The Handmaids Tale part two Flashcards
What happens in Section I to Section II?
The novel begins with the narrator’s memory of being in an old gymnasium that appears to be like a women’s prison. Offred whispers in the dark, in a dormitory patrolled by Aunts and guarded by Angels/. The location shifts to a Victorian house, a single room.
Offred describes her red costume and her marginal position in the Commander’s household. She gets ready to go shopping. Offred remembers arriving at the Commander’s house as his Handmaid and meeting his wife.
She recognised the wife from a gospel choir on TV and knows her as Serena Joy. Offred sees the Commander’s driver, Nick who winks at her, and meets Offglen, another Handmaid. The two women pass a checkpoint and Offred makes her first small gesture of defiance. Offred and Offglen go shopping in Gilead and Offred remembers the way these streets used to be before the regime, when she was a free woman. The two Handmaids visit the Wall, from which the hooded dead bodies of dissidents are hung.
What happens in Section III to Section IV?
We learn that Offred has a secret escape route as she can “step sideways” into private spaces of memory. Offredremembers Moira, her own mother and her lost child. Ofglen uses the words “May Day” when she and Offred are standing at the wall together. When Offred returns from shopping, she finds the Commander breaking the rules by peering into her room. Offred discovers a message left by her predecessor in her room. While she is thinking back to her college days and memories of her friend Moira, she looks out of the window and sees Nick and the Commander. Offred visits the doctor for her monthly check-up to be assesed for her reproductive fitness.
What happens in Section V to section VI?
We witness how Offred slips away from the present into thinking about her body and her memories. She recalls her failed attempt to escape with her family. The Commander’s household assembles for family prayers. In an act of resistance, Offred thinks of her own name, her first contact with Nick, and of her family’s failed escape attempt. The Commander enters the sitting room and leads the family prayers. Later, the impregnation ceremony takes place involving the Commander, Offred and Serena Joy. Offred steals a flower from the sitting room and embraces Nick in the dark. Nick tells her that the Commander wants her to visit him tomorrow.
What happens in Section VII to Section VIII?
Offred lies alone in bed, tormented by conflicting hopes and fears for her missuing husband, Luke. She dreams of her absent family and how times once were. The Handmaids go out in the birthmobile to attend the birth of Ofwarren’s baby. Surrounded by other Handmaids and wives, Offred remembers her own mother. Ofwarren gives birth to a baby girl called Angela. It is her Commander’s wife who will rear the baby, as Handmaids are merely surrogates.
What happens in Section IX to Section X?
Offred is still trapped, but her mood is lighter and she laughs uncontrollably in her room one night.
What happens in Section XI to Section XII?
Offred longs for love and she pours out her desperation in her version of the Lord’s Prayer.
What happens in Section XIII to Section XIV?
Offred has her first sexual encounter with Nick and falls in love with him. Their risky love affair defies Gileadean tyranny and for the first time Offred wants to stay in Gilead. She tells Nick her real name. At the Salvaging, two Handmaids and one Wife are publicly hanged, while at the Particicuction that follows, a man is accused of rape is torn to pieces by the mob of outraged Handmaids. Ofglen tells Offred that he was no rapist but a dissenter like themselves. Offred also sees Jannine, who seems more disturbed and troubled than ever. Offred’s normal life is shattered by the disappearance of Ofglen. She is told that Ofglen has hanged herself. Offred suffers her worst crisis of despair when Serena joy reveals that she knows about Offred’s clandestine evening with the Commander.
What happens in Section XV?
In her room, Offred considers a variety of possible escapes but does nothing, feeling pervaded with indifference. She hears the siren of a black van and a team of Eyes led by Nick pushes open her door. Nick whispers that this is Mayday come to her rescue and uses her real name. Offred is taken from her house.
What are the historical notes?
The novel ends with a flash forward to AD 2195 where at an academic conference, Offred’s tale is presented as a historical curiosity. Her fate remains a mystery, and Gilead has long since disappeared.
Section I Night, chapter 1 summary
Summary:
- The narrator describes a former gynmasium that appears now to be like a women’s prison patrolled by Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth and guarded by angels.
- The narrator nostalgically recalls the games and dances that would once have been held in this space.
Section I Night, chapter 1 analysis: Before and after.
Before and after:
- This dislocated opening emphasises the confusion and fear that characterises any totalitarian state - in this instance, Gilead. The narrator is one of a group of young women who were held in a makeshift prison camp in what was once a college gymnasium, controlled by two women gaolers ironically named Aunts with a heavy guard outside.
- With its references to basketball and chewing gum, it sounds very like an American college campus, which indeed it turns out to be.
Resisting the regime
- This short introductory chapter manages to evoke not only regimental disclipine with the lines of army cots and the Aunts on patrol, but also the young women’s ability to find ways of resisting system of control. When the Aunts are not looking, they reach out to touch each other’s hands and whisper their names in the dark. Atwood shows us that despite the strict and depersonalising living conditions they suffer, the women described still have the mental freedom to reminisce about the past and yearn for a different future.
- In chapter 1, Offred remarks that in the silent gymnasium, the image of the palimpest is a powerful one suggesting the erasing and rewriting of names, experiences, histories.
Section II shopping, chapters 2-3 summary.
- The location shifts to a room in a Victorian house that Offred describes in detail.
- Offred describes her red costume, her marginal position and the layout of the house, which belongs to a Commander and his Wife.
- Having been asigned to do the shopping, Offred receives tokens instead of money from the housekeeper and sets out with a shopping basket. She leaves by the back door and goes through the Commander’s wife large and tidy garden.
- In chapter 3, Offred remembers arriving at the Commander’s house as his Handmaid and meeting his wife for the first time. She realised who the Wife used to be - a gospel singer called Serena Joy.
Life as a Handmaid.
Offred describes the daily domestic routines of the Handmaids, and begins to piece together her present situation, building up her account through short scenes and fragments of memory. She describes a room where she is virtually kept as a prisoner. Her image of the eye that has been taken out suggests blankness, blindness and references to the removal of glass.
Offred’s actions seem to follow a prescribed pattern, with time measured by bells. Her old-fashioned red dress and white headgear signal her membership of a group, and an expectation that her body should be covered and her eyes blinkered. She also seems isolated from the Marthas and excluded from the kitchen gossip. As readers, we begin to piece together clues and understands that Offred’s role seems to be connected with producing babies for the state.
Section II shopping, chapters 4-6 summary.
- Chapter 4 switches back to the present. Offred sees Nick, the chauffeur who is washing the commander’s car.
- Offred meets Ofglen, her shopping companion, who is dressed in an identical red costume. They speak to each other using conventional Gileadean greetings and make cautious small-talk.
- The two women pass the checkpoint and Offred makes a small gesture of defiance by teasing the guards.
- The Handmaids walk to the shops in what was formerly a university town and is now the capital of Gilead.
- In chapter 6, the Handmaids pass old landmarks and pause to stare at the hooded dead bodies of dissidents.
