Summary
Summary The Handmaid's Tale - quotes and analysis
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Analysis of quotes throughout the whole text, there may be some sections that do not have quotes as they were not studied in close textual detail
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Quotes/analysisEpigraph
- Used to set an expectation – link to thematic concerns of text
- ‘give me children, or else I die’ – genesis, 30:1-3
Loss of fertility – feminine jealousy
Key theme – religious criticism
Establishes theological grounds on which Gilead is founded
- A modest proposal – Jonathon swift
Proposal that the poor should sell their children for the rich to eat
Society goes for easy for few rather than right for many/ethical option
Famous satirical pamphlet to critique English colonial cruelty in Ireland
- Sufi proverb
Sufism – values the god within oneself and interest of mass in general – love god for the sake of love
rather than heaven or hell
Being aware of authority
Night
Chapter 1
- ‘gymnasium’ – not stereotypical use
Bad experiences and site of repression and restriction
American institution – moment of possibility
Sight of adolescent exploration
- ‘palimpsest’ – experiences rewritten and contextualized
Something reused but still bearing traces of earlier forms
- Military semantic field – degree of control and authority
Women viewed as a collective body ‘we’ whose main purpose is to reproduce out of obligation rather
than a moral choice
- ‘electric cattle prods slung on thongs’ – tools of patriarchy connected with sex and oppression
Women considered as cattle – kept for their bodies and ability to reproduce
Can be hurt but cannot be killed – value in the body
Layers of control within the people who are powerless
Shopping
Chapter 2
- ‘I am alive, I live, I breathe’ – being alive is enough for them
Reduced to the bare bones
- ‘I hunger to commit the act of touch’ – isolated and deprived
Easier to be taken advantage of?
Chapter 3
- ‘I once had a garden’ – garden used to represent her past freedom
Chapter 4
- ‘she is my spy, as I am hers’ – women turned against each other
Removal of trust – removal of hope and potential for rebellion
Women made to dislike each other – removes opportunity of friendship
Chapter 6
- Bodies hanging on the wall are – ‘time travellers, anachronisms’
, Meant to hate them but they remind her of the past
The men didn’t listen and they were punished – constant reminder of oppressive regime and power
held over the people
Night
- By herself – only time she is not in service to someone else
- Often a reflective short chapter
Repeated throughout the novel
Chapter 7
- ‘the night is mine, my own time’ – sense of freedom found within her lack of freedom
- ‘difference between lie and lay’ – context of derogatory sexual terminology
Even in her time of escapism the reality of her role in society in inescapable
Everything related to sex
Thinks of terms – reminiscent of old world she used to live in
- ‘out of time. Though this is my time’ – no concept of time during night
Time at night is to escape her existence – almost makes a new existence in her mind
- ‘we studied things like that, then’ – education now insignificant
Education taken for granted
Realisation of lost time and steep decline into surveillance
- Moira – symbol of what Gilead is trying to reform
Return to traditional values
- ‘there were some women burning books’ – act of burning books is criticising act of Reaganism
Indicated as oppressive
Use of imperfect tense – reminder of rights of freedom that women once had to show opposition and
ambivalence to authority
Emphasises how era of political conflict wasn’t as inequal as Gilead – epitomising how people still had
freedom of speech
Idea of opposition and anger at authority – criticises the Reaganism of the 1980’s
Showing forceful influence of traditional republican policies and how they caused reactionary chaos
amongst different political groups
- ‘I know I lost time’ – memories have been stolen from her
Her body has also been violated
- ‘you’ve killed her’ – mention of a past possible child
- ‘if this is a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending’ – believes her life to be story and is
waiting for it to end and that something will come after it
Offred had active control over her 2 previous memories – now a bad moment from her past rears up
without her control
Gilead has taken away her ability to remember what she wants
If she is telling a story there will be an end to it and real life will follow
- ‘but it’s no good, because I know you can’t’ – not given any control/license over their lives
She is alone and cannot speak to anyone about what she us going through
As if she is speaking to the audience – feels even harsher and real, breaking fourth wall?
Waiting room
Chapter 8
- ‘the Econwives do not like us’ – women made to turn against each other
Reducing possibility of hope and rebellion
Social hierarchy dictates who is accepted where – people can only be accepted by their class, only one
section would be able to act
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