‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Quotes Flashcards
Latin Chapter 9
Nolite te bastardes carborandorum
Offred’s Scrabble Words
‘Larynx…Quince…Zygote’ - permitted lexicon as a “two-legged womb”
Offres on Pain
“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”
THT Chapter 27
‘Two Eyes, in grey suits, leap from the opening double doors at the back. They grab a man who is walking along, a man with a briefcase, an ordinary looking man;
Hierarchy of women
There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas, some in the striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimpy, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they’re called. This women are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can. Sometimes there is a woman all in black, a widow…
Aunt Lydia on Freedom
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.
Offred on her body
Chapter 12
My nakedness is strange to me already. My body seems outdated. Did I really wear bathing suits, at the beach? I did, without thought, among men, without caring that my legs, my arms, my thighs and back were on display, could be seen. Shameful, immodest. I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.
Chapter 13
I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will.
Offred on her name
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. I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried.
Offred on the past
You’ll have to forgive me. I’m a refugee from the past, and like other refugees I go over the customs and habits of being I’ve left or been forced to leave behind me, and it all seems just as quaint, from here, and I am just as obsessive about it.
Religion and the Handmaids
“A Sister dipped in blood”
“Blessed be the fruit”-“May the lord open”
“‘Under his eye’
Offred’s Lord’s Prayer
Oh God, obliterate me. Make me fruitful. Mortify my flesh, so that I may be multiplied. Let
me be fulfilled…”
Perversion of Religion
GOD IS A NATIONAL RESOURCE”
“For Adam was first formed, then Eve…Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression”
‘They can hit us, there’s Scriptural Precedent’
We’ve given them more than we’ve taken away, said the commander….
….Think of the trouble they had before. Don’t you remember the singles bars, the indignity of high-school blind dates? The meat market. Don’t you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn’t? Some of them were desperate, they starved themselves thin or pumped their breasts full of silicone, had their noses cut off. Think of the human misery….
‘and if they did marry, they could be left with a kid, two kids, the husband might just get fed up and take off, disappear, they’d have to go on welfare. Or else he’d stay around and beat them up…Money was the only measure of worth, for everyone, they got no respect as mothers. No wonder they were giving up on the whole business. This way they’re protected, they can fulfil their biological destinies in peace. With full support and encouragement. Now, tell me. You’re an intelligent person, I like to hear what you think. What did we overlook? Love, I said.’
First line of THT
‘we slept in what had once in the gymnasium’
Violence of regime chapter 1
‘they had a electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts’
