Show:
Ceremonies
Characters/Roles
Literary Techniques
Settings
Who Said It?
100
“It’s coming, it’s coming, like a bugle, a call to arms, like a wall falling, we can feel it like a heavy stone moving down, pulled down inside us, we think we will burst. We grip each other’s hands, we are no longer single.”
What is the Birthing Ceremony?
100
“I want gallantry from her, swashbuckling, heroism, single-handed combat. Something I lack.”
Who is Moira?
100
“Blessed be the meek. Blessed are the silent. I knew they made that up, I knew it was wrong, and they left things out, too, but there was no way of checking.”
What is allusion?
100
“But on one bag there’s blood, which has seeped through the white cloth, where the mouth must have been. It makes another mouth, a small red one, like the mouths painted with thick brushes by kindergarten children.”
What is The Wall?
100
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
The previous Offred.
200
“The mothers have stood the white-veiled girls in place and have returned to their chairs. There’s a little crying going on among them, some mutual patting and hand-holding, the ostentatious use of handkerchiefs.”
What is the Prayvaganza?
200
“She could smile and cry at the same time, one tear or two sliding gracefully down her cheek, as if on cue.”
Who is Serena Joy?
200
Unbaby and Birthmobile are examples of this.
What is a neologism?
200
“At first glance there’s a cheerfulness to this scene. It’s like a masquerade party; they are all like oversized children, dressed up in togs they’ve rummaged from trunks. Is there joy in this? They could be, but have they chosen it? You can’t tell by looking.”
What is Jezebel's?
200
"There is more than one kind of freedom ... Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it."
Aunt Lydia
300
“What I could see, if I were to open my eyes, would be the large white canopy… Or the sail of a ship. Big-bellied sails, they used to say, in poems. Bellying. Propelled forward by a swollen belly.”
What is The Ceremony?
300
“I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love…”
Who is Offred?
300
“I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.”
What is a language musing?
300
“So. I explored this room, not hastily, then, like a hotel room, wasting it. I didn’t want to do it all at once, I wanted to make it last. I divided the room into sections, in my head; I allowed myself one section a day.”
What is Offred's room?
300
"Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it."
Offred
400
“The women are looking at him with horror, as if he’s a half-dead rat dragging itself across a kitchen floor. He’s squinting around at us, the circle of red women.”
What is the Particicution?
400
“A semiretired man, genial but wary, killing time. But only at first glance. After that he looks like a Midwestern bank president… when you get down as far as the chin he looks like a vodka ad, in a glossy magazine, of times gone by.”
Who is the Commander?
400
"'It’s a beautiful May day,' Ofglen says. I feel rather than see her head turn towards me, waiting for a reply ... Mayday used to be a distress signal, a long time ago ... It’s French, [Luke] said. From m’aidez. Help me.”
Foreshadow
400
“…they spend their time cleaning up. They’re very clean minded these days. Sometimes it’s just bodies after a battle.”
What are The Colonies?
400
"Better never means better for everyone ... it always means worse for some."
The Commander
500
“I’ve seen it before, the white bag placed over the head, the woman helped up onto the high stool ... steadied there, the noose adjusted delicately around the neck … the stool kicked away.”
What is Salvaging?
500
“He too is illegal, here, with me, he can’t give me away. Nor I him; for the moment we’re mirrors.”
Who is Nick?
500
Soul Scrolls was once a lingerie store, but now houses the automated “equivalent” of prayer - a practice previously thought to be very personal.
Irony
500
“They had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts. No guns though ... Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels. The guards weren’t allowed inside the building except when called, and we weren’t allowed out, except for our walks”
What is the Red Center (Rachel and Leah Re-education Center)?
500
"Look at him, slicing up the carrots. Don't you know how many women's lives, how many women's bodies, the tanks had to roll over just to get that far?"
Offred's mother