The Handmaids tale A01 Flashcards
What is the significance of the quote ‘Nolite te bastardes carborundorum’ in The Handmaid’s Tale?
It serves as a message of resistance and empowerment for Offred. It is then belittled as a schoolboy joke by the commander
Phrase used as a common greetings among Handmaids.
‘Blessed be the fruit’
‘May the Lord open’
‘Under his Eye’
Who says ‘Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some.’?
The Commander
Offred’s hunger. She is being consumed (‘the power of a dog bone’) so wants to consume, regain control.
‘I hunger to commit the act of touch’
‘The smell of nail polish has made me hungry’
‘I’m ravenous for news, any kind of news’
‘Death makes me hungry. I could eat a horse’
‘Freedom, like everything else, is relative’ meaning?
Depending on an individual’s circumstances, the concept of freedom is manipulated. Offred doesn’t take small victories for granted- ‘butter’, ‘feel alive in my skin’
‘A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.’- What’s the significance?
Offred is aware of the regime’s psychological manipulation of the oppressed. They give the handmaids a false sense of freedom, sometimes in the form of passive rebellion, to keep them from actually evoking a change.
‘The past is a great darkness’ l
True
Fill in the blank: ‘We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print.’ What does this quote emphasize?
The erasure of women’s identities and stories in society.
What does the quote ‘We were the people who were not in the papers’ highlight about the role of women in Gilead?
It emphasizes their invisibility and lack of agency.
Multiple Choice: Which character says ‘Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.’?
Offred
What does Offred mean by ‘There is no such thing as a sterile environment’?
It suggests that emotional and psychological contamination affects everyone.
True or False: The quote ‘A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere’ compares the Handmaids’ lives to that of a rat.
True
Fill in the blank: ‘The best way to be a woman is to be a __________.’
mother
What is implied by the quote ‘I am a cloud, congealed around a central object’?
It reflects Offred’s fragmented identity and sense of self.
Multiple Choice: Who frequently says ‘Under His Eye’ as a form of greeting?
The Aunts
What does the quote ‘Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub, you would boil to death without knowing it’ suggest?
It indicates how societal changes can lead to oppression without immediate realization.
True or False: ‘The Ceremony’ is a ritual that involves the Handmaids and their Commanders.
True
Fill in the blank: ‘A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the __________.’
maze
What does the quote ‘You can’t help what you feel, but you can help how you behave’ imply?
It reflects the struggle between emotions and societal expectations.
Multiple Choice: Who states ‘The future is a thing we can only see in the past’?
Offred
What does the phrase ‘May the Lord open’ signify in the context of Gilead?
It is a blessing that reflects the religious undertones of the society.
Fill in the blank: ‘To be a Handmaid is to be a _____.’
vessel
Quotes about women and literacy?
‘I am not allowed to read’
‘It’s like he’s offered me drugs’
‘Taste like the letter C’
‘Humbugs’
Dr Piexoto states that the historians present must, “be cautious about passing moral judgement upon the Gileadeans’.
comes as a shock to a reader who has just encountered an array of horrific events and procedures that the Gileadean society created. The readers of the novel will have likely developed empathetic feelings for Offred, and so to see a figure who is supposedly educated take such a blunt, distanced opinion on the tragic events that occurred to Offred and the people of Gilead would be potentially enraging. The reader does not, in this way get any satisfaction from the ending; the epilogue works in a way that leaves a reader wanting for the society that the rebels were fighting for, or at least one that recognised the horrific events of Gileadean history, and yet no such attitudes or opinions present themselves.
“ a whiff of emotion recollected, if not in tranquillity, at least post facto,”
Implicit disdain, belittles the importance of the raw, emotional aspects Offred’s narrative. Use of Latin
