Offred Flashcards
How much do we actually know about the narrator?
We know she has “viable ovaries,” but we don’t know what her real name is or what she looks like.
What happens when we finally hear a name given to her by another character?
She’s quick to disregard it: My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. (14.37)
What suggests she can’t see herself, just like we can’t see her?
She says she “ha[s] trouble remembering what [she] used to look like,” and she’s not even able to look in mirrors anymore.
What is more important in this society than any of these appearance-based details?
Internal physicality. The narrator has “viable ovaries,” and that’s what’s kept her alive and relatively out of danger all this time. But society treats her like a mere container for those ovaries, and her expiration date is looming.
What is significant about the quote ‘one more chance’?
The idea that she has “one more chance” now defines her as much as her having “brown hair.”
What does the fact that the narrator is so nondescript allow?
It allows her to represent every woman who’s been forced into the position of Handmaid in this society. Even though her frequent flashbacks give us glimpses of her former life, the Center has had a real effect on her. Everything she says is protected by a pseudonym.
What do some of her smallest asides reveal?
They reveal ways in which she holds on to her individuality. She takes small pleasures from manipulating her world in the little ways she can—like taking small digs at the men who have power over her.
What is the significance of her making eye contact with a guardian?
Her world has become tiny and her identity stolen from her, but she still clings to small elements of what make her herself, such “hoard[ing]” just as she did when she was little.
What does the narrator regret that absence of?
Mundane things, like being able to do laundry or have silly fights with her husband. The trivial things from her previous life have now become profound:
‘my own clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself.’ (5.9)
What is the significance of doing the laundry?
Such a simple act as doing laundry represents a level of freedom that would be unthinkable now that the Republic of Gilead has taken all autonomy and control away from her.
How does Offred feel about her daughter?
She feels relief and joy about seeing her daughter, her “treasure” (35.33), alive. But her relief quickly turns to distress as she realizes that her little girl is someone else’s child, that society has been able to fool her daughter into forgetting her birth mother:
‘I have been obliterated for her […]. You can see it in her eyes: I am not there […] I can’t bear it, to have been erased like that. Better she’d brought me nothing. (35.35, 37)
