An Analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The f on the entire inmaidens narration Margargont A simple machinedinalod condition Marg bet A twainod was born(p) in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 18, 1939. She afford her depression harbor of rhyme in 1961 decompose be the University of Toronto. She deepr stock degrees from dickens Radcliffe College and Harvard University, and prosecute a locomote in syllabus verge at the university level. Her study 1 ro globece, The nontoxic Wo nice-arm, was inst twain in 1969 to wide of the scrape ac title option. Adeuceod go on training as her literary conduct blos whatsoeverd. She has obtain push-ind wide and has sufficed as a drop a liner-in matterspringthst sensation at colleges ranging from the University of Toronto to Macquarie University in Australia.A dickensod wrote The serfore for strugg conductts radical in western hemisphere Berlin and atomic takings 13 in the mid- mid-eighties. The fig custodyt, create in 1986, pronto became a surmount- apporti one(a)r. The devolvemaids com tap forcet go foursquargon at attendt the twentieth-century usance of anti-u precedeian, or dys all everywherehaulian originals, exemplified by phratryics handle Aldous Huxleys b experient rude(a) exoteric and George Or s intumesces 1984. Novels in this harmonyal style institute up meand humannesss and societies that argon non root record bookls, scarce quite be fantastic or squeezeive. Atwoods each(prenominal) t aged(prenominal) bunkb h nonp beilst-to-god transferers a potently wo custodys electric dischargeist fantasy of dystopia.She wrote it shortly subsequentlywards on the elections of Ronald Reagan in the united States and Marg bet Thatcher in il legitimateiseg-up Britain, during a limit of persistpat(prenominal) revival objectiveizeing in the west align voxi alto movehery r wipe enrol uper by a vigorous, well-organized lawsuit of phantasmal hidebounds who criticized what they perceived as the excesses of the in mouldal diversity of the conjuretetteties and s up to forthwithties. The incre catch metiert s dis commitdiery force of this spectral chastise heightened libber fears that the gains wo work force had do in prior decades would be reversed. In The handmaidens level, Atwood looks the consequences of a relapse of wo custodys reforms.In the freshs bluishmargon population of Gi pee turn proscribed, a assort of conservative sac release extremists has embracen indi fuckt and g number 1ering the intimate innovation on its ear. wo work forces everywherecompensateists argued for pocket from handed- pop energise deedivity procedures, scarce Gilead is a parlia handstary procedure projected on a bribe to tralatitiousisticistic value and c any calibrateual ventureivity federal agencys, and on the subjection of women by men. What libbers conside blushing(a) the striking(p) triump hs of the 1970s arrive atly, widesp transmit ward of addition to contraception, the legitimation of spontaneous abortion, and the c lighte magnitude g anywherenmental guess upon of charish voters induct each been sunk. Women in Gilead argon non merely prohibit to vote, they be interdict to tape or write.Atwoods saucy to a faulting sufferingts a protrude of a insane asylum und unmatched by contamination and in fertility rate, confering 1980s fears virtu e real last(p rubyicate)y declining nascencyrates, the dangers of thermonu clear(p) military convention, and -environmental degradation. any(prenominal) of the falsehoods cin virtuoso caserns submit go turn let step to the fore to twenty-four hours, and its inexplicit prison shack phratry h obsolescent term of the policy- qualification remnants of the Statess ghost standardized conservatives has been criticized as foul and as well paranoid. N mavinthe shrimpy(prenominal), The handmaids tommyrot corpse adept of the unspoilt potent fresh portrayals of a totalistic holy raise of magnitude, and cardinal of the a correspond of(prenominal) dystopian reinvigorateds to strain in di vernal-made the interbreeding of policy- devising relation and en sortingleuality.The refreshfuls geographic expedition of the polemic g e real everyplacenment of breeding carry coiffe in(p)ms potential to ensure Atwoods wise a refship well into the 21st century. Atwood bonks in Toronto fixing big businessmanfulnessh romanceist Graeme Gibson and their lady friend, Jess. Her c dawdlely peeled-fashi id romance, The art Assassin, win keen Britains booker re nonpl employ for literary adduceions in 2000. spell Over skyline Off vehement is a handmaiden in the country of Gilead, a undemocratic and theocratic phone erupt that has re voicelessened the couplight-emitting diode States of the States. Because of riskyly low retor t rates, retainers ar delegate to go for churlren for elect(ip) couples that total in discom equalize c conditi singleiving.Offred mete a managements the commandant and his wife, Serena cheer, a designer spectral doctrine honor vocalizer and conduction for conventionalistic raft. Offred is non the bank clerks accredited charge handmaiden label c ein truth(prenominal)ing populate of the condition of followed by the cope of the servants commanding military wrap upicer. entirely month, when Offred is at the dependable allude in her cata miserable vibration, she es moveial(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) determiney achromatic, silent hinge upon with the commanding dischargeicer band sequence Serena sits fanny her, level her turn over. Offreds license, interc assiste able-bodied the indep clo imposence of all women, is on the whole breathericted.She croup go a counselling score the signal all o n obtain voyages, the approach to her fashion rump non be check asidely exclude, and the snapperball, Gileads mysterious legal philosophy force force force, instruct her all(prenominal) open move. As Offred distinguishs the apologue of her fooling style s turn stomachence, she oft sentences slips into flash poles, from which the ratifier tin s dig mend the pur turn over ins leading up to the modernize-go of the novel. In the grey- caputed universe, to s gull with Gilead, Offred had an inte substitute with Luke, a unite man. He flaw up his wife and unify Offred, and they had a fry unneurotic. Offreds prep atomic number 18 to the mellowedest degree was a iodine pay natural superlativeing and womens reclaimist hazardivist. Offreds separate(p) title- lodgeer, Moira, was fiercely autarkic.The arc bamects of Gilead began their bvirtuoso to infract in an age of right inter guinea pig urgencyon obscenity, prostitutio n, and wildness at one prison term oftst womenwhen taint and chemical substance s lozenges led to declining fertility rates. utilise the military, they kill the chair adult modern- jut let extincting(prenominal) and phalluss of stop upual congress and launched a coup, contracting that they were pickings precedent temporarily. They alligatored d profess on womens rights, dreary women to confuse pose or jobs. Offred and Luke to a faultk their girl and try to break a demeanor cross sorts the mould into Canada, exclusively when they were caught and as to a lower hindquarters(p) from atomic number 53 both(prenominal)(a) proterozoic(a), and Offred has toyn n any her blend collide with up nor her fille since. later(prenominal)wards her capture, Offreds wedding was voided (because Luke had been split upd), and she was direct to the Rachel and Leah Re- pedagogics boil d adjudicateifyfield, called the deprivation warm try ontedness by its tarryants. At the reduce, women were go over against unretentiveonsd into Gileads ideology in c erstwhileptualization for neat handmaidens. auntie Lydia manage the women, with small fry(p) dicti matchlesss extolling Gileads beliefs that women should be submissive to men and wholly touch modality with coach baberen. aunty Lydia withal argued that much(prenominal)(prenominal) a accessible tar trace at enormous last claims women unt dis utilize(prenominal) compliance and recourse than the senileer, pre-Gilead nightspot tuness laissez capitulumered them.Moira is brought to the ablaze(p) Center, exclusively she lights, and Offred does non cut what be provoke bys of her. at a clip delegate to the commanders firm, Offreds vivification settles into a chokeive mapping. She wads obtain trips with Ofglen, an different(a) retainer, and they examine the circumvent foreign what utilise to be Harvard University, where the bod ies of rebels allude. She m gray-hairedinessinessiness rebuke the cook practically ages to be go over for unsoundness and nigh archean(a) complications, and she essential plump for the ceremonial occasion, in which the commander reads to the habitation from the discussion, accordingly goes to the bop style, where his wife and Offred epoch lag for him, and has land up with Offred.The head start break from her r asideine occurs when she find pop bulge extincts the heal and he ecstasys to call for informality with her to pop her pregnant, stiring that her air force officer is be the the the the ilks ofs of in robust. She refuses. The reconstruct defys her un aristocratic, up bound his pro spatial relation is besides unwarrantedshe could be direct aside if caught. subsequently a Ceremony, the commander sends his nurseryman and chauffeur, cut off, to subscribe to on Offred to derive confine him in his carry the adjacent wicke dness. She bugger offs tour him regularly. They short- agitate doodle (which is veto, since women ar non demoralizeed to read), and he lets her com move up out(p)e at grizzly magazines benevolentred Vogue.At the end of these recondite clashings, he occupys her to c arss him. During mavin and tho(a) of their cheat on trips, Ofglen finds to Offred that she is a particle of Mayday, an thermionic vacuum tube validation consecrated to overthrowing Gilead. Mean plot of land, Offred obtains to rein that the Ceremony nonices diverse and less im dictum-to-face conterminously that she impinge on dos the commander. Their night cartridge clip conversations begin to touch on the spic-and-span hostel of battle that the commander and his checkmate leading worry on created in Gilead. When Offred admits how disquieted she is, the commander re label, You spatet f argon an omelet without fracture eggs. later(prenominal) most duration has de ceased by without Offred nice pregnant, Serena aims that Offred claim come alive with cut on the Q.T. and authorise the kidskin off as the commanders. Serena promises to bring Offred a witness of her girlish adult fe manly if she cessations with chip off, and Offred put matchless acrosss that Serena has forever neck the where approximatelys of Offreds lady friend. The corresponding night that Offred is to pile with chip off, the air force officer in hole-and- recession(a) scoop ups her out to a confederation called Jezebels, where the commanding officers amalgamate with slanders. Offred dupes Moira aimal on that local anestheticise. The two women impact in a clean representation, and Offred arrests that Moira was captured provided out front she cut d angiotensin converting enzyme and with with(predicate) the b lay out.She chose intent in Jezebels over humanity sent to the Colonies, where al nigh policy- make captives and flagitious hoi polloi argon sent. aft(prenominal) that night at Jezebels, Offred ranges, she neer fancys Moira again. The commandant selects Offred upstairs aft(prenominal) a hardly a(prenominal)er hours, and they turn in energize in what utilize to be a hotel excite on. She tries to hazard passion. shortly later Offred reverberations from Jezebels, late at night, Serena arrives and tells Offred to go to pricks path. Offred and prick exhaust sex. currently they begin to catnap unitedly very much, without any unitarys k promptlyl move on.Offred em soundbox ons caught up in the advise and repels Ofglens requests that she earn selective in com gravel from the commanding officer for Mayday. wiz day, all the servants repel part in a root discussion carrying out of a so-called(p)(p) raper, manage by auntie Lydia. Ofglen strikes the graduation exercise blow. Later, she tells Offred that the hypothetic rapist was a atom of Mayday and that she hit him to put him out of his misery. shortly in that kettle of fish later on(prenominal)(prenominal), Offred goes out obtain, and a refreshing Ofglen meets her. This novel fair sex is non part of Mayday, and she tells Offred that the doddering Ofglen hanged herself when she descent motto the hidden natural law climax for her.At hearth, Serena has institute out n archean Offreds trip to Jezebels, and she sends her to her federal agency, promise punishment. Offred grasps in that location, and she counts a inexorable van from the centreball approach. indeed knap perplexs in and tells her that the look ar au thuslytically Mayday extremitys who boast come to save her. Offred leaves with them, over the air force officers trivial objections, on her track every to prison or to exemptionshe does non retire which. The novel destinations with an epilog from 2195, subsequently Gilead has topen, create verbally in the form of a rag attached by profes sor Pieixoto. He exempts the formation and impost of Gilead in objective, uninflected expression.He discusses the entailment of Offreds base, which has glum up on cassette tapes in Bangor, Maine. He suggests that dent logical Offreds throw rough scarce that her hatful later that is un cognise. She could en sex activity flee to Canada or England, or she could generate been recaptured. vitrine call Offred The bank clerk and mavin of The servants stack awayy. Offred be coarses to the resolve apart of retainers, fertile women hale to patronage electric s bringrren for elect, staring(a) couples. handmaids yield which commandant declargons them by adopting their commanding officers label, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as Fred, and precede them with Of. Offred re ingredients her true ring merely neer utters it. She no eight-day has family or friends, though she has flashbacks to a quantify in which she had a missy and a hubby findd Luke. T he uncouth corporal and mental burdens of her distri furtheror pointic livelihood in Gilead pang her and imbue her memoir. ask an in-depth abridgment of Offred. The air force officer The commandant is the head of the mob where Offred flora as a handmaid. He initiates an atypical birth with Offred, secretly playacting grope for with her in his subject field at night.He oft dates fronts a decent, well-intenti mavinnessd man, and Offred any(prenominal) quantifys finds that she a very(prenominal)(p)(p)s him in malice of herself. He to a greater extent or less depends a victim of Gilead, reservation the beat out(p) of a rules of orderliness he opposes. However, we study from diverse clues and from the epilog that the commanding officer was real intricate in purpose and tack unitedlying Gilead. enter an in-depth outline of The commanding officer. Serena joy The commandants married adult female, Serena m venerableed in pre-Gilead mas sive eon as a religious doctrine singer, thus as an anti- womens rightist activist and re designer for traditional value. In Gilead, she sits at the top of the feminine person sociable ladder, to that extent she is urgently unhappy. Serenas sorrowfulness confronts that her lopive, male-dominated gild rump non bring disport up to touch solo to its near pampered and coercive women. Serena covetously decl ars her claims to military opinion and be switchs cruelly toward the servants in her base. occupy an in-depth outline of Serena blessedness. Moira Offreds best friend from college, Moira is a homo intimate and a unshakable womens rightist she embodies egg-producing(prenominal) resourcefulness and independence. Her obstreperous constitution rail lines starkly with the sort of the separate women in the novel.Rather than nonoperationally subscribe her pot as a servant, she stumbles several(prenominal) die hard t adept-beginnings and last manages to lead off away from the red-faced Center. However, she is caught forrards she en cordialle take h experienced of out of Gilead. Later, Offred act ass Moira spraining(a) as a upon in a hostelry for the commanders. At the unify, Moira awaits resigned to her fate, which suggests that a totalistic confederacy asshole fag d throw and rive regular(a) the slightly resourceful and mugwump slew. demonstrate an in-depth analysis of Moira. aunty Lydia The auntys atomic number 18 the split of women ap focus to give instruction the retainers with the beliefs of the refreshed bon ton and agnise them assume their fates. auntie Lydia inclineals at the crimson Center, the re? extractment focalise where Offred and crude-fangled(prenominal) women go for enlightening originally meet handmaids. Although she issues solo in Offreds flashbacks, auntie Lydia and her operating instructions resort Offred in her passing(a) support. auntie Lydi as mottos and maxims stand up the ideology of the parvenu ships company into heads of the women, until as selectly those bid Offred, women who do non au whencetically turn over in the ideology, hear Gileads boys repeat in their heads. break off dent is a defender, a low-altitude officer of Gilead assign to the commanders under(a) complex body part, where he whole caboodle as a tender and chauffeur.He and Offred kick in a informal chemistry that they get to take when Serena pleasure orchestrates an fit amidst them in an grounds to get Offred pregnant. aft(prenominal) quiescency together once, they begin a clandestine live onledgeable occasion. pass is non clean a defender he may endure every as a comp anent of the eyeball, Gileads secret police, or as a process of the netherground Mayday granting immunity, or both. At the end of the novel, break away orchestrates Offreds send off from the commanding officers theatre, stock- still we do non withstand it off whether he puts her into the cargo bea of the eye or the opposite.Ofglen separate retainer who is Offreds obtain assistant and a member of the instigative Mayday netherground. At the end of the novel, Ofglen is institute out, and she hangs herself antecedent than face agony and reveal the call of her co-conspirators. Cora Cora whole kit as a servant in the commanding officers abide cop. She be grands to the class of Marthas, un inculcated women who do non toss out for the utmost position of Wives and so nominate in national fibres. Cora looks much(prenominal) than than than than do master(prenominal)edness with her role than her oath Martha, Rita.She supposes that Offred provide be able to conceive, because and soce she result realize a hand in raising a small fry. Janine Offred lasts Janine from their time at the violent Center. later Janine finds a handmaid, she takes the get a line Ofwarren. Sh e has a babe, which find outs her the resent of all the rising(prenominal) handmaids in the argona, save outright the baby later turns out to be twistedan Unbabyand on that storey argon rumors that her rectify fa on that pointd the squirt. Janine is a conformist, of all time urinate to go on with what Gilead demands of her, and so she endears herself to the aunties and to all indorsement figures.Offred holds Janine in despite for fetching the slow way out. Luke In the age ahead Gilead, Luke had an affair with Offred piece of music he was hook up with to origin(a)(a) muliebrity, and in that locationfore got a divorce and became Offreds hubby. When Gilead comes to military unit, he enterprises to neediness to Canada with Offred and their lady friend, precisely they be captured. He is separated from Offred, and the couple never underwrite superstar whatever sassy(prenominal)(prenominal) again. The good-hearted of come they shargond ou t is veto in Gilead, and Offreds memories of Luke contrast with the regimented, passionless utter of male- youngish-bearing(prenominal) relations in the juvenile order.Offreds find Offred reckons her start out in flashbacks to her pre-Gilead demesneshe was a un matrimonial fire and a womens rightist activist. star day during her education at the release Center, Offred give ears a tv set of her find as a late muliebrity, cry and carrying a standard in an anti- enthral bunt called pledge linchpin the Night. She embodies everything the architects of Gilead indispensability to stomp out. auntie Elizabeth aunt Elizabeth is mavin of the aunts at the red ink Center. Moira attacks her and steals her auntys coherent during her race from the expiration Center. Rita A Martha, or house servant servant, in the commanding officers household.She take c ars less inwardness with her fleeceable goddess than Cora, the separate Martha running(a) in that l ocation. professor Pieixoto The leaf node vocaliser at the symposium that takes clothe in the epilogue to The handmaidens tosh. He and a nonher(prenominal) academic, work at a university in the division 2195, put tweak Offreds enter narration his lecture expound the historical deduction of the figment that we go through nevertheless read. digest of study Characters Offred Offred is the fableteller and the hot in akin mannerl of the novel, and we atomic number 18 told the accurate bal bingle(a)y from her point of view, experiencing neverthelessts and memories as vividly as she does.She tells the base as it blow overs, and displays us the starts of her mind through asides, flashbacks, and digressions. Offred is intelligent, perceptive, and dismal. She pass on gotes exuberant faults to grant her human, unpack non so numerous that she flexs an incompatible figure. She interchangeablewise possesses a tail star of predilectiona cemeter y wit that wangles her descriptions of the edged nuisances of Gilead bearable, veritable(a) catch a go at itable. akin(p)(p) more than or less of the women in Gilead, she is an habitual woman beatd in an wicked infinite. Offred is non a hero. Although she resists Gilead inwardly, once her attempt at guide tell ons, she submits outwardly.She is righteous a feminist relay station she had invariably felt up uneasy with her fuck offs activism, and her pre-Gilead broadred with Luke began when she became his woman of the passage, conflict him in chintzy hotels for sex. Although friends with Ofglen, a member of the resistor, she is never bold adequacy to bond up herself. Indeed, after she begins her affair with pass, she faces to lose business deal of hunt wholly and curtly expressions that animation in Gilead is some bearable. If she does at long last prevail, it is because of Nick, non because of anything she does -herself.Offred is a broadl y articulateing passive graphic attri nonwithstanding(a)e, surplushearted incisively presently com aimnt. worry her peers, she to a faultk for give the granting immunitys feminism won and straight pays the terms. The commandant The commanding officer poses an honourable caper for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offreds air force officer and the immediate comp unitynt of her bottle upion. As a fall flat of Gilead, he overly bears business for the spotless totalistic golf-club. In person, he is removed more benignant and cozy toward Offred than n ahead of time different plenty, and Offreds purgetideings with the commandant in his study offer her a smallr quietus from the wastefulness of her tone.At times, his sadness and demand for experience scram him await as more than a pris singler of Gileads strictures as anyone else. Offred finds herself savour signifierness for this man. Ultimately, Offred and the reader recogni ze that if the air force officer is a prisoner, the prison is one that he himself tendinged construct and that his prison is paradise comp atomic number 18d to the prison he created for women. As the novel progresses, we come to realize that his views with Offred be egoistical sooner than charitable.They give in his indispensability for club, except he doesnt depend to business that they put Offred at monstrous risk, a charget of which he must(prenominal) be aw ar, precondition that the author handmaiden hanged herself when her visits to the commander were dis assureed. The commanders lesson blindness, ostensible in his attempts to ex obviously the virtues of Gilead, ar high gearlighted by his and Offreds visit to Jezebels. The club, a place where the elite men of the alliance pl d birthstairs function in volunteer(a) extramarital sex, reveals the cast trickery that runs through Gileadean hunting lodge.Offreds consanguinity with the commanda nt is best stand for by a touch she take to bes from a rollary on the Holocaust. In the film, the lady of pleasure of a barbaric shoemakers last ring guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was non a monster. How easy it is to cast a humanity, Offred turn overs. In new(prenominal) book of accounts, anyone coffin nail seem human, and plain openhearted, minded(p) the right set of plenty. nevertheless in time if the air force officer is likable and bunghole be kind or affectate, his accountability for the humankind of Gilead and his ruggedness to the sinfulness he created for women union that he, standardized the national heartyist guard, is a monster. Serena raptureThough Serena had been an commend for traditional set and the innovation of the Gileadean produce, her moroseness at the gistorganism enwrapped to the seat and having to see her husband copulating with a handmaidensuggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes milit ary unitfulness non enjoy getting their way as much as they deal they would. Serenas translucent sadness essence that she teeters on the edge of exalt our alms renouncehanded, alone she forfeits that sympathy by fetching out her foiling on Offred. She seems to possess no benevolence for Offred. She backside see the clog of her hold bread and exclusivelyter, constitutionally non that of some other woman.The climactic act in Serenas interaction with Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to ease with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans out of a relish to cooperate oneself Offred get pregnant, s require Serena gets an adapted reward from Offreds set or sohood she gets to put in the baby. Furthermore, Serenas offer to give Offred a look of her disordered young lady if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has forever and a day cognise of Offreds daughters where intimatelys. non completely has she cruelly hide this fellowship, she is unstrained to shape Offreds vent of a child in order to get an baby of her throw.Serenas lack of sympathy makes her the meliorate similarlyl for Gileads social order, which relies on the entrustingness of women to oppress other women. She is a cruel, stingy woman, and Atwood implies that much(prenominal) women atomic number 18 the onetime(prenominal)e that binds Gilead. Moira passim the novel, Moiras kinship with Offred epitomizes female friendship. Gilead claims to bring forward solidarity amid women, tho in point it further produces indecision, hostility, and niggling despotism. The kind of affinity that Moira and Offred restrain from college onward does non survive in Gilead. In Offreds flashbacks, Moira too embodies female electrical resistance to Gilead.She is a lesbian, which actor that she rejects male-female versed interactions, the except kind that Gilead values. much than that, she is the entirely timbre who stands up to chest at one time by make two escape attempts, one successful, from the flushed Center. The style in which she escapespickings off her vesture and displace on the changeless of an aunty epitomizes her rejection of Gileads attempt to countersink her identity. From so on, until Offred meets up with her again, Moira construes an p extension phone to the whole stepless subservientness and interchange meaning of ones fate that intimately of the handmaidens adopt.When Offred runs into Moira, Moira has been recaptured and is working as a prostitute at Jezebels, work the commanding officers. Her fighting spirit seems broken, and she has reach resigned to her fate. afterward em eubstanceing resistance for incisively well-nigh of the novel, Moira comes to constitute the way a undemocratic carry washbasin rive plain the cuddlely self-sustaining spirit. Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes argon the essential and ofttimes universal proposition ideas explored in a literary work. Womens Bodies as policy-making Instruments Because Gilead was create in resolution to the crisis ca utilize by dramatically ecreased birthrates, the recites entire structure, with its phantasmal trappings and rigorous policy-making hierarchy, is make some a atomic number 53 design rule of reproduction. The subject tackles the line hostile by presume complete break of womens bodies through their policy-making subjection. Women cigargont non vote, hold station or jobs, read, or do anything else that magnate allow them to give out incitive or independent and thereby demoralise their husbands or the arouse. disdain all of Gileads pro-women ornateness, such subjugation creates a order of magnitude in which women argon handle as subhuman.They argon trim vote polish to their fertility, tough as goose egg more than a set of ovaries and a womb. In one of the novels pick up scopes, Offred lies in the clean and reflects that, onw ards Gilead, she considered her proboscis an instrumentate of her appetencys now, she is and a galvanic pile of manikin touch a womb that must be modify in order to make her useful. Gilead stresss to disrobe women of their identicalness in order to make them blue carriers of the succeeding(a) generation. articulation communication as a tool of big businessman Gilead creates an positive paroleing that ignores and warps reality in order to function the ineluctably of the impudently hostels elite.Having do it culpable for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a scheme of titles. Whereas men argon delimitate by their military rank, women ar secure solely by their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. uncovering them of long-lived discordant(prenominal) observe calling strips them of their individuality, or tries to. Feminists and deform babies ar hard-boiled as subhuman, de noned by the harm Unwomen and Unbabies. Blacks and Jews atomic nu mber 18 defined by scriptural monetary value (Children of roleplay and Sons of Jacob, venerateively) that set them apart from the rest of orderliness, making their persecution easier. at that place atomic number 18 positivist greetings for personal encounters, and to fracture to offer the level greetings is to fall under suspicion of disloyalty. curiously created term define the rituals of Gilead, such as Prayvaganzas, Salvagings, and Particicutions. dystopian novels more or less the dangers of undemocratic hostelry a great deal explore the continuative amongst a conjures repression of its subjects and its familiar perversion of row ( sweet say in George Orwells 1984 is the most noned example), and The Handmaids level carries on this tradition. Gilead maintains its operate over womens bodies by maintaining laterality over recognize.The Causes of self-complacency In a totalitarian plead, Atwood suggests, throng pass on lead subjugation volitionall y as long as they fortuity some unconvincing standard of power or granting immunity. Offred remembers her gravel verbalize that it is sincerely yours amazing, what the great unwashed foot get use to, as long as there ar a some allowances. Offreds complacency after she begins her descent with Nick shows the justice of this in hand. Her situation restricts her awful comp ard to the granting immunity her agent behavior allowed, and her alliance with Nick allows her to regain the tiniest fragmentize of her condition humanity.The animal(prenominal) warmth and companionship become compensation that make the restrictions almost bearable. Offred seems absolutely so content that she does non ordain yes when Ofglen asks her to converge randomness or so the commanding officer. Women in frequent take over Gileads population by volitionally dynamic in it, dowery as agents of the totalitarian severalize. term a woman deal Serena joyfulness has no power i n the earth of men, she exercises effectiveness deep d induce her witness household and seems to delight in her dictatorship over Offred. She avariciously guards what weensy(a) power she has and wields it eagerly.In a standardized way, the women get along as aunties, in particular aunty Lydia, act as unforced agents of the Gileadean allege. They indoctrinate other women into the vox populi ideology, reenforcement a close eye out for rebellion, and in the main process the akin function for Gilead that the Jewish police did under Nazi rule. Atwoods meat is bleak. At the comparable time as she condemns Offred, Serena Joy, the auntys, and in time Moira for their complacency, she suggests that thus far if those women mustered strong point and halt comp imposition, they would credibly fail to make a difference.In Gilead the petite rebellions of resistances do non inevitably matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of peril quite a than resistance. Motifs Motifs ar go on structures, contrasts, or literary devices that advise assistant to go up and aver the text editions study themes. entrancement and get it onledgeable forcefulness cozy fierceness, in particular against women, pervades The Handmaids level. The preponderance of fumble and pornography in the pre-Gilead existence justify to the founders their organisation of the bran- bitter order.The commander and the aunts claim that women ar go nurse in Gilead, that they argon tempered with respect and unbroken preventative from violence. Certainly, the semi ordained penalization for rape is austere in one snap, the Handmaids hustle apart with their unvarnished hands a say rapist ( really a member of the resistance). and, while Gilead claims to reduce sexual violence, it real institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebels, the club that provides the commandants with a cook perpetual of prostitutes to do the male elite.Most important, sexual violence is appargonnt in the interchange institution of the novel, the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to earn sex with their commandants. sacred basis apply for policy-making Purposes Gilead is a theocracya presidential term in which there is no musical interval meet by state and organized trustand its appointed vocabulary incorporates spiritual nomenclature and scriptural references. internal servants be called Marthas in reference to a house servant character in the overbold leave the local police ar shielders of the trust soldiers be Angels and the commandants be formally commanding officers of the Faithful. wholly the interjects start biblical call Loaves and Fishes, every bod, take out and Honey. as yet the automobiles bring forth biblical label the deals of Behemoth, Whirlwind, and Chariot. utilise ghost the manage speech to pull in people, ranks, and businesses freshwashes policy-making slick in pious language. It prov ides an usher in monitor lizard that the founders of Gilead affirm they act on the license of the Bible itself. government and devotion sleep in the equivalent bash in Gilead, where the slogan beau ideal is a subject resource predominates. Similarities mingled with ultraconservative and Feminist IdeologiesAlthough The Handmaids Tale offers a specifically feminist review of the right attitudes toward women that hold direct in Gilead, Atwood now and again draws quasi(prenominal)ities mingled with the architects of Gilead and al-Qaeda feminists such as Offreds mother. some(prenominal) sorts claim to protect women from sexual violence, and both show themselves get outing to restrict free speech in order to save this intention. Offred recalls a diorama in which her mother and other feminists hack porn magazines. worry the founders of Gilead, these feminists ban some expressions of gender.Gilead to a fault uses the feminist empty talk of female solidarity a nd sistership to its own ad reward. These points of relation imply the existence of a dark side of feminist rhetoric. patronage Atwoods gentle critique of the feminist go away, her real posterior is the spiritual right. Symbols Symbols ar objects, characters, figures, or colours employ to re fork over revoke ideas or concepts. Cambridge, mamma The center of Gileads power, where Offred lives, is never explicitly identified, merely a number of clues justt it as the townshipsfolk of Cambridge.Cambridge, its populate metropolis of Boston, and momma as a whole were centers for the Statess runner ghostly and rigid baseball clubthe puritan newfangled England of the seventeenth century. Atwood reminds us of this account with the antiquated puritan perform service that Offred and Ofglen visit early in the novel, which Gilead has dark into a museum. The pickax of Cambridge as a range maps the direct data grow-to doe with in the midst of the puritans and their spiritual heirs in Gilead. twain assorts dealt raspingly with sacred, sexual, or political deviation. Harvard UniversityGilead has change Harvards buildings into a detention center run by the eyeball, Gileads secret police. Bodies of put to finish dissidents hang from the groyne that runs around the college, and Salvagings (mass executions) take place in Harvard Yard, on the move of the library. Harvard becomes a symbol of the change world that Gilead has created a place that was founded to conform to knowledge and truth becomes a seat of oppression, torture, and the defense force of every doctrine for which a university is sibyllic to stand. The Handmaids expiration HabitsThe red falsify of the costumes cadaverous by the Handmaids symbolizes fertility, which is the castes front off function. rubicund suggests the line of descent of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the a resembling time, however, red is excessively a traditional scratch of sexual sin, hearkening back to the sanguine earn worn-out by the adulterous Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthornes bosh of puritan ideology. slice the Handmaids productive role supposedly finds its defense in the Bible, in some perceive they commit fornication by having sex with their commanding officers, who atomic number 18 married men. The wives, who often call the Handmaids sluts, spirit the pain of this clear adultery.The Handmaids red garments, past, similarly symbolize the double sinfulness of the Handmaids position in Gilead. A Palimpsest A palimpsest is a pen document on which old indite has been scratched out, often release traces, and new piece of music put in its place it deal as well be a document consisting of more layers of piece of music scarce piled one on top of other. Offred sees the cherry-red Center as a palimpsest, exclusively the word genuinely symbolizes all of Gilead. The old world has been erased and replaced, scarce simp ly overtonely, by a new order. Remnants of the pre-Gilead age restrain to impregnate the new world.The Eyes The Eyes of deity argon Gileads secret police. both(prenominal) their quote and their insignia, a move eye, symbolize the eternal watchfulness of theology and the totalitarian state. In Gileads theocracy, the eye of divinity and of the state argon fake to be one and the same. Chapters 13 succinct Chapter 1 The teller, whose fall upon we defraud later is Offred, describes how she and other women slept on troops cots in a lycee. auntie Sara and Aunt Elizabeth guard with electric cows prods interruption from their slash belts, and the women, nix to speak aloud, verbalize without attracting aid.Twice day-by-day, the women qualifying in the former football game game field, which is surrounded by a chain-link fight transcend with spiny wire. gird guards called Angels guard out openings. succession the women take their moves, the Angels stand o ut-of-door the smother with their backs to the women. The women long for the Angels to turn and see them. They estimate that if the men looked at them or talked to them, they could use their bodies to make a deal. The vote counter describes lying in bed at night, quietly exchanging charge with the other women. abridgment Chapter 2The scene changes, and the apologue shifts from the former(prenominal) times to the present tense. Offred now lives in a agency fitted out with curtains, a contraceptive pillow, a enclose picture, and a braid rug. there is no methamphetamine hydrochloride in the way of bread and notwithstandingter, non even over the border picture. The window does not open completely, and the window is shatterproof. There is no(prenominal)ntity in the room from which one could hang a rope, and the door does not hush or even shut completely. tone around, Offred remembers how Aunt Lydia told her to consider her circumstances a privilege, not a priso n.Handmaids, to which assemblage the teller belongs, congratulate totally in red, except for the clean locomote bod their faces. class servants, called Marthas, survive discolour uniforms. Wives fatigue blue uniforms. Offred often secretly listens to Rita and Cora, the Marthas who work in the house where she lives. Once, she hears Rita state that she would never stretch herself as soul in Offreds position must. Cora replies that Offred works for all the women, and that if she (Cora) were younger and had not gotten her tubes tied, she could welcome been in Offreds situation. Offred wishes she could alk to them, exclusively Marthas be not supposed to let on relationships with Handmaids. She wishes that she could overlap talk like they do scold almost how one Handmaid gave birth to a stillborn, how a wife stabbed a Handmaid with a plain stitch chevy out of jealousy, how soulfulness poisoned her air force officer with backside cleaner. Offred dresses for a memo ry trip. She collects from Rita the tokenishs that serve as currency. for each one token bears an emblem of what it pass on bribe cardinal eggs, cheese, and a steak. sum-up Chapter 3 On her way out, Offred looks around for the air force officers married woman just now does not see her.The commanding officers wife has a garden, and she entwines eternally. totally the Wives knit scarves for the Angels at the front lines, precisely the commandants wife is a oddly practiced knitter. Offred wonders if the scarves actually get use, or if they just give the Wives something to do. She remembers arriving at the air force officers house for the origin time, after the two couples to which she was formerly delegate didnt work out. star of the Wives in an earlier post horse secluded herself in the bedroom, purportedly drinking, and Offred hoped the new commandants wife would be different.On the origin day, her new working girl told her to stand out of her sight as mu ch as manageable, and to evacuate making trouble. As she talked, the wife smoke a cigarette, a bunk item. Handmaids, Offred notes, are nix coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol. then(prenominal) the Wife reminded Offred that the commander is her husband, for good and forever. Its one of the things we fought for, she said, smell away. Suddenly, Offred know her mistress as Serena Joy, the lead double from ripening Souls gospel coition Hour, a Sunday-morning unearthly program that aerate when Offred was a child. analysis Chapters 15The Handmaids Tale plunges this instant into an unacquainted(predicate), unexplained world, utilize unfamiliar ground like Handmaid, Angel, and Commander that and come to make star as the trading floor progresses. Offred step by step delivers info round her recent and the world in which she lives, often narrating through flashbacks. She narrates these flashbacks in the past tense, which distinguishes them from the main body of the tom myrot, which she tells in the present tense. The start-off scene, in the middle schoolnasium, is a flashback, as are Offreds memories of the Marthas confab and her archetypical meeting with the Commanders Wife.Although at this point we do not know what the middle schoolnasium signifies, or wherefore the fibber and other women lived there, we do collect some randomness from the sketch prototypical chapter. The women in the gymnasium live under the constant management of the Angels and the Aunts, and they besidestocksnot interact with one other. They seem to inhabit a kind of prison. Offred likens the gym to a palimpsest, a parchment each erased and written on again or work with sextuple create verballys. In the gym palimpsest, Offred sees lead-fold layers of hi fib high school girls deviation to basketball game games and dances build on miniskirts, then pants, then green hair.Likening the gym to a palimpsest in like manner suggests that the society Offred n ow inhabits has been place on a foregoing society, and traces of the old vacillate on a lower floor the new. In Chapter 2, Offred sits in a room that seems at early like a benignant change from rough-cut gloriole of the gymnasium. However, her description of her room demonstrates that the same rigid, imperious structures that command the gym slip by to constrict her in this house. The room is like a prison in which all pith of defense, or escape by suicide or flight, use up been removed.She wonders if women everywhere get issued just the same tabs and curtains, which underlines the idea that the room is like a government-ordered prison. We do not know yet what purpose Offred serves in the house, although it seems to be sexualCora comments that she could start out through with(p) Offreds work if she hadnt gotten her tubes tied, which implies that Offreds function is generative. Serena Joys modesty to Offred makes it plain that she considers Offred a threat, or at l east(prenominal) an annoyance. We do know from Offreds name that she, like all Handmaids, is considered state property.Handmaids label plainly reflect which Commander owns them. Of Fred, Of Warren, and Of Glen get collapsed into Offred, Ofwarren, and Ofglen. The names make more hotshot when preceded by the word property post Offred, for example. Thus, every time the women hear their names, they are reminded that they are no more than property. These early chapters establish the novels style, which is characterized by long physiologic description. The narrator devotes worry to the features of the gym, the Commanders house, and Serena Joys skeletal face.Offred tells the boloney in nonlinear fashion, following the temporary leaps of her own mind. The narrative goes where her musical themes take itone wink to the present, in the Commanders house, and the a scarcelyting back in the gymnasium, or in the old world, the coupled States as it exists in Offreds memory. We do no t hand the sense, as in some startle-person narratives, that Offred is deal this novel from a outdistanced vantage point, reflecting back on her past. Rather, all of her conceits have a flavour of immediacy. We are there with Offred as she goes close to her daily life, and as she slips out of the present and look ats or so her past.Chapters 46 sum-up Chapter 4 As she leaves the house to go obtain, Offred reflexions Nick, a Guardian of the Faith, slipstream the Commanders car. Nick lives to a higher place the garage. He winks at Offredan wickedness against -decorum scarce she ignores him, fearing that he may be an Eye, a distinguish charge to test her. She waits at the respite for Ofglen, another Handmaid with whom Offred lead do her obtain. The Handmaids everlastingly travel in pairs when outside. Ofglen arrives, and they switch greetings, studious not to state anything that isnt strictly Jewish-Orthodox.Ofglen says that she has comprehend the war is e xit well, and that the soldiers deep frustrated a group of Baptist rebels. sycophancy be, Offred responds. They reach a checkpoint man by two young Guardians. The Guardians serve as a fleck police force and do menial labor. They are men too young, too old, or just in the main spoilt for the army. untested Guardians, such as these, shadower be desperate because they are frequently more fanatical or sick than former(a) guards. These young Guardians recently shot a Martha as she fumbled for her pass, because they thought she was a man in cover carrying a bomb.Offred comprehend Rita and Cora talk of the town near the dig. Rita was smoldering, just now Cora seemed to presume 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 small infraction against the rules. She considers how sex-starved the young men must be, since they empennagenot sweep up without permission, w ithdrawal method is a sin, and in full grown magazines and films are now forbidden. The Guardians cornerstone barely hope to become Angels, when they volition be allowed to take a wife and maybe at long last get a Handmaid.This marks the initiative time in the novel we hear the word Handmaid employ. synopsis Chapter 5 In town, Ofglen and Offred wait in line at the shops. We study the name of this new society The democracy of Gilead. Offred remembers the pre-Gilead age, when women were not protect they had to keep their doors shut to oddrs and ignore catcalls on the avenue. at one time no one whistles at women as they laissez passer no one touches them or dialog to them. She remembers Aunt Lydia explaining that more than one kind of liberty exists, and that in the old age of anarchy, it was independence to. promptly you are being disposed(p) immunity from. The women shop at injects cognise by names like all told Flesh and draw and Honey. Pictures of mea t or yield mark the stores, quite a than earn signs, because they mulish that even the names of shops were too much enticement for us. A Handmaid in the late stages of maternal case enters the store and raises a confidence game of excitement. Offred recognizes her from the ruddy Center. She utilize to be known as Janine, and she was one of Aunt Lydias favorites. Now her name is Ofwarren. Offred senses that Janine went obtain just so she could show off her maternalism.Offred thinks of her husband, Luke, and their daughter, and the life they led ahead Gilead existed. She remembers a old-hat token from their normal life together she employ to store shaping obtain bags under the sink, which nettled Luke, who demented that their daughter would get one of the bags caught over her head. She remembers whole step vile for her frightlessness. Offred and Ofglen finish their shopping and go out to the sidewalk, where they encounter a group of Japanese tourists and their int erpreter. The tourists neediness to take a video, but Offred says no.Many of the interpreters are Eyes, and Handmaids must not appear immodest. Offred and Ofglen marvel at the womens expose legs, high heels, and elegant toenails. The tourists ask if they are happy, and since Ofglen does not answer, Offred replies that they are very happy. compact Chapter 6 This may not seem medium to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. (See all important(p) Quotations Explained) As they return from shopping, Ofglen suggests they take the long way and pass by the church service. It is an old building, alter in spite of appearance with paintings of what seem to be puritans from the compound era.Now the former church is unplowed as a museum. Offred describes a near boathouse, old manor hallitories, a football stadium, and redbrick sidewalks. Atwood implies that Offred is base on balls across what used to be the campus of Harvard University. cross slipway the stree t from the church sits the seawall, where the regime hang the bodies of penalise criminals as examples to the rest of the state of Gilead. The governance cover the mens heads with bags. unrivaled of the bags looks calico with a red make a face where the crosscurrent has seeped through. any of the six corpses extend signs around their necks visualize fetuses, signal that they were punish for performing abortions in the lead Gilead came into existence. Although their actions were legal at the time, their crimes are being penalize retroactively. Offred feels assuage that none of the bodies could be Lukes, since he was not a pertain. As she stares at the bodies, Offred thinks of Aunt Lydia congress them that soon their new life would seem ordinary. abridgment Chapters 46 The theocratic spirit of Offreds society, the name of which we observe for the first time in these chapters, becomes clear during her shopping trip.A theocracy exists when there is no detachment among church and state, and a single piety dominates all aspects of life. In Gilead, state and ghostly belief are inseparable. The official language of Gilead uses umpteen another(prenominal) biblical terms, from the various ranks that men hold (Angels, Guardians of the Faith, Commanders of the Faith, the Eyes of divinity fudge), to the stores where Offred and Ofglen shop (Milk and Honey, All Flesh, Loaves and Fishes), to the names of automobiles (Behemoth, Whirlwind, Chariot). The very name Gilead refers to a location in superannuated Israel. The name withal recalls a line from the volume of sing there is a unction in Gilead. This joint, we realize later, has been modify into a kind of national motto. Atwood does not describe the exact elaborate of Gileads state religion. In Chapter 2, Offred describes her room as a return to traditional values. The religious right in America uses the formulate 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, but its flaw of Christianity pays outlying(prenominal)-off more attention to the grey testament than the cutting Testament.The religious acknowledgment for having Handmaids, for instance, is taken from the hold in of Genesis. We swindle that uncomplete Catholics nor Jews are find in Gilead. The former must convert, while the latter(prenominal) must immigrate to Israel or release their Judaism. Atwood seems less concerned in religion than in the convergency mingled with religion, politics, and sex. The Handmaids Tale explores the political oppression of women, carried out in the name of God but in over surface part propel by a entrust to reign womens bodies.Gilead sees womens gender as unplayful women must cover themselves from head to toe, for example, and not reveal their sexual hauls. When Offred attracts the Guardians, she feels th is ability to set off sexual attraction is the precisely power she retains. any other privilege is simple(a) away, down to the very act of denotation, which is forbidden. Women are not even allowed to read store signs. By haveling womens minds, by not allowing them to read, the governing more intimately realise womens bodies. The patriarchs of Gilead want to declare womens bodies, their sex lives, and their reproductive rights.The bodies of remove abortionists on the Wall fashion home the point feminists imagine that women must have abortion rights in order to take for their own bodies, and in Gilead, heavy(a) women maintain of their bodies is a horrible crime. When Offred and Ofglen go to town to shop, geographic clues and street names suggest that they live in what was once Cambridge, mummy, and that their walk takes them near what used to be the campus of Harvard University. The plectron of Cambridge for the backdrop of The Handmaids Tale is signifi raftt, si nce Massachusetts was a prude stronghold during the colonial period of the unite States.The Puritans were a persecuted minority in England, but when they fled to New England, they create the repression they suffered at home, this time mould themselves as the repressors quite than the repressed. They ceremonious an uncharitable religious society in some ways similar to Gilead. Atwood locates her false illiberal society in a place founded by rigid people. By turn the old church into a museum, and exit untasted portraits of Puritan forebears, the founders of Gilead suggest their hold for the old Puritan society. Chapters 79 abstract Chapter 7I would like to retrieve this is a degree Im give tongue to. I need to regard it. I must gestate it. Those who discharge conceptualise that such stories are simply stories have a expose chance. (See all-important(a) Quotations Explained) At night, Offred likes to remember her former life. She recalls lecture to her college friend, Moira, in her dorm room. She remembers being a child and going to a green with her mother, where they aphorism a group of women and a few men impatient big magazines. Offred has forgotten a stupendous collect of time, which she thinks skill be the fault of an shooting or pill the administration gave her.She remembers argus-eyed up somewhere and screaming, demanding to know what they had do with her daughter. The administration told Offred she was unfit, and her daughter was with those fit to care for her. They showed her a photograph of her child wear a white dress, dimension the hand of a freaky woman. As she recounts these events, Offred imagines she is coitus her accounting to individual, give tongue to things that she chiffoniernot write down, because writing is forbidden. summary Chapter 8 return from another shopping trip, Ofglen and Offred notice terce new bodies on the Wall. maven is a Catholic priest and two are Guardians who bear placards aro und their necks that read gender Treachery. This actor they were hanged for committing transsexual(prenominal) acts. later face at the bodies for a while, Offred tells Ofglen that they should poke out manner of walking home. They meet a funeral promotion of Econowives, the wives of poorer men. One Econowife carries a small abusive jar. From the size of the jar, Offred can tell that it contains a breathless fertilized egg from an early stillbirthone that came too early to know whether it was an Unbaby. The Econowives do not like the Handmaids.One woman scowls, and another spits at the Handmaids as they pass. At the corner near the Commanders home, Ofglen says under(a) His Eye, the orthodox good-bye, hesitating as if she wants to say more but then go along on her way. When Offred reaches the Commanders road she passes Nick, who breaks the rules by enquire her intimately her walk. She says zip fastener and goes into the house. She sees Serena Joy out in the garden an d recalls how after Serenas singing vocation ended, she became a vocalism for respecting the holiness of the home and for women staying at home instead of working.Serena herself never stayed at home, because she was unceasingly out giving speeches. Once, Offred remembers, mortal try to massacre Serena but killed her escritoire instead. Offred wonders if Serena is angry that she can no drawn-out be a public figure, now that what she advocated has come to pass and all women, including her, are check to the home. In the kitchen, Rita fusses over the quality of the purchases as she of all time does. Offred retreats upstairs and notices the Commander standing outside her room. He is not supposed to be there. He nods at her and retreats. drumhead Chapter 9Offred remembers renting hotel room and postponement for Luke to meet her, forwards they were married, when he was bearded darnel on his first wife. She decline that she did not fully instruct the freedom to have her o wn space when she precious it. mentation of the problems she and Luke thought they had, she realizes they were truly 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, unexpended over from long ago sex, and she notice a Latin phrase newly scratched into the floor of the imperativeness Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.Offred does not extrapolate Latin. It pleases her to imagine that this message allows her to commune with the woman who wrote it. She pictures this woman as freckly and irreverent, someone like Moira. Later, she asks Rita who stayed in her room ahead her. Rita tells her to declare which one, implying that there were a number of Handmaids in the lead her. Offred says, guessing, the restless one . . . with freckles. Rita asks how Offred knew about her, but she refuses to tell Offred anything about the antecedent Handmaid beyond a unnoticea ble contestation that she did not work out. abstract Chapter 79Atwood suggests that those who seek to restrict sexual expression, whether they are feminists or religious conservatives, lastly pct the same goalthe mark of sexuality, particularly womens sexuality. In the flashback to the scene from Offreds childhood in which women callous fully grown magazines, Atwood shows the similitude between the extremism of the left and the extremism of the right. The people eager magazines are feminists, not religious conservatives like the leaders of Gilead, yet their goal is the same to break down down on authoritative kinds of sexual freedom.In other words, the desire for control over sexuality is not singular to the religious totalitarians of Gilead it withal existed in the feminist anti-pornography crusades that preceded the fall of the get together States. Gilead actually appropriates some of the rhetoric of womens liberation in its attempt to control women. Gilead besides uses the Aunts and the Aunts rhetoric, forcing women to control other women. again and again in the novel, the voice of Aunt Lydia sound in Offreds head, press that women are best(p) off in Gilead, free from growing and violence, than they were in the dangerous freedom of pre-Gilead times.In Chapter 7, Offred consorts some of the exposit of how she at sea her child. This passage is the key pain on Offreds oral sex end-to-end the novel, and the novels great source of mad power. The firing of her child is so untellable to Offred that she can solo relate the recital in fits and starts so removed the dilate of what happened have been murky. When telling stories from her past, like the story of her daughters disappearance, Offred often seems to draw on a partial or blurred memory. It almost seems as if she is computer storage detail from hundreds of eld ago, when we know these things happened a few days forward the narrative.Partly this distance is the product of horny detrimentthinking of the past is bitter for Offred. save in Chapter 7, Offred offers her own accounting for these gaps she thinks it possible that the political science gave her a pill or stab that harmed her memory. straight after remembering her daughter, Offred addresses someone she calls you. She could be talk to God, Luke, or an ideational rising reader. I would like to retrieve this is a story Im telling, Offred says. Those who can commit that such stories are only stories have a better chance . . A story is a letter. solemn You, Ill say. In the act of telling her imagined audience about her life, Offred reduces her lifes horror and makes its tyrannous weightiness endurable. Also, if she can think of her life as a story and herself as the writer, she can think of her life as controllable, fictional, something not rattling(a) because not real. We learn in Chapter 8 that Serena used to trend against womens rights. This makes her a figure sacred of ruth, in a way she support the anti-woman principles on which Gilead was founded, but once they were mplemented, she found that they modify her as well as other women. She now lives deprive of freedom and attach with a Handmaid who has sex with her husband. Yet Serena forfeits what pity we powerfulness feel for her by her callous, small behavior toward Offred. weak in the world of men, Serena can only take out her foiling on the women under her snap by making their lives miserable. In legion(predicate) ways, she treats Offred far worse than the Commander does, which suggests that Gileads despotic power structure succeeds not just because men created it, but because women like Serena sustain it.Nolite te bastardes carborundorumthe Latin phrase scrawled in Offreds press by a previous Handmaidtakes on a wizard(prenominal) wideness for Offred even in the beginning she knows what it means. It symbolizes her knowledgeable resistance to Gileads tyranny and makes her feel li ke she can transmit 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 abruptly appropriate. Chapters 1012 sum-up Chapter 10 Offred often sings songs in her head pixilated lard or songs by Elvis.Most music is forbidden in Gilead, and there is little of it in the Commanders home. sometimes she hears Serena busyness and comprehend to a recording of herself from the time when she was a storied gospel singer. summertime is approaching, and the house grows hot. short the Handmaids will be allowed to wear their summer dresses. Offred thinks about how Aunt Lydia would describe the terrible things that used to happen to women in the old days, ahead Gilead, when they sunbathed wearing near to nothing. Offred remembers Moira throwing an underwhore troupe to sell turned on(predicate) lingerie.She remembers reading stories in the papers about women who were murder and raped, but even in the old days it seemed distant from her life and unrelated to her. Offred sits at the window, beside a jar embroidered with the word Faith. It is the only word they have stipulation her to read, and she spends many legal proceeding feel at it. From her window, she watches the Commander get into his car and calculate away. synopsis Chapter 11 Offred says that yesterday she went to the sterilise. all month, a Guardian accompanies Offred to a animate, who tests her for pregnancy and disease.At the doctors office, Offred undresses, clout a sheet of paper over her body. A sheet hangs down from the ceiling, cutting 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 cheerfully 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 impregnate her. H is use of the word unfertilized shocks Offred, for officially sterile men no long-run exist. In Gilead, there are only productive women and innocent women.Offred thinks him genuinely sympathetic to her plight, but she also realizes he enjoys his own empathy and his position of power. After a moment, she declines, saying it is too dangerous. If they are caught, they will both receive the death penalty. She tries to sound casual and agreeable as she refuses, but she feels frightened. To penalise her refusal, the doctor could falsely report that she has a wellness problem, and then she would be sent to the Colonies with the Unwomen. Offred also feels frightened, she realizes, because she has been apt(p) a way out. thick Chapter 12It is one of Offreds requisite bath days. The keister has no mirror, no razors, and no clasp on the door. Cora sits outside, delay for Offred. Offreds own natural body seems strange to her, and she finds it hard to believe that she once wore ba the suits, let people see her thighs and arms, her breasts and buttocks. finesse in the bath, she thinks of her daughter and remembers the time when a fruity woman tried and true to swipe the little girl in the supermarket. The authorities 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