The Handmaid's Tale - Control and Submission Flashcards
A quote from Chapter One as Offred describes the sleeping arrangements in the ‘Red Centre’. The quote reflects both the thought reform into a feeling of collective responsibility as women to produce children for men, while also infantilising and patronising the women in order to reflect their inferiority. Note that verb ‘tried’ to sleep suggests emotional turmoil
“We tried to sleep in the army cots that had been set up in rows, with spaces between so we could not talk. We had flannelette sheets, like children’s, and army issue blankets”
A quote from the opening description of the ‘Red Centre’ in Chapter One, Offred describing the Aunts’ surveillance of the handmaids as they sleep. The juxtaposition between the connotations of ‘Aunt’ (closeness, familiarity, affection, a term of endearment) strikingly juxtaposes their implied violence
“Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from leather belts”
A quote from the opening of Chapter Two as Offred describes her room, which is austere and simplistic (emphasised by the asyndetic list), an emphasis placed on Puritan-style living. The eye watching over her in the ceiling reflects both her own enforced blindness, as well as her constant surveillance
“A chair, a table, a lamp. Above, on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the centre of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in a face where the eye has been taken out”
A quote from Chapter Two as Offred describes her living circumstances as like being in a nunnery - a religious restriction is placed on the handmaids, made to feel as if they have the choice of a nun to leave if they so wish. Also emphasises the forced modesty placed on handmaids
“Time here is measured by bells, as once in nunneries. As in a nunnery too, there are few mirrors”
A quote from Chapter Two demonstrating the control of the handmaids through their clothing, emphasising a puritan way of living. Their shoes are entirely practical, while their “wings” (ironically named as this connotes freedom), prevent them from seeing, reflecting women’s lack of knowledge within the regime, as well as a puritan enforced modesty in their inability to be seen themselves
“Red shoes, flat-heeled, to save the spine and not for dancing… The white wings […] keep us from seeing, but also from being seen”
A quote from Chapter Nine as Offred explores her room, finding a stain of sexual fluid on her mattress. The quote suggests the idea that love now a “stain”, something old, a forgotten memory, but the fact that Offred suggests it to be “like dried flower petals” suggests something beautiful, a desperation to hold that love again. This desperation is emphasised by the structural longing for anything akin to love, as the gradual reduction in desire from “love” to “touch”, as well as “something like it” and “at least”, suggests the extent to which the handmaid’s have been deprived of genuine love and contact
“The stains on the mattress. Like dried flower petals… When I saw that, the evidence left by two people, of love or something like it, desire, at least, at least touch between two people… I […] lay down on it” - p. 51
A quote from Chapter Nine as Offred explores her room in the Commander’s house. It reflects boredom as a control mechanism within Gilead - Offred seeks pleasure in the most mundane activities in order to remain active
“I explored this room… I wanted to make it last… I would allow myself one section a day. This one section I would explore with the greatest minuteness” - p. 51
Quotes from Chapter Thirteen from Offred’s memory of Janine being made an example of at the Red Centre, the Aunts suggesting that it was her fault that she was gang raped at 14 years old. The animalistic chanting demonstrates the power of indoctrination in the regime, bringing a tribal sense of identity and belonging in the fact that it is done “in unison”. It is a clear example of thought reform and humiliation, as well as the enforced turning of women against other women, blaming each other for horrific acts. God is also used as a justification, suggesting a higher power beyond the regime that condones its behaviour
“But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger.
Her fault, her fault, her fault, we chant in unison
[…]
Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen?
Teach her a lesson, teach her a lesson, teach her a lesson - p. 72
A quote from Chapter Thirteen describing Janine as she is humiliated at the Red Centre. Her description demonstrates the climate of fear exercised by the regime - the handmaids are made to fear the consequences of Janine’s actions, as well as being forced to hate her through thought reform. They fear looking as disturbingly reduced as Janine, and therefore hate her having ‘led on’ the men who raped her
“She [Janine] looked disgusting: weak, squirmy, blotchy, pink, like a newborn mouse. None of us wanted to look like that, not ever. For a moment […] we despised her” - p. 72
A quote from Chapter Fifteen as the Commander reads the Bible to the household staff, Offred knelt down in front of him. The quote reflects the regime’s use of repetition as a method of control in order to enact thought reform, as well as Biblical imagery and reference in order to suggest that the regime’s emphasis on handmaids reproducing for Commanders is justified by God.
The second quote about Aunt Lydia reflects the use of patronisation in order to control the handmaids by making them feel lesser and subordinate.
“It’s the usual story… Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. Then comes the mouldy old Rachel and Leah stuff we had drummed into us at the Centre” - p. 89
“You’re getting the best, you know, said Aunt Lydia. There’s a war on, things are rationed. You are spoiled girls, she twinkled, as if rebuking a kitten. Naughty puss.” - p. 89
A quote from The Ceremony in Chapter Sixteen in which Offred is physically restrained and controlled during the act by Serena Joy, a reminder of Serena’s status over Offred, the power she wields, and Offred’s helplessness to protest
“My arms are raised; she holds my hands… This is supposed to signify that we are one flesh, one being. What it really means is that she is in control, of the process and thus of the product. If any. The rings of her left hand cut into my fingers.” - p. 94
A quote from the Chapter Sixteen Ceremony, in which Offred suggests that the act is not a rape because she chose to be a handmaid. The quote reflects the coercive control of the regime - she had only an appearance of choice, choosing between forces sex and being sent to her gradual death in the Colonies. Suggests an element of indoctrination
“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.” - p. 95
A quote from Chapter Nineteen as Offred is in the van on the way to Janine’s birth. She remembers being taught about the role of women being that give birth, and that women who underwent tube tying were evil and ‘Jezebels’. The quote, a reminder of the love that pervaded the necessary sex of the regime, reflects the sentimentality and genuine feeling that the controlling regime has deprived both women and men of, defining their duty to be entirely sexual
“On the top of my desk there are initials, carved into the wood… sometimes in two sets, joined by the word loves… They seem to me like inscriptions I used to read about, carved on the stone walls of caves, or drawn with a mixture of soot and animal fat. They seem to me incredibly ancient.” p. 113
A quote from Chapter Twenty as Offred waits with the other handmaids to watch Moira give birth, remembering her education in the Red Centre by Aunt Lydia and Aunt Helena through projected films. Offred notes that Aunt Helena sometimes played films of dancing and singing with ceremonial masks, but that ‘Aunt Lydia didn’t show these kinds of movies’, instead playing the women depraved sadomassochistic pronographic films. The quote demonstrates Aunt Lydia’s abuse of power, enforcing the misogynistic dogma through indoctrination, an entirely false and harrowing presentation of the time before
“Once we had to watch a women being slowly cut into pieces, her fingers and breasts snipped off with garden shears, her stomach slit open and her intestines pulled out.
Consider the alternatives, said Aunt Lydia. You see what things used to be like?” - p. 118
A quote from Chapter Twenty-Two in which Offred retells the story of Aunt Lydia divulging Moira’s escape from the Red Centre to Janine, asking her to spy on the other handmaids. Janine’s assumed thoughts reflect the pervasive strength of the Aunts’ control over the handmaids and the power of the humiliation and thought reform they have used to instill this control - Janine eagerly agrees to spy on her fellow handmaids, all as downtrodden as her, if only to prevent herself from being subjected to further pain. However, the poignant adverb “temporarily” suggests that this is far from permanent relief.
“She knew she would not have to kneel down any more, at the front of the classroom, and listen to all of us shouting at her that it was her fault. Now it would be someone else for a while. She was, temporarily, off the hook.” - p. 132
