Quotes Flashcards
the epilogue (Rachel and Leah)
“give me children, or else i die”
importance of communication
(he Handmaids are forbidden from speaking or even using their real names yet they find ways to subvert these rules and convey their names to each other, managing preserve this important part of their identities)
“we learned to whisper without sound”
“We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds… In this way we exchanged names from bed to bed”
preventing the Handmaid’s being able to escape via death
“they’ve removed anything you can tie a rope to”
the role of the Handmaid’s being presented as a duty
“think of it as being in the army”
divides and hatred among women in Gilead
“it’s the red dress she disapproves of”
“the econowives do not like us”
Offred holding some power over Serena and the Commander because they need her to procreate
“i am a reproach to her, and a necessity”
justification of violence against women
“they can hit us, there’s scriptural precedent”
the inability to trust anyone (Offred’s initial distrust of Nick)
“perhaps he is an eye”
pairing up on women
“doubled, i walk the street”
the dangers and oppression women faced in the time before and how they’ve been supposedly saved from it by Gilead
“women were not protected then”
“There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it”
men hanging on the Wall
“they were doctors… in the time before, when such things were legal”
“these men, we’ve been told, are like war criminals”
“it will become ordinary”
Offred being able to escape from reality at nighttime into her own thoughts
“the night is mine, my own time…”
Offred’s mother and censorship at the pornography burning protest
“don’t let her see it, said my mother”
Offred and storytelling
“it isn’t a story i’m telling”
the meaning of ‘Mayday’
“It’s French, he said. From M’aidez. Help me”
Offred’s possession over her room and the invasion she feels when she realises the Commander has been inside
“i called it mine”
the secret message written in the wardrobe
“nolite te bastardes carborumdorum”
“I trace the tiny scratched writing with the ends of my fingers, as if it’s a code… it sounds in my head now less like a prayer, more like a command”
significance and importance of Moira to Offred (a symbol of hope and comfort)
“i turn her [her predecessor] into Moira”
Aunt Lydia’s teachings (blaming women)
“such things do not happen to nice women”
hardships for all women, even the ones who possess some authority
“don’t think it’s easy for me either, said Aunt Lydia”
denial and passivity, having to ignore the harsh realities in order to cope with daily life and deliberately having to remain silent and submissive, actively choosing to be complacent
“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it”
“I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was”
Offred’s feelings towards the Commander (not hating her oppressor, feeling sympathy for him)
“I ought to feel hatred for this man… but it isn’t what I do feel”
“What I feel is more complicated than that. I don’t know what to call it. It isn’t love”
“in fact, he is positively daddyish”
the doctor saying a forbidden word
“I almost gasp: he’s said a forbidden word. Sterile”
women being valued and divided based on their fertility and ability to bear children — able to have no personal identity aside from this
“There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren. That’s the law”
the commodification of women, their value comes solely from their ability to produce children for the state
“I am a national resource”
“I have viable ovaries. I have one more chance”
Moira offering a feeling of safety of Offred when she arrives at the Red Centre
“it makes me feel safer, that Moira is here”
herd mentality and indoctrination during the Testifying (also links to how Gilead turns women against eachother)
“her fault, her fault, her fault, we chant in unison”
“we meant it, which is the bad part”
Offred’s real name (stripping away of individual identity and uniqueness)
“My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden”
“I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter”
constant state of war
“…. the war seems to be going on in many places at once”
the Commander being expected to ask to enter the living room but dismissing it
“he’s supposed to ask permission to enter it”
false seeming, mysterious nature of the Commander
“his blue eyes uncommunicative, falsely innocuous”
“is there no end to his disguises of benevolence?”
Serena being a victim of the regime too
“Serena has begun to cry…. how she must hate me”
Offred having to get used to the monthly Ceremony and becoming detached, uncaring about her situation, monotonous routine
“the Ceremony goes as usual”
Serena’s hatred and spitefulness towards Offred during the Ceremony, needing to exert her dominance
“the rings of her left hand cut into my fingers”
Offred’s explanation of how she chose to be a Handmaid (although we can recognise that this was not much of a real choice, the only alternative is a slow death in the Colonies where she’ll have to pick up radioactive waste until she dies)
“I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved”
“Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for”
“There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose”
the Commander during the Ceremony — sex as a duty, for procreation only
“the Commander, too, is doing his duty”
the power and hope Offred keeps by retaining the memory of her real name
“i repeat my former name, remind myself of what i once could do, how others saw me”
she keeps her name like a buried treasure that she hopes to “dig up, one day”
Nick kissing Offred when she goes downstairs to steal something
“he puts his hand on my arm, pulls me against him, his mouth on mine”
contradictory thoughts and beliefs
“I believe in all of them, all three versions of Luke, at one and the same time. This contradictory way of believing seems to me… the only way I can believe anything”
risk of giving birth to an Unbaby
“What will Ofwarren give birth to? A baby, as we all hope? Or something else, an Unbaby”
“with a pinhead or a snout like a dog’s, or two bodies, or a hole in its heart or no arms, or webbed hands and feet”
“chances are one in four”
“it was a shredder after all”
transitional generation, future generations will find it easier, growing up thinking Gilead is normal
“you are a transitional generation… for the ones who come after you, it will be easier”
“for the generations that come after, Aunt Lydia said, it will be so much better”
violent porn videos shown at the Red Centre, brainwashing, equating violence with sex and thus destroying any positive view of it
aimed to prove to women that they need to be protected against men and that the current regime is therefore in their best interests and a saving force of sorts
“breasts snipped off with garden shears, her stomach slit open and her intestines pulled out”
“that was what they thought of women, then”
women fighting for the rights of women today, only for those rights to be taken for granted and allowed to be easily taken away by Gilead
“you don’t know what we had to go through, just to get you where you are” - Offred’s mother
the Handmaid’s being united, in a positive way, during the Birth (genuine community and solidarity among women can never be truly stamped out)
“we grip each other’s hands, we are no longer single”
ironic that women like Offred’s mother fought for a woman’s culture, and now Gilead has delivered a warped version of that
“Mother… you wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one”
“women united for a common end!” - Aunt Lydia
Moira’s escape from the Red Centre
“Moira had power now, she’d been set loose, she’d set herself loose. She was now a loose woman”
Moira as a symbol of rebellion, inspiring hope in the other Handmaids
“Moira was our fantasy”
“in the light of Moira, the Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd”
Offred as an unreliable narrator
“this is a reconstruction”
“I made that up. It didn’t happen that way. Here is what happened”
“It didn’t happen that way either. I’m not sure how it happened; not exactly”
forgiveness as a power
“but remember that forgiveness too is a power”
the Commander desiring real affection
“I want you to kiss me, said the Commander”
a glimpse of freedom when Offred plays Scrabble
“this is freedom, an eyeblink of it”
Nazi prison guard’s wife (excusing someone’s violent and oppressive actions simply because they themselves are a ‘nice’ person, like Offred with the Commander)
“he was not a monster, she said”
hope from the latin phrase left by her predecessor
“I trace the tiny scratched writing with the ends of my fingers, as if it’s a code”
the Commander and Offred reaching an arrangement
“the Commander and I have an arrangement”
“the fact is that I’m his mistress”
freedom in the time before
“we used to be able to walk freely there, when it was a university”
“all these women having jobs: hard to imagine, now”
“women can’t hold property anymore… it’s a new law”
“all wear makeup, and I realise how unaccustomed I’ve become to seeing it, on women”
theocracy, faithfulness to the regime, the regime demands obedience
“ordering prayers from Soul Scrolls is supposd to be a sign of piety and faithfulness to the regime”
“we’re off to the Prayvaganza, to demonstrate how obedient and pious we are”
the existence of an underground resistance and how it gives Offred hope
“There is an us then, there’s a we. I knew it”
“hope is rising in me, like sap in a tree”
Moira and utopia
“if Moira thought she could create Utopia by shtting herself up in a women-only enclave she was sadly mistaken”
how Gilead came to be, Offred’s nonchalant and casual recount of the massacre that led to the regime
“it was after the catastrophe, when they shot the President and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency”
“Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control”
women blaming themselves
“what was it… that made us feel we deserved it?”
Offred not attending marches, letting her rights be taken away
“there were marches, of course”
reading, which is forbidden for women in Gilead, becomes a rebellious and almost sexual act when performed by Offred
“while I read, the Commander sits and watches me doing it, without speaking… a curiously sexual act”
Offred watching the Commander write (link to Freudian theory)
“Pen Is Envy”
Offred demanding the Commander to give her clarity of their situation
“I would like to know… what’s going on”
betrayal
“The moment of betrayal is the worst. The moment when you known beyond any doubt that you’ve been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil”
Jewish people being arrested for not converting under Gilead
“They could convert, or emigrate to Israel. A lot of them emigrated, if you can believe the news”
Serena’s reminder to Offred of time running out
“your time’s running out”
Serena suggesting the Commander is sterile, which is absolutely forbidden
“maybe he can’t”
Offred imaging her escape, burning the house down perhaps, but never actually acting
“an escape, quick and narrow”
Offred’s doubting her power
“it’s difficult for me to believe I have power over him, of any sort”
the Commander’s justification of the regime and how casually he talks about the oppression of women under Gilead
“The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore”
“Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse for some”
“you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs”
“we’ve given them more than we’ve taken away”
“all we’ve done is return things to Nature’s norm”
dividing people in groups, uniforms
“the lower-ranking women, the Marthas, the Econowives in their multi-coloured stripes”
no hope for the future as the children are growing up believing this regime is normal
“are they old enough to remember anything of the time before…”
women being taught to be silent
“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”
Offred struggling to tell her story
“I don’t want to be telling this story”
“I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised”
“Nevertheless it hurts me to tell it over, over again”
Offred’s daughter forgetting her, destruction of the family unit
“I have been obliterated for her”
