The Handmaid's Tale
- Sex not meant for pleasure in Gilead
- Patriarchal society
- Republic of Gilead -> focused on religion -> racist, sexist, classist
- Gilead was puritanical
- Puritans are narrow-minded and old-fashioned (founders of Gilead)
- Dystopian -> path to destruction
- The red clothing the Handmaids wore symbolised their reproductive
organs and fertility
- Based on true events
- Handmaids names = ‘Of’ + commanders name
Econowives -> not forced to serve as handmaids because they committed no
religious crimes pre-Gilead
Commander's wife -> considered to be pure women. Econowives are the
same but the difference is that they are low status
Handmaid's -> punishment either for adultery or gender treachery. If they
were not fertile, they were sent to the colonies
, Quotes
- “Red: the colour of blood, which defines us”
- “There's always a black market, there's always something that can be
exchanged”
- “I used to be bad at waiting”
- “I enjoy the power”
- “Passive but there”
- “Gilead is within you”
- “It will become ordinary”
- “Of course they will resent you” (about the Wives)
- “In this house, we all envy each other something”
- “That freedom of being seen” (her and Luke's affair)
- “Old love; there's no other kind of love in this room now”
- “What you dont know wont hurt you”
- “We lived, as usual, by ignoring”
- “It's a choice that terrifies me. A way out, a salvation” (about doctor
impregnating her)
- “Don't let the bastards grind you down”
- “Blessed are the meek”
- “You must be a worthy vessel”
- “I see despair coming towards me like famine”
- “I would like to steal something from this room”
- “It has nothing to do with passion or love or romance” (sex ceremony)
- “Nobody dies from lack of sex. Its lack of love we die from”
- “I too am a missing person”
- “In reduced circumstances you have to believe all kinds of things”
- “He was no longer a thing to me”
- “But you aren't expected to love him”
- “I want to keep living in any form”
- Sex not meant for pleasure in Gilead
- Patriarchal society
- Republic of Gilead -> focused on religion -> racist, sexist, classist
- Gilead was puritanical
- Puritans are narrow-minded and old-fashioned (founders of Gilead)
- Dystopian -> path to destruction
- The red clothing the Handmaids wore symbolised their reproductive
organs and fertility
- Based on true events
- Handmaids names = ‘Of’ + commanders name
Econowives -> not forced to serve as handmaids because they committed no
religious crimes pre-Gilead
Commander's wife -> considered to be pure women. Econowives are the
same but the difference is that they are low status
Handmaid's -> punishment either for adultery or gender treachery. If they
were not fertile, they were sent to the colonies
, Quotes
- “Red: the colour of blood, which defines us”
- “There's always a black market, there's always something that can be
exchanged”
- “I used to be bad at waiting”
- “I enjoy the power”
- “Passive but there”
- “Gilead is within you”
- “It will become ordinary”
- “Of course they will resent you” (about the Wives)
- “In this house, we all envy each other something”
- “That freedom of being seen” (her and Luke's affair)
- “Old love; there's no other kind of love in this room now”
- “What you dont know wont hurt you”
- “We lived, as usual, by ignoring”
- “It's a choice that terrifies me. A way out, a salvation” (about doctor
impregnating her)
- “Don't let the bastards grind you down”
- “Blessed are the meek”
- “You must be a worthy vessel”
- “I see despair coming towards me like famine”
- “I would like to steal something from this room”
- “It has nothing to do with passion or love or romance” (sex ceremony)
- “Nobody dies from lack of sex. Its lack of love we die from”
- “I too am a missing person”
- “In reduced circumstances you have to believe all kinds of things”
- “He was no longer a thing to me”
- “But you aren't expected to love him”
- “I want to keep living in any form”
