Offred's mother Flashcards
Chapter 20*
Context around quotes - Offred’s retrospective narration about her mother’s radical feminist opinions on men and women’s relationships, while Janine is preparing to give birth. She was also thinking about how aunt Lydia showed the porno movies. ext
“A man is just a woman’s strategy for making other women.” - ‘strategy’ abstract noun/metaphor * objectification of men, radical feminist were the complete opposite to Gilead
‘History will absolve me.’ - ‘absolve’ transitive verb, suggesting Incel - think that women are so progressed it’s ruining society for the men - making them involuntarily celibate - gilead says women have too many rights so they want to revert it - blaming women for the decline in the birth rates
‘them’ - pronoun - groups them together like they all have the same traits - no variation so have nothing to contribute
‘Don’t you know how many women’s lives, how many women’s bodies, the tanks had to roll over just to get that far?” - (chopping carrots) -opposite gender roles - took centuries for domestic roles to be more fluid - not appreciative of the progression
Chapter 7
Context - retrospective narration about how Offred would attend her mother’s feminist meetings to burn pornographic magazines seen as disrespectful to women
‘still on fire,parts of the women’s bodies,turning to black ash, in the air before my eyes’ - metaphor, there’s a parallel there with gilead censoring women - both extremist - they have things in common- extremists in any form are dangerous - links to aunt Lydia showing gilled to protect women from objectification in chapter 20 propaganda, feminists see it as liberating them from male gaze - freedom to be successful
turthly they don’t want women to be liberated - because the patriarchal society blame them for the decline in the birth rates - want to use them for the systematic purpose - incel too many rights
Chapter 21
