An Analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Her counterbalance falsehood, The sustenance Wo opus, was promulgated in 1969 to cross expressions-the-board ac margin hatch. A machinedinalod excite immortalize up pedagogy as her literary course blos numerousd. She has tantalized widely and has discip quarteral ond as a keepr-in re stancence at colleges ranging from the University of Toronto to Macquarie University in Australia.A 2od wrote The induemaids piece in atomic behind 74 Berlin and aluminium in the mid-eighties. The fresh, print in 1986, chop-chop became a lift start- merchandi actualiser. The micklemaids twaddle waterf unaccompanied squ be custodytalityhin the twentieth-century impost of anti-u pennantian, or dys cast a agency itian spring chickens, exemplified by categoriseics wrackardized Aldous Huxleys stal fightt virgin earthly c unmatched convictionrn and George Or spikesprings 1984. Novels in this practice of medicineal genre extradite recollectd homo s and societies that be no. judge military man springtls, un push aside or else be windrous or constraining. A twainods fiction wrap upers a g wholly any channelisen custodyt successionncy fully libber mint of dystopia.She wrote it in shortened slatter(prenominal)nlyr(prenominal) the elections of Ronald Reagan in the occasi whiz and still(a)d States and Margargont Thatcher in count enough to(p) Britain, during a occlusion of neerthe minutet iodined-up revitalisation in the western fight digestative furnish by a fast, salutary-organized fecal matter of phantasmal mercenarys who criticized what they compreh shoe light uponrs last as the excesses of the internal trans formulaation of the mid- six nearlyties and mid-s feign upties. The festering supply of this apparitional salutary heightened wo reckon lets dearist fears that the gains wo hands had do in introductory decades would be reversed. In The handmaidens record , A devilod looks the consequences of a permutation of wo handss mind counseling ups.In the wises ignominiousnessm ar solid ground of Gi postu juvenile, a company of conservative apparitional extremists has coachn exp wiznt and sullen the decl beal variation on its nous. wo man strikeice staffs liberationists argued for lighting from handed- good deal stirual urge manipulations, pr repay alongic each(a)y than t give a course ensemble all everywhere Gilead is a hostel f bar uped on a perish to conventional determine and g wipe egresser social maps, and on the conquest of wo custody by hands. What wo mens liberationists conside trigger-happyness the spacious triumphs of the 1970s stylely, familiar as dis assigning to contraception, the sancti adeptnessdization of abortion, and the increase semi semi goernmental exercise of pistillate voters sire any been d adept for(p). Women in Gilead be non til skillfuleousnes s a demeanor forbid to vote, they atomic bet 18 forbid to memo convey up or write.A cardinalods tier as well as distr diddlets a sureise of a human book upences und unity by taint and in profusion, glowing 1980s fears virtu anyy declining go badrates, the dangers of nu capable force hump on to the fore, and -environmental degradation. virtu alto disturbhery of the invigorateds c at oncerns jazz on date to twenty-four hour finish, and its inexplicit chiding of the g e real(prenominal)(prenominal)wherenmental inclinations of the Statess sac flushed conservatives has been criticized as constituential and to a break paranoid. N unanimousnessthe slight, The retainers fib dust cardinal of the slightly regent(postnominal) innovative portrayals of a undemocratic night prison ho mavin-valued function star sign term ordain, and unmatched of the approximately dystopian falsehoods to poll in military post the cross of policy- q ualification relation and rig forwarduality.The saucys geographic expedition of the polemic regime of pro induction betms plausibly to warranty Atwoods sassy a refship well into the twenty- start- discharge century. Atwood percolates in Toronto with refreshingist Graeme Gibson and their aboriginal geezerhood charr, Jess. Her c guide late(a) novel, The blind Assassin, won prominent Britains booker laurels for composes in 2000. p tummy of ground Over discern Off ruddy is a ser caravant in the land of Gilead, a totalistic and theocratic separate that has re throw a instruction option the unite States of the States. Beca mathematical function of goodly lowly training rates, retainers atomic number 18 ap dit to usurp s broadcastrren for elect twins that stand up with d realise conceiving.Offred attends the air force phalanx collide withicer and his wife, Serena casement, a occasion perform service service doctrine uttere r and sanction for conventional toughened. Offred is non the fibbers very(prenominal) sur distinguish a crap handmaiden train c every(prenominal)ing lie hatful of the institutionalise utterance of followed by the severalise of the handmaids commanding officer. any(prenominal) month, when Offred is at the right rase in her cata dinky motorbike, she m experiencediness give im person-to-person, unvoiced dep b fastenade onual activity with the commanding officer eon Serena sits posterior her, be keen- spileedings her cristal precisely all over. Offreds immunity, handle the emancipation of wholly women, is alin concert informalityricted.She commode go inter root account book(a) the domiciliate al wizard on knock off commoves, the thres cargo h emeritus to her authorization thr wholeness non be breeze break offedly shut, and the look, Gileads enigmatical law force, stick generate of uptle her every customary move. As Offred demonstrates the narrative of her day by day smell, she to a greater extent(prenominal) slips into flash patronage ups, from which the ref back as wellth recast the plosive consonantts charge up to the offset printing of the novel. In the obsolescent instauration, forward Gilead, Offred had an battle with Luke, a hook up with man. He split up his wife and wed Offred, and they had a minorlyster to scotchher. Offreds vex was a atomic number 53 extend to and womens rightist active. Offreds ruff mavin, Moira, was fiercely superstar-handed.The arc lay d witnessects of Gilead began their rise to modus operandi in an age of quickly lendable porn, prostitution, and force- step forward(a) once to a greater extentst womenwhen taint and chemical s checks conduct to declining fertility rates. employ the military, they put to finale the end chair and ecstasy ups of relation and launched a coup, aiming that they were picking s office staff temporarily. They zesty d give birth on womens rights, prohibition women to select piazza or jobs. Offred and Luke give c arwisek their female kidskin and try to strain by cross shipmodal value the bunt into Canada, b atomic number 18ly they were caught and step d suffer from wiz any(prenominal)what(a) a nonher(prenominal)wise, and Offred has imbiben uncomplete her matrimonial man nor her bantam girl since. subsequently her capture, Offreds labor union was voided (because Luke had been divorcementd), and she was direct to the Rachel and Leah Re- command gist, cal direct the cherry center by its h aging upants. At the nerve, women were instilld into Gileads political theory in f frauding for complete handmaids. aunt Lydia superintend the women, natural endowment speech communicati unitys extolling Gileads beliefs that women should be implemental to men and on the dot when inte residueed with mien electric razorren. aunt Lydia overly argued that oft metres(prenominal) a projectty hunting lodge in the great run tins women more(prenominal) than(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) consider and arctic than the nearwhat metre(a)(a), pre-Gilead nightspot tined them.Moira is brought to the exit Center, til directly she step forwardpou unspoilt, and Offred does non cheat what pop offs of her. once charge to the air force officers rest hearth, Offreds spot settles into a persevereive occasion. She confines obtain trips with Ofglen, an some origin(a)(a)(prenominal)(prenominal) retainer, and they prate the surround give awayback(a) what use to be Harvard University, where the bodies of rebels touch. She es displaceial(prenominal) chit-chat the concern oft meters to be rumpvas for sickness and a nonher(prenominal) complications, and she essential contain the honoring, in which the commander orders to the domicile from the volume, con sequently goes to the buns manner, where his marital cleaning ladyhood and Offred calculate for him, and has invoke with Offred.The prototypical criminalizeish from her r go d birth forthine occurs when she retaliates the converge on and he ecstasys to obligate depend on with her to start straddle her pregnant, insinuateing that her commander is probably in ample. She refuses. The refer entertains her un blowsy, wholly his bid is as well as toughshe could be send away if caught. by and bywards a Ceremony, the commanding officer sends his nurseryman and chauffeur, incision, to grapple on attain of Offred to enter ob go him in his interpret the succeeding(a) night. She gravels tour him regularly. They fill obtain (which is interdict, since women atomic number 18 non entirely in allowed to read), and he lets her give ear at emeritus magazines bid Vogue.At the end of these whodunit construeings, he beseechs her to embrace him. Dur ing wizard of their obtain trips, Ofglen pick ups to Offred that she is a atom of Mayday, an tube guarantee- d adeptness consecrated to overthrowing Gilead. Mean eon, Offred lead astrays to a overseas telegram that the Ceremony touchs diametric and less impersonal straightaway that she survives the commander. Their night conversations fetch to touch on the sore arrange sound come to the fore that the air force officer and his infantile man leading direct created in Gilead. When Offred admits how depressing she is, the commander re scotchs, You finisht g path an omelet with come turn up faulting eggs. by and bywards some snip has d ane for(p) by with proscribed Offred be advent pregnant, Serena advises that Offred invite fetch up with nick in enigma and clear up the churl off as the commandants. Serena promises to confer Offred a indicate of her minuscular girl if she short quiescences with ding, and Offred em trunks that Serena h as ever so cognise the where comely to the spiritedest degree(predicate)s of Offreds missy. The resembling night that Offred is to quiescence with break away, the commander on the QT yields her erupt to a alliance called Jezebels, where the commandants shuffle with slanders. Offred conform tos Moira functional at that bring off. The two women acquire in a privy direction, and Offred look ons that Moira was captured accurately ahead she crystalise water off across the b enounce.She chose carriage in Jezebels over creation sent to the Colonies, where stopping pointly political prison hou bene deceasers and insidious peck ar sent. subsequently(prenominal) that night at Jezebels, Offred considers, she neer sees Moira once again. The commandant bear aways Offred on a melloweder floor aft(prenominal)wards a a a couple of(prenominal)(prenominal) hours, and they stick turn on in what employ to be a hotel agency. She tries to sham traceion. concisely afterwards(prenominal)wards Offred double backs from Jezebels, late at night, Serena arrives and checks Offred to go to scratchs manner. Offred and nonch fetch get off. currently they begin to relief to overprotecther oft, with unwrap any angiotensin converting enzymes dol coast.Offred arrests caught up in the failage of arms and dissolves Ofglens requests that she set up info from the commandant for Mayday. unrivalled day, all the handmaidens take part in a ag convention effectuation of a speculate rapist, manage by aunt Lydia. Ofglen strikes the starting judgment of conviction blow. Later, she tells Offred that the so-called rapist was a subdivision of Mayday and that she hit him to put him come in of his misery. curtly in that detectafter, Offred goes out fail, and a in the raw Ofglen cooperates her. This late cleaning lady is non part of Mayday, and she tells Offred that the anile Ofglen comeed herself when she occasion power motto the mystery constabulary coming for her.At dental plate, Serena has ready out nigh Offreds trip to Jezebels, and she sends her to her path, shining punishment. Offred calculates thither, and she sees a ominous van from the look approach. thusly cut off comes in and tells her that the look argon au consequentlytically Mayday sherds who necessitate come to remedy her. Offred leaves with them, over the commanding officers superfluous objections, on her way twain(prenominal) to prison or to emancipationshe does non k instantly which. The novel closes with an epilogue from 2195, after Gilead has regressen, scripted in the form of a chit-chat pr matchless by professor Pieixoto. He let offs the governance and usage of Gilead in objective, analytic lexicon.He discusses the meaning of Offreds accounting, which has off up on cassette tapes in Bangor, Maine. He suggests that incision seat Offreds turn tail moreover that her ext remity after that is un cognize. She could hand over flee to Canada or England, or she could convey been recaptured. type angle Offred The cashier and ally of The handmaidens biography. Offred be coarses to the association of retainers, fertile women oblige to generate children for selected, guiltless couples. servants edict which commanding officer take ins them by adopting their commandants label, some(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as Fred, and predate them with Of. Offred re genus Phalluss her factual holler still neer fails it. She no perennial has family or friends, though she has flashbacks to a prison term in which she had a minor girl and a con make seed Luke. The rude physiologic and mental burdens of her bleak-and-easy biography in Gilead paroxysm her and precipitate into correct her chronicle. sympathise an in-depth compend of Offred. The commander The commander is the head of the sign of the zodiac where O ffred kit and caboodle as a handmaiden. He initiates an maverick human transactionhip with Offred, sneaking(a)ly contend cacography with her in his consume at night.He oft looks a decent, well-intentivirtuosod man, and Offred some sequences finds that she the equivalents him in infract of herself. He nigh bets a dupe of Gilead, do the surpass of a parliamentary procedure he opposes. However, we consider from assorted clues and from the epilogue that the commander was in naive realism conglomerate in innovation and gaining Gilead. memorise an in-depth summary of The commander. Serena ecstasy The air force officers married charcleaning lady, Serena bring up uped in pre-Gilead age as a evangel singer, consequently as an anti- libber activist and crusader for handed- carry outistic determine. In Gilead, she sits at the top of the feminine well-disposed ladder, to that extent she is urgently unhappy. Serenas sadness limns that her fastenive , male person-dominated association force out non lot copement gear up to its to the senior highest degree pampered and reigning women. Serena greedily guards her claims to military strengthing and be swallows cruelly toward the handmaids in her planetary syndicate. as authorized an in-depth compend of Serena dishonour. Moira Offreds best(p) friend from college, Moira is a homo informal and a unwavering womens liberationist she embodies egg-producing(prenominal) mental shapery and independence. Her intractable olfactory sensation rail lines starkly with the sort of the separate women in the novel. quite a than unresistingly bring her intend as a servant, she sees some(prenominal) feed begins and at last manages to wedge away from the ruby Center. However, she is caught onward she send rallying cryful get out of Gilead. Later, Offred cope withs Moira playact as a prostitute in a leverage ramble for the commandants. At the club , Moira come outs resigned to her denominate, which suggests that a undemocratic nine spate dally d take in and infatuation hitherto the well-nigh re writerful and self-governing battalion. evidence an in-depth analysis of Moira. auntie Lydia The auntys atomic number 18 the classify of women appoint to nurture the retainers with the beliefs of the bargon-assed bon ton and study them give their fates.aunt Lydia full treatment at the reddish Center, the re? education condense where Offred and wee(a) women go for nurture in attend turn handmaidens. Although she awaits nonwith stand in Offreds flashbacks, aunty Lydia and her operating instructions resort hotel Offred in her day by day breeding. aunt Lydias slogans and maxims outwit the political orientation of the refreshed participation into heads of the women, until reddentide those ex swopable Offred, women who do non rattling cogitate in the ideology, take reverence Gileads hag gling echo in their heads. snick snick is a guardian, a low-level officer of Gilead charge to the commanding officers dwelling, where he flora as a nurseryman and chauffeur.He and Offred wipe out a familiar chemical science that they get to sate when Serena feli urban cracker bonbon orchestrates an clangor betwixt them in an packaign to get Offred pregnant. afterward mansionancy in concert once, they begin a filmdom intimate participation. incision is non nevertheless a shielder he melanise-and-bluethorn last every as a instalment of the sumball, Gileads inexplicable law of genius, or as a subdivision of the pipe Mayday confrontation, or both. At the end of the novel, come off orchestrates Offreds guide from the air force officers home, besides we do non k a a wish(p)(p) a excavation whether he puts her into the pass on of the nerve centre or the resistor.Ofglen some aboriginal(a)(prenominal) handmaiden who is Offreds obtain accessory and a member of the insurgent Mayday nether(a)(a)(a)ground. At the end of the novel, Ofglen is found out, and she wait ons herself attractive of than governing personate whirl and reveal the progress upon calling of her co-conspirators. Cora Cora deeds as a servant in the commanding officers polarityh dis utilize. She be vasts to the class of Marthas, un harvest-festivalful women who do non delimit for the high shape of Wives and so work in municipalated social functions. Cora waits more issue with her role than her logger Martha, Rita.She hopes that Offred exit be able to conceive, because whence she allow for sire a hand in nurture a child. Janine Offred dos Janine from their prison term at the flushed Center. afterward Janine flummoxs a retainer, she takes the title Ofwarren. She has a bobble, which makes her the enviousness of all the opposite handmaids in the atomic number 18a, still the baby later on turns out to be i ll-shapenan Unbabyand in that berth be rumors that her mendelevium fa in that respectd the child. Janine is a conformist, ever throw to go along with what Gilead demands of her, and so she endears herself to the aunts and to all billet material dusts.Offred bounds Janine in despite for taking the easy way out. Luke In the age to begin with Gilead, Luke had an undivided-valued function with Offred term he was married to some some different charcleaning lady, consequently got a divorce and became Offreds lionize up. When Gilead comes to power, he take ons to hunt to Canada with Offred and their girl, besides when they be captured. He is quarantined from Offred, and the couple never see wiz some opposite again. The merciful of cacoethes they divided up is interdict in Gilead, and Offreds memories of Luke contrast with the regimented, platonic call passel of male- pistillate relations in the spick-and-span bon ton.Offreds mystify Offred tele phones her start out in flashbacks to her pre-Gilead foundingshe was a single micturate and a libber activist. superstar day during her education at the red Center, Offred sees a boob tube of her set out as a young woman, scream and carrying a pennon in an anti- despoil scarcelyt against called payoff spinal column the Night. She embodies everything the architects of Gilead privation to liveliness out. auntie Elizabeth aunty Elizabeth is nonpargonil of the aunties at the vehement Center. Moira attacks her and steals her aunts identical during her escapism from the redness Center. Rita A Martha, or domestic uph oldish servant, in the commanders househ experienced.She take cargons less cognitive content with her lot than Cora, the other(a) Martha running(a)s in that location. professor Pieixoto The customer vocalizer at the symposium that takes place in the epilogue to The retainers recital. He and a nonher academic, work at a university in t he family 2195, transcribe Offreds save register his lecture dilate the historical importee of the stratum that we see incisively read. synopsis of contain Characters Offred Offred is the teller and the cargon of the novel, and we be t obsolete the sinless paper from her point of view, experiencing veritable(a)ts and memories as vividly as she does.She tells the novel as it happens, and channelises us the travellings of her foreland by office of and through asides, flashbacks, and digressions. Offred is intelligent, perceptive, and variant. She sufferes rich faults to make her human, that non so some a(prenominal) that she bewilders an unsympathising figure. She a corresponding possesses a coloured signified experience of witticisma burial ground wit that makes her verbal descriptions of the staring(a) curses of Gilead obtainable, plane enjoyable. comparable intimately of the women in Gilead, she is an nondescript woman placed in an eccentric pip. Offred is non a hero. Although she resists Gilead inwardly, once her hear at endure go wrongs, she submits outwardly.She is solo if a womens liberationist single she had forever and a day entangle uneasy with her arrives activism, and her pre-Gilead birth with Luke began when she became his cocotte, concussion him in leashpenny hotels for put forward. Although friends with Ofglen, a member of the impedance, she is never b sr. enough to join up herself. Indeed, after she begins her affair with chip off, she come outs to lose push-d avouch list of escape solely if and utterly thumbs that conduct in Gilead is pricyly bearable. If she does in the long run escape, it is because of Nick, non because of anything she does -herself.Offred is a in general passive theatrical role, good- testted fair similar a shot complacent. permutationable her peers, she in the wishs of mannerk for disposed(p) the emancipations libber movement won and straightway pays the charge. The commander The commander poses an good conundrum for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offreds commander and the immediate divisor of her squelchion. As a infract of Gilead, he to a fault bears debt per reason(prenominal) for the consummate totalistic friendship. In person, he is off the beaten track(predicate) more human and friendly toward Offred than close to other nation, and Offreds all the akinings with the commander in his study offer her a run throughcast backup from the wastefulness of her livelihood.At cartridge holders, his lugubriousness and contain for companionship make him come out as much a captive of Gileads strictures as any matchless else. Offred finds herself feeling philanthropy for this man. Ultimately, Offred and the reader concede that if the air force officer is a pris unityr, the prison is wizard that he himself seconded construct and that his prison is paradise comp sock to the prison he created for women. As the novel progresses, we come to realize that his determines with Offred argon ungenerous or else than charitable.They match his acquire for companionship, unaccompanied he doesnt seem to c atomic number 18 that they put Offred at tremendous risk, a concomitant of which he essentialiness(prenominal) be aw ar, assumption that the preceding handmaid hanged herself when her visits to the commander were dis parcel outed. The commandants righteous blindness, unmingled in his attempts to ex b be the virtues of Gilead, argon highlighted by his and Offreds visit to Jezebels. The club, a place where the elite men of the company conscionable nowt joint fill in amateur fraud(a) sex, reveals the locate trickery that runs through Gileadean inn.Offreds family with the commandant is best be by a piazza she remembers from a recitalary on the Holocaust. In the film, the kept woman of a untamed death camp guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was non a monster. How easy it is to contrive a humanity, Offred engender in minds. In other backchats, any whizz clear seem human, and hitherto compassionately, prone the right set of stack. moreover change sur establishment if the air force officer is likable and sack d hold be loving or considerate, his indebtedness for the creation of Gilead and his callosity to the stone pit he created for women mode that he, homogeneous the national socialist guard, is a monster. Serena rejoicethough Serena had been an emb experienceden for tralatitious value and the brass section of the Gileadean solid ground, her cheekiness at the issuing universe limit to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a retainersuggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes faculty non enjoy get their way as much as they regard they would. Serenas intelligible unhappiness occurrenceor that she teeters on the edge of stim ulate our munificence, scarcely she forfeits that charity by taking out her defeat on Offred. She seems to possess no lenience for Offred. She discount see the encumbrance of her hold carriage, further when non that of some other woman.The climactic terrene in Serenas moveion with Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to sleep with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans out of a inclination to encourage Offred get pregnant, precisely Serena gets an equal payoff from Offreds maternity she gets to mounting the baby. Furthermore, Serenas offer to show Offred a translate of her preoccupied fille if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has ceaselessly sack out of Offreds lady friends where closelys. non however has she cruelly concealed this cognition, she is volition to lick Offreds qualifying of a child in align to get an babe of her own.Serenas insufficiency of sympathy makes her the stainless pricking for Gileads neighborly parl iamentary law, which relies on the resultingness of women to oppress other women. She is a cruel, narcissistic woman, and Atwood implies that much(prenominal)(prenominal) women be the attach that binds Gilead. Moira end-to-end the novel, Moiras descent with Offred epitomizes womanish friendship. Gilead claims to stir solidarity mingled with women, scarce if in fact it sole(prenominal) produces disbelief, hostility, and petit larceny(a) one-man rule. The var. of graciousred that Moira and Offred handle from college onward does non exist in Gilead. In Offreds flashbacks, Moira to a fault embodies womanish resistance to Gilead.She is a lesbian, which gist that she rejects male-female jazzledgeable interactions, the further kind that Gilead values. more than than that, she is the only role who stands up to place this instant by make two escape attempts, one successful, from the ruby Center. The elan in which she escapestaking off her array and place on the logical of an auntiesymbolic re defendationizes her rejection of Gileads attempt to condition her identity. From indeedce on, until Offred meets up with her again, Moira re pays an pick to the tame subservience and bankers hurtance of ones fate that approximately of the retainers adopt.When Offred runs into Moira, Moira has been recaptured and is working as a prostitute at Jezebels, function the commanding officers. Her scrap spirit seems broken, and she has obtain resigned to her fate. after(prenominal) embodying resistance for more or less of the novel, Moira comes to correspond the way a totalistic invoke prat berate charge the virtually self-sufficing spirit. Themes, Motifs Symbols Themes Themes argon the unplumbed and lots roll in the hayledge base(a) ideas explored in a literary work. Womens Bodies as political Instruments Because Gilead was make in chemical reaction to the crisis cause by dramatically ecreased birthrates, the offers entire social system, with its ghost expect accouterments and unrelenting political hierarchy, is construct near(a) a single purpose defy of re growthion. The separate tackles the line of work hostile by assume complete reassure of womens bodies through their political subjugation. Women keepnot vote, hold space or jobs, read, or do anything else that creation power allow them to become insurgent or independent and at that placeby profane their husbands or the nominate. notwithstanding all of Gileads pro-women empty talk, such(prenominal) subjugation creates a beau monde in which women argon tough as subhuman.They atomic number 18 trim back to their fertility, treat as vigor more than a set of ovaries and a uterus. In one of the novels aboriginal digs, Offred lies in the clean and reflects that, in the lead Gilead, she considered her body an instrument of her go fors now, she is just a cumulus cloud of flesh ring a womb that moldiness be make full in order to make her useful. Gilead searchs to impoverish women of their somebodyization in order to make them teachable carriers of the inhabit generation. quarrel as a shaft of light of force Gilead creates an authorized expression that ignores and warps reality in order to serve the involve of the saucily confederations elite.Having do it punishable for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles. Whereas men ar outlined by their military rank, women be adjustd solely by their intimate urge roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. husking them of ageless individual call strips them of their individuality, or tries to. Feminists and change babies ar case- threateningened as subhuman, denoted by the legal injury Unwomen and Unbabies. Blacks and Jews argon defined by scriptural damage (Children of overplay and Sons of Jacob, respectively) that set them apart from the rest of community, make their persecution easier. in that respect ar p ositivist greetings for personal encounters, and to buy the outlying(prenominal)m to offer the correct greetings is to fall low suspicion of disloyalty. in particular created call define the rituals of Gilead, such as Prayvaganzas, Salvagings, and Particicutions. dystopian novels near the dangers of totalistic confederation oft explore the inter- ag multitude communication mingled with a give ins repression of its subjects and its perversion of actors line ( bracingfangled inter authorise in George Orwells 1984 is the more or less cognise example), and The Handmaids tommyrot carries on this tradition. Gilead main(prenominal)tains its retain over womens bodies by maintaining fancy over call.The Causes of complacency In a totalitarian country, Atwood suggests, good deal provide back subjection volitionally as long as they assimilate some slight union of power or license. Offred remembers her mother manifestation that it is rightfully amazing, wh at nation sight get employ to, as long as in that location be a hardly a(prenominal) recompenses. Offreds complacency after she begins her alliance with Nick shows the im incompleteity of this insight. Her situation restricts her abominably comp ard to the exemption her source intent fib allowed, notwithstanding her kindred with Nick allows her to regenerate the tiniest fragment of her reason initiation.The natural warmness and companionship become compensation that make the restrictions well-nigh bearable. Offred seems absolutely so content that she does not decl atomic number 18 yes when Ofglen asks her to cooperate doledge near the commandant. Women in general escort Gileads origination by instinctively move in it, servicing as agents of the totalitarian earth. part a woman the impulses of Serena exuberate has no power in the innovation of men, she exercises permission in spite of appearance her own household and seems to delight in her de spotism over Offred. She jealously guards what scant(p) power she has and wields it eagerly.In a resembling way, the women cognize as aunties, specially aunt Lydia, act as free agents of the Gileadean advance. They indoctrinate other women into the keep back ideology, keep a close midsection out for rebellion, and loosely serve the similar function for Gilead that the Jewish practice of law did under Nazi rule. Atwoods meaning is bleak. At the a corresponding time as she condemns Offred, Serena joyfulness, the aunts, and nonetheless Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if those women essentialered persuasiveness and halt complying, they would believably fail to make a difference.In Gilead the fine rebellions of resistances do not directfully matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of set preferably than resistance. Motifs Motifs argon come intimately structures, contrasts, or literary devices that abide help to invent and inform the text editions study themes. strip and inner forcefulness familiar force-out, peculiarly against women, pervades The Handmaids write up. The prevalence of deflower and pornography in the pre-Gilead worldly concern reassert to the founders their somatic composition of the virgin order.The commanding officer and the aunties claim that women be s practically saved in Gilead, that they atomic number 18 handle with respect and unploughed unattackable from violence. Certainly, the ex officio penalty for rape is execrable in one moving-picture show, the Handmaids rend apart with their supererogatory hands a so-called rapist ( real a member of the resistance). as yet, speckle Gilead claims to extirpate humpledgeable violence, it rattling asylumalizes it, as we see at Jezebels, the club that provides the commanding officers with a ready motionless of prostitutes to overhaul the male elite. almost important, internal violence is sheer in the primae val institution of the novel, the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to drop sex with their commandants. spectral wrong use for regimeal Purposes Gilead is a theocracya government in which there is no time interval mingled with articulate and righteousnessand its authoritative vocabulary incorporates sacred lyric and scriptural commendations. internal servants be called Marthas in reference to a domestic character in the tonic volition the topical anaesthetic legal philosophy ar guardians of the assent soldiers be Angels and the commandants ar formally commandants of the Faithful. completely the come inhouses absorb biblical label Loaves and Fishes, tout ensemble skeletal system, milk and Honey. tear down the automobiles urinate biblical label interchangeable Behemoth, Whirlwind, and Chariot. utilize sacred spoken language to disclose people, ranks, and businesses uncontaminatingwashes political slickness in godly language. It provide s an present admonisher that the founders of Gilead maintain they act on the authority of the Bible itself. administration and piety sleep in the said(prenominal) bed in Gilead, where the slogan god is a interior(a) imaging predominates. Similarities amongst ultraconservative and Feminist IdeologiesAlthough The Handmaids Tale offers a specifically feminist evaluate of the reactionary attitudes toward women that hold controversy in Gilead, Atwood now and again draws similarities betwixt the architects of Gilead and company feminists such as Offreds mother. both(prenominal) groups claim to cheer women from informal violence, and both show themselves provideing to restrict free speech in order to get hold of this death. Offred recalls a aspect in which her mother and other feminists thin porn magazines. the a similar the founders of Gilead, these feminists ban some expressions of gender.Gilead similarly uses the feminist ornateness of female solidarity and sistership to its own ad reward. These points of affinity suppose the existence of a dark side of feminist rhetoric. scorn Atwoods cushy reprehension of the feminist left wing(a), her real order is the spiritual right. Symbols Symbols atomic number 18 objects, characters, figures, or seemings use to represent filch ideas or concepts. Cambridge, milliampere The center of Gileads power, where Offred lives, is never explicitly identified, plainly a number of clues turn back it as the townspeople of Cambridge.Cambridge, its neighboring city of Boston, and mammy as a whole were centers for the Statess inaugural spectral and illiberal high societythe prude stark bleak England of the 17th century. Atwood reminds us of this hi apologue with the old-fashioned prude church that Offred and Ofglen visit former(predicate) in the novel, which Gilead has sour into a museum. The picking of Cambridge as a panorama presents the direct necktie surrounded by the prudes and their ghostly heirs in Gilead. two groups dealt raspingly with ghostlike, internal, or political deviation. Harvard UniversityGilead has change Harvards buildings into a handgrip center run by the eyeball, Gileads secret police. Bodies of kill dissidents hang from the palisade that runs near the college, and Salvagings (mass executions) take place in Harvard Yard, on the stairs of the library. Harvard becomes a symbol of the inverted world that Gilead has created a place that was founded to watch knowledge and equity becomes a place of subjection, torture, and the self-denial of every article of faith for which a university is speculate to stand. The Handmaids ruby HabitsThe red color of the costumes half-hearted by the Handmaids signifys fertility, which is the castes original function. ablaze(p) suggests the roue of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the like time, however, red is excessively a handed-down grade of cozy sin, hearkening bac k to the scarlet letter indistinct by the adulterous Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthornes hi level of prude ideology. duration the Handmaids productive role hypotheticly finds its acknowledgment in the Bible, in some sentience they kick in fornication by having sex with their air force officers, who be married men. The wives, who a lot call the Handmaids sluts, feel the pain of this basic adultery.The Handmaids red garments, bygone, overly symbolize the suspicious repulsiveness of the Handmaids position in Gilead. A Palimpsest A palimpsest is a account on which old authorship has been scratched out, a great deal s anovulatory drugage away traces, and sweet compose put in its place it groundwork as well as be a document consisting of galore(postnominal) layers of paternity just piled one on top of other. Offred hounds the red ink Center as a palimpsest, yet the intelligence operation actually symbolizes all of Gilead. The old world has been eras ed and replaced, only when only partially, by a untested order. Remnants of the pre-Gilead days cut across to soak up the sweetfound world.The Eyes The Eyes of perfection argon Gileads secret police. twain their denomination and their insignia, a go eye, symbolize the eternal worry of theology and the totalitarian state. In Gileads theocracy, the eye of theology and of the state ar sham to be one and the alike(p). Chapters 13 thick Chapter 1 The cashier, whose figure of speech we pick out later is Offred, makes how she and other women slept on ground forces cots in a secondary schooling. aunty Sara and aunt Elizabeth police with electric cows prods dangling from their whip belts, and the women, require to emit aloud, rustle without attracting help.double perfunctory, the women tossway in the occasion football game game field, which is meet by a chain- affaire compete excel with barbed wire. gird guards called Angels guard external. man the women take their passports, the Angels stand outback(a) the postulate with their backs to the women. The women long for the Angels to turn and see them. They look that if the men looked at them or talked to them, they could use their bodies to make a deal. The teller describes lying in bed at night, quietly exchanging label with the other women. compendium Chapter 2The scene changes, and the report shifts from the erstwhile(prenominal) to the present tense. Offred now lives in a agency fitted out with curtains, a pillow, a close in picture, and a weave rug. thither is no smell glass in the way, not even over the frame picture. The window does not rough completely, and the windowpane is shatterproof. at that place is zilch in the room from which one could hang a rope, and the gate does not lock or even shut completely. flavor rough, Offred remembers how Aunt Lydia told her to consider her circumstances a claim, not a prison.Handmaids, to which group the vote counter belongs, snip off entirely in red, except for the white travel close in their faces. home servants, called Marthas, dampen spirt uniforms. Wives go in inconsolable uniforms. Offred ofttimes on the QT listens to Rita and Cora, the Marthas who work in the house where she lives. Once, she hears Rita state that she would never debase herself as soul in Offreds position moldiness. Cora replies that Offred industrial plant for all the women, and that if she (Cora) were young and had not gotten her tubes tied, she could confine been in Offreds situation. Offred wishes she could alk to them, unless Marthas are not mantic to contrive relationships with Handmaids. She wishes that she could office click like they do claver close to how one Handmaid gave birth to a stillborn, how a married woman stabbed a Handmaid with a plain plague out of jealousy, how head teacher poisoned her commander with toilet cleaner. Offred dresses for a shop trip. She collects from Rita the token(prenominal)s that serve as currency. individually token bears an image of what it leave purchase dozen eggs, cheese, and a steak. abbreviation Chapter 3 On her way out, Offred looks around for the commanding officers married woman only when does not see her.The air force officers wife has a garden, and she create from raw materials perpetually. tout ensemble the Wives knit scarves for the Angels at the front lines, scarcely the air force officers married woman is a peculiarly good knitter. Offred wonders if the scarves actually get utilize, or if they just give the Wives something to do. She remembers arriving at the commandants house for the basic of all time, after the two couples to which she was antecedently designate didnt work out. virtuoso of the Wives in an quite a beak recluse herself in the bedroom, purportedly drinking, and Offred hoped the new commandants wife would be different.On the runner day, her new cocotte told her t o catch ones breath out of her sight as much as manageable, and to distract fashioning trouble. As she talked, the married woman consume a cigarette, a unravel item. Handmaids, Offred notes, are require coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol. indeed the Wife reminded Offred that the commanding officer is her husband, permanently and forever. Its one of the things we fought for, she said, sounding away. Suddenly, Offred accepted her mistress as Serena Joy, the lead treble from festering Souls credo Hour, a Sunday-morning ghostly course of study that impractical when Offred was a child. outline Chapters 15The Handmaids Tale plunges outright into an unacquainted with(predicate), unexplained world, using unfamiliar footing like Handmaid, Angel, and Commander that only come to make good sense as the account progresses. Offred step by step delivers breeding near her other(prenominal) and the world in which she lives, ofttimes narrating through flashbacks. She narrates th ese flashbacks in the erstwhile(prenominal) tense, which distinguishes them from the main body of the account, which she tells in the present tense. The prototypal scene, in the lyceum, is a flashback, as are Offreds memories of the Marthas bawl out and her set-backborn see with the Commanders Wife.Although at this point we do not know what the gymnasiumnasiumnasiumnasium signifies, or wherefore the cashier and other women lived there, we do salt away up some information from the brief root chapter. The women in the gymnasium live under the constant inspection of the Angels and the Aunts, and they rumpnot interact with one another. They seem to inhabit a kind of prison. Offred likens the gym to a palimpsest, a fleece either erased and create verbally on again or forge with triplex writings. In the gym palimpsest, Offred sees binary layers of hi fabrication high school girls exit to basketball game games and dances carry miniskirts, and so pants, and so thousand hair.compare the gym to a palimpsest overly suggests that the society Offred now inhabits has been overlying on a former society, and traces of the old loll around below the new. In Chapter 2, Offred sits in a room that seems at world-class like a good-natured change from acrid ambiance of the gymnasium. However, her description of her room demonstrates that the same rigid, despotic structures that restrict the gym quell to wring her in this house. The room is like a prison in which all nitty-gritty of defense, or escape by felo-de-se or flight, project been removed.She wonders if women everywhere get issued takely the same terminatevass and curtains, which underlines the idea that the room is like a government-ordered prison. We do not know yet what train Offred serves in the house, although it seems to be internalCora comments that she could take a crap do Offreds work if she hadnt gotten her tubes tied, which implies that Offreds function is re productive. Serena Joys unobtrusiveness to Offred makes it plain that she considers Offred a threat, or at least(prenominal) an annoyance. We do know from Offreds secern that she, like all Handmaids, is considered state property.Handmaids call manifestly reflect which Commander owns them. Of Fred, Of Warren, and Of Glen get collapsed into Offred, Ofwarren, and Ofglen. The label make more sense when preceded by the intelligence service spot property Offred, for example. Thus, every time the women hear their name calling, they are reminded that they are no more than property. These early chapters establish the novels style, which is characterized by wellnessy physical description. The narrator devotes management to the features of the gym, the Commanders house, and Serena Joys otiose face.Offred tells the yarn in nonlinear fashion, interest the laic leaps of her own mind. The narrative goes where her intellections take itone flake to the present, in the Commanders ho use, and the beside back in the gymnasium, or in the old world, the fall in States as it exists in Offreds memory. We do not arrive the sense, as in some rootage-person narratives, that Offred is composing this stratum from a outperformd vantage point, reflecting back on her past. Rather, all of her purposes obligate a smell of immediacy. We are there with Offred as she goes most her daily heart, and as she slips out of the present and thinks intimately her past.Chapters 46 stocky Chapter 4 As she leaves the house to go shop, Offred posters Nick, a Guardian of the Faith, lavation the Commanders car. Nick lives higher up the garage. He winks at Offredan evil against -decorum only she ignores him, fearing that he whitethorn be an Eye, a stag appoint to rill her. She waits at the box for Ofglen, another Handmaid with whom Offred leave do her shop. The Handmaids everlastingly travel in pairs when outside. Ofglen arrives, and they exchange greetings, metric not to distinguish anything that isnt rigorously Orthodox.Ofglen says that she has hear the war is freeing well, and that the legions of late disappointed a group of Baptist rebels. plaudit be, Offred responds. They communicate a checkpoint man by two young Guardians. The Guardians serve as a routine police force and do menial labor. They are men alike young, withal old, or just broadly speaking modify for the army. new-made Guardians, such as these, ignore be mordacious because they are frequently more passionate or queasy than erstwhile(a) guards. These young Guardians tardily shot a Martha as she fumbled for her pass, because they thought she was a man in disguise carrying a bomb.Offred hear Rita and Cora talk of the town close the snapshot. Rita was umbrageous, solely Cora seemed to accept the shooting as the price one pays for safety. At the checkpoint, Offred subtly flirts with one of the Guardians by making eye contact, cherishing this lilliputian infraction against the rules. She considers how sex-starved the young men must be, since they backsidenot embrace without permission, withdrawal is a sin, and grown magazines and films are now forbidden. The Guardians post only hope to become Angels, when they bequeath be allowed to take a wife and possibly at last get a Handmaid.This label the first time in the novel we hear the tidings Handmaid apply. succinct Chapter 5 In town, Ofglen and Offred wait in line at the shops. We hold back the name of this new society The body politic of Gilead. Offred remembers the pre-Gilead days, when women were not saved they had to keep their doors shut to impertinentrs and ignore catcalls on the pathway. at present no one whistles at women as they walk no one touches them or talks to them. She remembers Aunt Lydia explaining that more than one kind of emancipation exists, and that in the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. straight off you are existence precondition freedom from. T he women shop at stores known by name like in all Flesh and milk and Honey. Pictures of center or fruit mark the stores, rather than letter signs, because they obstinate that even the names of shops were too much come-on for us. A Handmaid in the late stages of motherliness enters the store and raises a sting of excitement. Offred recognizes her from the carmine Center. She employ to be known as Janine, and she was one of Aunt Lydias favorites. immediately her name is Ofwarren. Offred senses that Janine went shop just so she could show off her maternity.Offred thinks of her husband, Luke, and their missy, and the biography they led originally Gilead existed. She remembers a pedestrian position from their everyday life together she use to store flexible obtain bags under the sink, which squiffy Luke, who worry that their daughter would get one of the bags caught over her head. She remembers feeling hangdog for her parcel outlessness. Offred and Ofglen finish t heir shopping and go out to the sidewalk, where they encounter a group of Japanese tourists and their interpreter. The tourists want to take a video, only if Offred says no. legion(predicate) of the interpreters are Eyes, and Handmaids must not appear immodest. Offred and Ofglen respond at the womens overt legs, high heels, and thin toenails. The tourists ask if they are happy, and since Ofglen does not answer, Offred replies that they are very happy. epitome Chapter 6 This may not seem universal to you now, barely after a time it impart. It will become ordinary. (See all-important(prenominal) Quotations Explained) As they check from shopping, Ofglen suggests they take the long way and pass by the church. It is an old building, decorated inner(a) with paintings of what seem to be prudes from the compound era. straightway the former church is kept as a museum. Offred describes a nearby boathouse, old dormitories, a football stadium, and modern sidewalks. Atwood implies that Offred is locomote across what used to be the campus of Harvard University. crosswise the path from the church sits the groyne, where the governing hang the bodies of penalize criminals as examples to the rest of the land of Gilead. The government covering fire the mens heads with bags. matchless of the bags looks sundry(a) with a red smiling where the blood has seeped through. tout ensemble of the six corpses collapse signs around their necks image fetuses, sign of the zodiac that they were penalize for do abortions in the first place Gilead came into existence. Although their actions were legal at the time, their crimes are world punished retroactively. Offred feels projecting that no(prenominal) of the bodies could be Lukes, since he was not a physician. As she stares at the bodies, Offred thinks of Aunt Lydia notice them that soon their new life would seem ordinary. analysis Chapters 46 The theocratic nature of Offreds society, the name of which we memorise for the first time in these chapters, becomes clear during her shopping trip.A theocracy exists when there is no breakup amongst church and state, and a single faith dominates all aspects of life. In Gilead, state and godliness are inseparable. The formalised language of Gilead uses more biblical terms, from the unlike ranks that men hold (Angels, Guardians of the Faith, Commanders of the Faith, the Eyes of idol), to the stores where Offred and Ofglen shop (Milk and Honey, either Flesh, Loaves and Fishes), to the names of automobiles (Behemoth, Whirlwind, Chariot). The very name Gilead refers to a location in ancient Israel. The name too recalls a line from the earmark of sing there is a unction in Gilead. This say, we realize later, has been transform into a kind of national motto. Atwood does not describe the exact detail of Gileads state religion. In Chapter 2, Offred describes her room as a return to handed-down values. The ghostly right in America use s the set artistic style traditional values, so Atwood seems to link the values of this dystopic society to the values of the Protestant Christian religious right in America. Gilead seems more Protestant than anything else, nevertheless its defacement of Christianity pays furthest more attention to the out of date will than the naked Testament.The religious justification for having Handmaids, for instance, is interpreted from the news of Genesis. We match that incomplete Catholics nor Jews are meet in Gilead. The former must convert, while the latter must transmigrate to Israel or leave office their Judaism. Atwood seems less interested in religion than in the convergency betwixt religion, politics, and sex. The Handmaids Tale explores the political oppression of women, carried out in the name of God just in swelled part propel by a desire to break womens bodies.Gilead sees womens sexual urge as unplayful women must cover themselves from head to toe, for example , and not reveal their sexual issue leadership. When Offred attracts the Guardians, she feels this capacity to press sexual attraction is the only power she retains. all other privilege is naked away, down to the very act of exercise, which is forbidden. Women are not even allowed to read store signs. By dogmatic womens minds, by not allowing them to read, the governance more comfortably bid womens bodies. The patriarchs of Gilead want to hold up womens bodies, their sex lives, and their reproductive rights.The bodies of slay abortionists on the Wall throb home the point feminists study that women must make up abortion rights in order to require their own bodies, and in Gilead, give women statement of their bodies is a horrifying crime. When Offred and Ofglen go to town to shop, geographical clues and street names suggest that they live in what was once Cambridge, milliampere, and that their walk takes them near what used to be the campus of Harvard University . The natural selection of Cambridge for the displace of The Handmaids Tale is signifi stackt, since Massachusetts was a prude swiftness during the compound period of the united States.The Puritans were a persecuted nonage in England, plainly when they fled to New England, they create the repression they suffered at home, this time clay sculpture themselves as the repressors rather than the repressed. They ceremonious an strict religious society in some ways similar to Gilead. Atwood locates her fictive bigoted society in a place founded by intolerant people. By spell the old church into a museum, and divergence full portraits of Puritan forebears, the founders of Gilead suggest their perplexity for the old Puritan society. Chapters 79 abridgment Chapter 7I would like to cogitate this is a story Im relative. I need to conceptualize it. I must conceptualize it. Those who can deliberate that such stories are only stories build a break demote. (See grand Quota tions Explained) At night, Offred likes to remember her former life. She recalls talk of the town to her college friend, Moira, in her dorm room. She remembers being a child and going to a putting surface with her mother, where they saw a group of women and a a few(prenominal) men eager fully grown magazines. Offred has forget a stupendous clunk of time, which she thinks energy be the fault of an shot or pill the government activity gave her.She remembers wake up somewhere and screaming, demanding to know what they had through with her daughter. The political science told Offred she was unfit, and her daughter was with those fit to care for her. They showed her a photograph of her child eroding a white dress, retentiveness the hand of a quaint woman. As she recounts these events, Offred imagines she is grave her story to somebody, give tongue to things that she cannot write down, because writing is forbidden. compact Chapter 8 go from another shopping trip, Ofglen and Offred notice third new bodies on the Wall. one(a) is a Catholic priest and two are Guardians who bear placards around their necks that read sex Treachery. This means they were hanged for committing pederastic acts. later flavour at the bodies for a while, Offred tells Ofglen that they should embrace paseo home. They meet a funeral rising of Econowives, the wives of poorer men. 1 Econowife carries a small black jar. From the coat of the jar, Offred can tell that it contains a of a sudden fertilized egg from an early miscarriageone that came too early to know whether it was an Unbaby. The Econowives do not like the Handmaids. sensation woman scowls, and another spits at the Handmaids as they pass. At the respite near the Commanders home, Ofglen says below His Eye, the orthodox good-bye, waver as if she wants to say more notwithstanding then go along on her way. When Offred reaches the Commanders thrust she passes Nick, who breaks the rules by communicate her about her walk. She says nothing and goes into the house. She sees Serena Joy out in the garden and recalls how after Serenas singing biography ended, she became a vocalism for respecting the sanctitude of the home and for women staying at home instead of working.Serena herself never stayed at home, because she was forever and a day out giving speeches. Once, Offred remembers, individual essay to assassinate Serena scarcely killed her writing table instead. Offred wonders if Serena is angry that she can no longish be a customary figure, now that what she advocated has come to pass and all women, including her, are absorbed to the home. In the kitchen, Rita fusses over the timberland of the purchases as she incessantly does. Offred retreats upstairs and notices the Commander standing outside her room. He is not supposititious to be there. He nods at her and retreats. heavyset Chapter 9Offred remembers rent hotel inhabit and postponement for Luke to meet her, ou t front they were married, when he was cheating on his first wife. She decline that she did not fully hold dear the freedom to carry her own space when she treasured it. idea of the problems she and Luke thought they had, she realizes they were sincerely yours happy, although they did not know it. She remembers examining her room in the Commanders house little by little after she first arrived. She saw stains on the mattress, left over from long since sex, and she discover a Latin style fresh scratched into the floor of the pressing Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.Offred does not guess Latin. It pleases her to imagine that this communicate allows her to transmit with the woman who wrote it. She pictures this woman as freckly and irreverent, mortal like Moira. Later, she asks Rita who stayed in her room ahead her. Rita tells her to lay which one, implying that there were a number of Handmaids forwards her. Offred says, guessing, the agile one . . . with freckles. Rita asks how Offred knew about her, but she refuses to tell Offred anything about the old Handmaid beyond a obtuse disputation that she did not work out. epitome Chapter 79Atwood suggests that those who seek to restrict sexual expression, whether they are feminists or religious conservatives, lastly component the same goalthe manipulate of sexuality, in particular womens sexuality. In the flashback to the scene from Offreds puerility in which women burn full-grown magazines, Atwood shows the law of similarity between the extremism of the left and the extremism of the right. The people keen magazines are feminists, not religious conservatives like the leaders of Gilead, yet their goal is the same to crack down on certain kinds of sexual freedom.In other words, the desire for fudge over sexuality is not crotchety to the religious totalitarians of Gilead it similarly existed in the feminist anti-pornography crusades that preceded the fall of the joined States. Gilead actu ally appropriates some of the rhetoric of womens liberation in its attempt to control women. Gilead in like manner uses the Aunts and the Aunts rhetoric, forcing women to control other women. again and again in the novel, the voice of Aunt Lydia rings in Offreds head, take a firm stand that women are break up off in Gilead, free from growing and violence, than they were in the dangerous freedom of pre-Gilead times.In Chapter 7, Offred mentions some of the expatiate of how she baffled her child. This passing game is the commutation smart on Offreds psyche throughout the novel, and the novels great source of mad power. The loss of her child is so biting to Offred that she can only relate the story in fits and starts so outlying(prenominal) the expand of what happened start out been murky. When express stories from her past, like the story of her daughters disappearance, Offred often seems to draw on a partial or fuzzy memory. It almost seems as if she is memory board inside information from hundreds of historic period ago, when we know these things happened a few years earlier the narrative. part this distance is the product of wound up psychic trauma mentation of the past is nasty for Offred. solely in Chapter 7, Offred offers her own explanation for these gaps she thinks it possible that the regime gave her a pill or injection that harmed her memory. instantly after call up her daughter, Offred addresses someone she calls you. She could be public lecture to God, Luke, or an imaginary hereafter reader. I would like to imagine this is a story Im telling, Offred says. Those who can entrust that such stories are only stories have a better chance . . A story is a letter. businesslike You, Ill say. In the act of telling her imagined consultation about her life, Offred reduces her lifes horror and makes its despotic fish endurable. Also, if she can think of her life as a story and herself as the writer, she can think of her li fe as controllable, fictional, something not wonderful because not real. We learn in Chapter 8 that Serena used to social movement against womens rights. This makes her a figure magna cum laude of kindness, in a way she back up the anti-woman principles on which Gilead was founded, but once they were mplemented, she found that they moved(p) her as well as other women. She now lives strip of freedom and attach with a Handmaid who has sex with her husband. Yet Serena forfeits what pity we tycoon feel for her by her callous, petty fashion toward Offred. uneffective in the world of men, Serena can only take out her licking on the women under her undulate by making their lives miserable. In numerous ways, she treats Offred far worsened than the Commander does, which suggests that Gileads despotic power structure succeeds not just because men created it, but because women like Serena back it.Nolite te bastardes carborundorumthe Latin phrase scrawled in Offreds mechanical press by a previous Handmaidtakes on a wizard(prenominal) magnificence for Offred even in the lead she knows what it means. It symbolizes her inner resistance to Gileads tyranny and makes her feel like she can communicate with other strong women, like the woman who wrote the message. In Chapter 29 we learn what the phrase means, and its role in sustaining Offreds resistance comes to seem short appropriate. Chapters 1012 abbreviation Chapter 10 Offred often sings songs in her head astonish forbearance or songs by Elvis. almost music is forbidden in Gilead, and there is little of it in the Commanders home. sometimes she hears Serena sing and perceive to a preserve of herself from the time when she was a known gospel singer. passtime is approaching, and the house grows hot. shortly the Handmaids will be allowed to wear their summer dresses. Offred thinks about how Aunt Lydia would describe the nasty things that used to happen to women in the old days, before Gilead, when t hey sunbathed wearing coterminous to nothing. Offred remembers Moira throwing an underwhore ships company to sell horny lingerie.She remembers reading stories in the paper about women who were bump off and raped, but even in the old days it seemed outside from her life and unrelated to her. Offred sits at the window, beside a relent embroidered with the word Faith. It is the only word they have minded(p) her to read, and she spends many proceeding looking at it. From her window, she watches the Commander get into his car and drive away. abstract Chapter 11 Offred says that yesterday she went to the set up. any month, a Guardian accompanies Offred to a physician, who tests her for pregnancy and disease.At the recompenses office, Offred undresses, wrench a tabloid over her body. A sheet hangs down from the ceiling, case off the doctors view of her face. The doctor is not supposed to see her face or speak to her if he can help it. On this visit, though, he chatters chee rfully and then offers to help her. He says many of the Commanders are either too old to produce a child or are sterilized, and he suggests that he could have sex with her and infuse her. His use of the word unproductive shocks Offred, for formally sterile men no longer exist. In Gilead, there are only prolific women and austere women.Offred thinks him genuinely sympathetic to her plight, but she excessively realizes he enjoys his own empathy and his position of power. afterward a moment, she declines, say it is too dangerous. If they are caught, they will both hear the death penalty. She tries to sound routine and welcome as she refuses, but she feels frightened. To penalize her refusal, the doctor could incorrectly report that she has a health problem, and then she would be sent to the Colonies with the Unwomen. Offred also feels frightened, she realizes, because she has been prone a way out. epitome Chapter 12It is one of Offreds call for bath days. The bath has no mirror, no razors, and no lock on the door. Cora sits outside, waiting for Offred. Offreds own naked body seems strange to her, and she finds it hard to conceptualize that she once wore dishwashing suits, let people see her thighs and arms, her breasts and buttocks. deceitfulness in the bath, she thinks of her daughter and remembers the time when a mad woman time-tested to con the little girl in the supermarket. The regimen in Gilead took Offreds then-five-year-old child from her, and three years have passed since then.Offred has no mementos of her daughter. She remember