The Handmaid’s Tale: Offred Characterisation And Key Quotes

Question 1

“What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth … Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be”. (P.153)

Answer 1

– She refuses to forget her past.
– She refuses to believe in biological reductionism.
– She refuses to give up hope of getting out of her presence situation.
– She knows what she needs to pay attention to.

Question 2

“There is something subversive about this garden of Serena’s, a sense of things bursting upwards, worthlessly, into the light”. (P.161)

Answer 2

– She is sharply observant of physical details in her surroundings.
– She is curious and likes to explore.
– She has a very literal response to the commander’s wife’s beautiful garden.
– She observes its seasonal changes closely, for that garden represents all the natural beauty that is denied by the regime but which flourishes unchecked outside the window.
– A response to the moonlight is equally imaginative, though noticeably tinged with irony, which is one of her most distinctive characteristics.

Question 3

“I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to dig up one day”. (P.94)

Answer 3

– So she is forbidden to use her own name, she keeps it like a very treasure, as guarantee of her other identity.

Question 4

“Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They cannot be exchanged, one for the other. They cannot replace each other”. (P.202)

Answer 4

– She consistently refuses to be bamboozled by the rhetoric of Gilead, though she believes in the principle of making distinctions between things and in the precise use of words.
– Just as she continues to believe in the value of every individual.

Question 5

What are three keywords to describe Offred?

Answer 5

– Resilient.
– Observant.
– Haunted by the past.