Particicution begins as a man is dragged to the center. The Handmaids are enraged and Offred viciously attacks him.
- When Offred returns home, she’s hungry and wants to have sex
44
Q
chapter 44
3
A
- Offred goes shopping. The Ofglen who accompanies her is not the same one.
- Offred subtly mentions the resistance to which Ofglen does not respond well and warns her about saying such things.
- Ofglen whispers that the old Ofglen hangs herself when she saw the Eyes’ van approaching.
45
Q
chapter 45
3
A
- Offred is relieved that Ofglen killed herself before torture which means her secrets are safe.
- Serena Joy comes angrily out of the house and Offred knows she is in trouble. Serena Joy states that she found her cloak with makeup smeared on it so she knows what happened. She orders her to go upstairs and calls her a slut.
- Nick has stopped whistling.
46
Q
chapter 46
6
A
- Offred waits for punishment in her room. She imagines how she could set fire to the house and kill herself that way.
- She sees a black van with the winged eye logo coming to the house. She regrets not having killed herself.
- Nick enters the room and she believes that he has betrayed her. He informs her that the Eyes accompanying the van are a part of Mayday so she should trust him.
- Serena Joy and the Commander look surprised and they are worried that Offred has betrayed them.
- Cora cries and Offred remembers how much she wanted a baby.
- Offred leaves into an uncertain fate.
47
Q
chapter 47 (historical notes)
4
A
- Transcript of a conversation from a 2195 conference on Gilead.
- Professor Pieixoto discusses how the now well-known tale was found.
- He talks about their search for evidence and the causes of Gilead.
- He closes the conference with some poetic musings on the past, calling Offred’s narrative eloquent and talking about the difficulties in understanding messages from the past.
