Offred

Question 1

offred

Answer 1

protagonist and first person narrator

of fred- Offred

around 33

Question 2

her thoughts

Answer 2

often rebellious, even violent, and are full of passionate memories.

She seems stolid and devout to outsiders

“I try not to think too much”

Question 3

passive

Answer 3

her keen observations and honest emotions, even after the terror and brainwashing, demonstrate the limitations of Gilead’s power over its subject

“I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there”

Question 4

storytelling

Answer 4

“I would like to believe this is a story I am telling”

shows her mixed feelings about remembering and storytelling

she knows it’s basically useless, but it gives her hope, freedom and comfort

“it’s lack of love we die from”

Question 5

her body

Answer 5

“I avoid looking down at my body (…) I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely”

she tries to ignore how Gilead has reduced her body to an object- shows she has internalised Gileadean attitudes

Question 6

beginning of book

Answer 6

Offred shows us the importance of hierarchy and status

Question 7

small rebellions

Answer 7

telling each other their names at the red center

Offred thinks that she’s the only one with rebellious thoughts

Question 8

victims

Answer 8

Rita and Offred are both victims of the same anti-women regime, but their internal divisions mean that they won’t band together and threaten Gilead

Rita can’t give up her strong attitudes from the earlier days- shows that Gilead has failed here

Question 9

Gilead’s rules

Answer 9

Offred is well trained in Gilead’s laws- she knows the Guardians uniform rules

yet the more she’s aware of them, she sees how many are broken

Question 10

aunt lydia

Answer 10

she’s often reminded of her- a sign of successful brainwashing

Question 11

first chapter

Answer 11

in a school

suggests Gilead does not value such education

Question 12

remembering women before

Answer 12

she understands that the past wasn’t perfect and that Gilead has at least eliminated sexual harassment

now repulsed by how women used to dress- Gilead has successfully moulded her mind

Question 13

escape

Answer 13

Offred often fantasises about escaping- shows her mind is constraining her

perhaps due to when she tried to escape with her daughter and lost everything she loved

Question 14

Offred is colonized

Answer 14

by a Republic that coalesces two extremist ideologies: the Puritanical right that denotes women’s proper place in the home, and leftist feminist groups that protest against the objectification of women

Question 15

the success of Offred’s narrative

Answer 15

depends on Atwood’s use of indirection, irony and understatement

information seeps through in a naturalistic, off-hand way

Question 16

told from the

Answer 16

limited perspective of Offred, who describes her life as a Handmaid. Only shows us a small segment of Gileadean society

Question 17

her small rebellions

Answer 17

meets Moira in the bathroom at the Red Centre

uses butter for moisturiser, as the wives deny the HM’s access to cosmetics, out of perhaps spite or jealousy - no sign of female solidarity or sisterhood here

Question 18

Serena and Offred

Answer 18

Offred sometimes sings to herself and Serena sometimes furtively listens to old recordings of herself

both women are trapped and confimed

Question 19

the cigarette

Answer 19

from Serena symbolises their complicity to break the rules as Serena suggests she sleeps with Nick