Biblical Language + Brainwashing
The traditional greetings Handmaids' must give to each other
"Blessed be the fruit... May the Lord Open"
Handmaid's uniform
"The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen."
A warning about utopian projects that demand sacrifice from others.
"Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some."
Handmaid's New Names
"My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden."
Language Musing from Offred, talking about her role as a Handmaid
“Waste not, want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?”
Shows the complete control Gilead has
“Gilead is within you.”
The essence of a Handmaid's role
“We are containers, it's only the insides of our bodies that are important”
Nick's role in society.
"Low status: he hasn’t been issued a woman, not even one. He doesn’t rate: some defect, lack of connections"
“Under His Eye,” she says. The right farewell. “Under His Eye,” I reply. She nods."
Feminist- Handmaid's punishments
"They didn’t care what they did to your feet or your hands, even if it was permanent. Remember, said Aunt Lydia. For our purposes your feet and your hands are not essential."
Genesis Epigraph
"Give me children, or else I die... Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her."
Men are not blamed for infertility.
"There is no such thing as a sterile man any more, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that's the law."
The Commander is in charge
“Household: that is what we are. The Commander is the head of the household. The house is what he holds. To have and to hold, till death do us part.”
"Freedom, said Aunt Lydia, is more than one kind... Freedom to and freedom from. Now you are being given freedom from."
Janine in the Red Centre
“Her fault her fault her fault,” we chant in unison. Aunt Helena beams, pleased with us. “Who led them on?,” “she did, she did, she did.”
What Aunt Lydia says about how future Handmaids will feel
“Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”
How Handmaids are seen by Gileadean society and their restrictions
"I am too important, too scarce, for that. I am a national resource."
Sons of Jacob make their move.
"That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on."
Only Commanders can access the Bible
“The bible is kept locked up, the way people once kept tea locked up, so the servants wouldn’t steal it. It is an incendiary device: who knows what we’d make of it, if we ever got our hands on it?”
Ignoring vs ignorance
"In a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it."
Visual Brainwashing from Aunt Lydia
“Consider what things used to be like,” said Aunt Lydia, “You see what things used to be like? That was what they thought of women, then.” - when shown a series of videos of women being sexually assaulted, abused, dismembered..etc.
Offred's thoughts during the Ceremony
"Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for. There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose.”
How Gilead was formed in terms of physical setting
"The chances are one in four, we learned that at the Center. The air got too full, once, of chemicals, rays, radiation, the water swarmed with toxic molecules"
Offred's narration
"It’s also a story I’m telling, in my head, as I go along. Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to write with and writing is in any case forbidden."
Women before Gilead- what Aunt Lydia thought of them
“Oiling themselves up like roast meat on a spit, and bare backs and shoulders, on the street, in public and legs, not even stockings on them, no wonder those things used to happen.”