We tried to sleep in the army cots that had been set up in rows, with spaces between so we could not talk. We had flannelette sheets, like children’s and army issue blankets, old ones that still had….
- Regiments, discipline, lack of communication
- Cots and children, images of innocence
Aunt Elizabeth, aunt Sara, cattle prods, slung on thongs from their leather belts
- Dehumanized
- Extreme control of women
- Not caring and loving aunts
- Stereotypical nazi uniform
Offred and Ofglen go shopping “Doubled, I walk the street” Chapter 5
- Aspirations with Luke
- No education means no challenge in Gilead
Offred and Ofglen go shopping “We turn corner onto the main street” Chapter 5
- Women have always been at risk, targets
- “Now you are given freedom from” being seen as objects
- High status women ride in cars
Women going shopping for groceries chp 5
- This indicates that society is not far off from Gilead
The wall Chp 6
- Division between the past and the present
- Offred and Ofglen are stoic aboiut the wall, metaphor for the barrier between her emotions and the world
The moment Offred’s daughter was taken away from her Chp7
- Women are submissive
- Vulnerability, lack of control
- Lack of autonomy
Why is a priest hanged on the wall in chp 8?
Highlights how only Gilead religion rules
Why two homosexual men hanged on the wall? Chp8
- Gender Treachery, a violation Gilead’s code of conduct
“A fireplace without a fire in it” Chp 23
Shows how Offred’s affair with the commander has no passion
“Books and books and books” “an oasis of the forbidden” Chp 23
- Gilead is trying to control its people and cannot do so if the have knowledge
“I want you to kiss me” Chp 23
- The commander gives Offred power
- He makes her active and him passive as he wants to be desired by her and that’s something he can never command, its up to her
- Kiss contrasts with her kiss with nick in Chp17 which was passionate and spontaneous
How is the commander presented in his first meeting with Offred
- The commander is presented as a man intimidated by Offred’s presence
What is the significance of Offred and the commander playing scrabble
- Highlights fertility “zygote”, “Quice”, “Valance”
- ## Sets equality
Unbabies
- Babies born with deformities or abnormalities
- Seen as a threat to the perfect version that Gilead depicts
- Dehumanization and objectification of infants
- To be discarded
- Suggests extreme control Gilead has over reproductive rights
