The Handmaid's Tale - Rebellion Flashcards
A quote from Chapter One in memory from the Red Centre, suggesting the power and importance of the assertion of identity and speech in personal rebellion against unjust and oppressive authority
“We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semi-darkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunt’s weren’t looking, and touch each other’s hands across the space… In this way we exchanged names, from bed to bed:
Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.”
Chapter One, p. 4
A quote from Chapter Two reflecting Offred’s personal, individual, mental rebellion in refusing to acknowledge her room as her own - this was a life forced upon her
“The door of the room - not my room, I refuse to say my - is not locked”
Chapter Two, p. 8
A quote from Chapter Eight as the Commander breaks custom and walks close to Offred in the halway. The semantic field of military conflict suggests the high stakes of the event. The Commander rebels against the regime, but this is likely merely to present his own status and power
“Like the flag of an unknown country, seen for an instant above a curve of a hill, it could mean attack, it could mean parley, it could mean the edge of something, a territory”
Chapter Eight, p. 49
A quote from Chapter Fourteen as Offred waits in Serena Joy’s sitting room waiting for the Commander to arrive for the Bible reading. She retreats into memory, remembering her previous life, attempting to escape the oncoming regime before being arrested. She remembers having a name, and the quote reflects the importance and preciousness of individual identity in rebellion - Offred refuses to forget her unrepressed identity and is sure that she will come to regain it in the future
“I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure… [it] has an aura around it, like an amulet, some charm that’s survived from an unimaginably distant past… the name floats there behind my eyes, not quite within reach, shining in the dark.”
Chapter Fourteen, p. 84
Quotes from the Ceremony in Chapter Sixteen demonstrating Offred’s personal rebellion. She dehumanises the act, the verb “fucking” being passive, suggesting that she is having the act done to her, rather than “making love” which would imply her to be taking part in some form. Offred distances herself from the act, suggesting it is being done to “the lower part of my body”, which she detaches from her identity, her own sense of self - she does not participate
“Below [the skirt] the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love because this is not what he is doing.”
“Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved.”
Chapter Sixteen, p. 94
A quote from Chapter Twenty-Two when Offred arrives back at the Commander’s house having watched Janine give birth, reminiscing about Aunt Lydia telling Janie about Moira’s escape from the Red Centre. Moira’s act is one of violent rebellion, and is subversive in nature - her tearing of the veil into “strips”, smaller, fractured parts, is a violently symbolic act of destruction of the handmaid’s constraint and control, while her using the strips to silence Aunt Elizabeth is subversive on enforcing the silence on the Aunts which they enforced upon the handmaids (note violent verb “stuffed”). Aunt Lydia’s suggestion that Moira is “cunning” and “dangerous” reflects the fear that such rebellion can effectively create in the enforcers of such regimes.
“The veil she tore into strips, and tied Aunt Elizabeth up with them… She stuffed some of the cloth into her mouth… She is a cunning and dangerous woman.”
Chapter Twenty-Two, p. 130
A quote from Chapter Twenty-Three in the Moira reconstruction in which Offred reflects on the hope that Moira’s protest instilled in the handmaids. “Fantasy” is reflective of children’s stories with moral value, while the metaphor of “lava beneath the crust” suggests actions like Moira’s to exercise subversive pressure capable of creating an explosion of further rebellion.
REMEMBER that this memory is a reconstruction, an aspect of metafiction in which the story is aware that it is fictional (“I expect Moira said something like it”). In Offred’s mind, Moira is the symbol of rebellion, and Offred places her hope in Moira’s subversion as she feels unable to act herself (passivity, perhaps)
“Moira was our fantasy… a secret giggle, she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In the light of Moira, the Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd.”
Chapter Twenty-Two, p. 133`
A quote from Chapter Twenty-Three when Offred visits the Commander’s office for the first time. The quote reflects the fact that rebellion of those in power, such as the Commander, by breaking their own rules is not rebellion to be celebrated. The Commander rebelling by allowing Offred to experience books, which amazes her
“Books and books and books, right out in plain view, no locks, no boxes… It’s an oasis of the forbidden.”
Chapter Twenty-Three, p. 137
A quote from the Commander’s office in which Offred feels vulnerable and patronised. The quote reflects the idea that the Commander’s rebellion in welcoming her into his office is merely to exert his power over her, and not to subvert his own regime in order to provide any sense of freedom
“It’s merely a smile… a little distant, as if I’m a kitten in a window. One he’s looking at but doesn’t intending to buy… My feet in their flat red shoes aren’t quite touching the floor.”
Chapter Twenty-Three, p. 138
A quote from Chapter Twenty-Three in the Commander’s office when the Commander tells Offred that he wants something from her, which transpires to be a game of Scrabble. The quote reflects Offred’s use of power play in response to the Commander’s demands - she will give him what he desires if he provides her with a semblance of freedom from his own regime
“It’s a bargaining session, things are about to be exchanged… I am not giving anything away: selling only.”
Chapter Twenty-Three, p. 138
A quote from the Commander’s office in which Offred considers the Commander’s wish to play Scrabble with her. The quote gives this act of rebellion a sense of before and after - what once was innocent is now dangerous, emphasised by the repetition. The quote emphasises the power of words, the personal power of language against totalitarian regimes such as that of Gilead, suggesting this is why the before and after sense is emphasised - this was something that had to be destroyed in order for Gilead to maintain its hold over women
“Now of course it’s something different. Now it’s forbidden, for us. Now it’s dangerous. Now it’s indecent… Now it’s desirable. Now he’s compromised himself.”
Chapter Twenty-Three, p. 139
A quote from Chapter Twenty-Five as Offred observes Serena Joy cutting the seed pods from the flowers in her garden, symbolic of Serena’s frustration at the regime’s emphasis on female fertility, her role as a woman now being carried out by Offred. The quote reflects the idea that the more people are oppressed, the more rebellion grows below the surface
“There is something subversive about this garden of Serena’s, a sense of buried things bursting upwards… to say, Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard, though silently.”
Chapter Twenty-Five, p. 151
A quote from Chapter Twenty-Eight as Offred reflects on the gradual changes that came about as the Gilead regime was formed, reflecting on the female protest marches that sprang up in response to the patriarchal control of money. Atwood criticises men for allowing such patriarchal systems to be enforced by failing to effectively protest against them, enforcing the control rather than rebelling against it
“There were marches of course, a lot of women and some men… I didn’t go on any of the marches. Luke said it would be futile and I had to think about them… I started doing a lot more housework, more baking.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight, p. 179
Quotes from Chapter Twenty-Nine demonstrating that the Commander’s rebellion, the breaking of his own rules, is not a rebellion designed to bring freedom or to be celebrated, but one entirely selfish. The Commander uses his power to fill his own loneliness with the company of the handmaids, despite understanding the danger and consequences to which they are open should they be discovered to which he is not subjected
“She must have learned it, here, in this room… during some previous period of boyhood reminiscence, of confidences exchanged. I have not been the first then. To enter his silence…”
“‘She hanged herself,’ he says; thoughtfully, not sadly… If your dog dies, get another.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine, p. 187
A quote from Chapter Thirty-Two after being in the Commander’s office where the Commander told Offred that the regime was built on the concept of creating a better world for men who were ‘turning off on sex [… and] marriage’, as ‘better… always means worse for some.’ Offred suggests that the handmaid before her found freedom and peace from the oppressive regime in her suicide, the assimilation of her hanging to a child swinging from a tree suggesting a safety in it. It is disturbing that Offred considers death to be the easiest form of escape
“That’s where she was swinging, just lightly, like a pendulum; the way you could swing as a child, hanging by your hands from a tree branch. She was safe then, protected altogether…”
Chapter Thirty-Two, p. 213
