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Handmaids are treated like children

Forbidden to read or write

Isolated from other Handmaids

Handmaid’s uniform is confining

Threatened with the Colonies

Government misquotes from the Bible to support their actions

Handmaids are given the name of their Commander

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Child-like treatment

Confinement in house

Eyes

Forced to have sex

Passivity of women (even Moira becomes passive and gives in)

Threat of the colonies

Forced participation in government events e.g prayvaganza, salvaging

Not allowed to spend time with anyone

Have to eat basic food they are given

Offred does everything she is meant to for the first part of the book- women have no unity and so cannot rebel effectively

Nuns are forced to become handmaids

Men are not allowed to have sex unless they earn an econowife or become commanders

Wives are only allowed to do trivial domestic activities

Marthas have to cook, clean, and look after children (traditional female roles)

Everyone has to dress appropriately and lose their individual

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Handmaids are restricted from reading/writing - suppresses their ability to share their thoughts

Women expected to be passive

Women given passive roles - Handmaids, Marthas, wives etc.

Suppression of sexual pleasure - made a purely reproductive act

Isolation from other Handmaids, not officially allowed to participate in serious conversation with those higher up in chain of command

Often treated as child or second class citizen by wives/Marthas

Smoking/drinking forbidden for Handmaids, basic foodstuffs given to them but can’t indulge in the niceties others get

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She is restricted from doing things like smoking and drinking

She isn’t allowed to read or write

Basic diet which is best approved for bearing a child, so really boring food

She’s treated like a child

Rules and regulations she must follow

She has to attend the ceremonies which she probably doesn’t really want to attend to

The clothing she wears is very covering, she covers all her skin and her face

She is threatened by going to the colonies if she is not successful

She can’t talk with other women

She’s very lonely, no communication with normal people, it’s all very formal and religious

Isolated from the other handmaids

They’re not even allowed to use their real names, it’s “of*theircommander*”

They are separated from their families and friends, they don’t know where anybody is, and even if they’re still alive

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1. Forbidden to read and write or seek any knowledge

2. Made to wear long floor length dresses and habits- like Nuns

3. Confined to the house like a prisoner

4. Treated like children; given healthy, schoolgirl type meals to eat

5. Forced to live with the constant threat of being deported to the colonies

6. Fed false information from a theocratic government

7. Prevented from rebelling at all times; even committing suicide

8. Forbidden from expressing their own sexuality

9. Treated as vessels

10. Have their names and titles taken away from them

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Mayday

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

Offred plays Scrabble with her Commander

The first ‘Offred’ killed herself

Ofglen commits suicide

Secret meetings with Moira

Using butter as hand cream and face cream

Serena Joy’s black market cigarettes

Ofglen puts the political prisoner out of his misery by kicking him in the head

The executions prove that defiance takes place outside of Offred’s circle

Offred visits the Commander in his office

Jezebel

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MayDay- almost like their secret club, a way of finding things out

Offred’s meetings with the commander

Sleeping with nick in hope to provide Serena a child, almost like cheating the system

Sneaking to the washroom to meet with moira so they can talk in private

Going out to the club with the commander

The writing in the cupboard

The cigarette she receives from Serena, along with the Polaroid of her child

Suicide

Moira plots many escapes out of the system

Telling each other their real names

Getting hand lotion and magazines from the commander

Serena let’s the hole house watch the news at the beginning of the meeting ceremony before the commander arrives

Jezzabelle’s

The cushion that says ‘faith’, the only thing she could find to read at first

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Mayday movement

Jezebel’s

Black market products

Offred’s relationship with both the Commander and Nick

The doctor’s offer to impregnate Offred

Ofglen’s suicide

Pseudo-Latin message in room

Moira’s escape from the Red Centre

Butter in lieu of face cream

Serena Joy offering a cigarette to Offred

Reading the Commander’s magazines

Playing Scrabble

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1. Mayday

2. Hitting the political prisoner on the head

3. Playing scrabble, reading magazines, wearing makeup...

4. Visiting the Commander in his office

5. Visiting Nick

6. Being given a photograph of her daughter

7. Whispering in the Red Centre

8. Ofglen

9. The first Offred killing herself

10. Butter in the shoe; match under the mattress

11. The message in the cupboard

12. Jezebel’s

13. The black market

14. Nick touching her foot with his during the reading of the Bible

15. There must be a resistance group if they keep killing people

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Moira is a symbol of rebellion

In the RC the women share their names and Offred and Moira talk to one another

Offred’s mother was a feminist pre-Gilead and rebelled against the religious ideology which was prevalent before its existence

Serena has access to photograph of Offred’s daughter

Serena rebels by arranging Offred’s encounter with Nick

Rita has access to matches and kitchen knives, so could rebel, but chooses not to

Offred plays scrabble with the commander

Jezebel’s exists

There are always bodies appearing on the wall

There is an underground mayday group which rebels

At the end, Offred could potentially be saved by a group of rebels

Offred uses butter as hand cream

Some handmaids kill themselves

Cora and Offred agree not to tell anyone when Cora drops her breakfast

The commander rebels by interacting with Offred and taking her to Jezebel’s

Nick rebels by getting things and running errands for the leaders of the house

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Serena Joy’s Garden - tended to by her but heavy lifting is done by Guardians

Living room has a mixture of authentic & not authentic things

Everything smells of Lily of the Valley - Serena Joy’s perfume

Offred likens both the household and the bed to being on a ship

'Little things mean a lot' - sitting room is Serena Joy's territory. Commander has to knock and wait to enter

Nick's apartment - former 'bachelor pad'

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System emphasises a woman’s role in childbearing

Women are expected to be modestly dressed

Smoking and wearing makeup are frowned upon, smoking seen as masculine

Separated into Wives, Handmaids, Marthas and Jezebels

Wives are not allowed to work

Wives wear blue (similarity with the biblical Mary)

Handmaids wear red (represents fertility)

Marthas wear green (represents nature and the natural role of women)

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1. The Salvaging; The women come together to murder the political prisoner

2. Whispering their names to each other in the Red Centre

3. Working together when the baby is born

4. Wanting to talk and gossip with Rita and Cora in the kitchen

5. The Mayday resistance group

6. Wives pretend to be sick so that other Wives will visit them

7. Putting alcohol in the punch

8. The friendship between Offred and Moira

9. The prostitutes smoking together in the restroom

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They are not allowed to use their real names, handmaids are called “of” the name of their commander. Offred is of Fred, Fred being the name of her commander. This is very possessive and almost objectifies the handmaids.

Following on from that, when they tell eachother their real names it is an act of defiance.

Past identities do not matter. The fact that Serena joy was once on television and a professional singer does not alter her role in the system. She too is oppressed by the system.

The colour of their outfits represent their role in the society. Wives wear blue, handmaids wear red.

The historical notes suggest that all the names used in the transcript are made up anyway- perhaps Offred created them herself to protect her own and others identities.

Identities remain a mystery throughout the novel which plays a key part in the idea of isolation and loneliness, very oppressive.

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Faith cushion in Offred’s room
Not allowed to read bible (only hear possibly fabricated readings of it)
Scrabble
Prayer sheets from the ex-lingerie shop
Offred tells her story, indicating her hope that someone will hear her
Offred admits that she gets distracted by trivia when telling her story
We hear the stories of many different characters through Offred’s eyes
Offred tells us that her story is not civilised. This could be a reference to the disjointed selection of events (Offred’s train-of-thought storytelling), or possibly an attack on the barbarity of the events in Offred’s life, which is shaped by the theocratic regime

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Offred pines after Luke

Mothers love - Janine and Charlotte, Offred and her daughter

The lack of love between the commander and Serena Joy

The lust and passion between Nick and Offred

Marriage of young children in order to optimise reproduction

Marriages of handmaids are nulled - Does it count as adultrey?

Commander lusts over Offred

Offred teases guards by wiggling her hips

Serena Joys desperation to have a child to love herself

Friendship between Offred and Ofglen/Moria is a form of love

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The aunts are allowed to read and write

The commanders are the only ones allowed to read the bible, which is given extreme importance in the regime (the handmaids are read sections of it in the RC and it is kept in a special box)

The language of the past becomes increasingly difficult for Offred to remember, but she recounts the names of certain brands etc

The Latin phrase on the inside of the wardrobe, the scrabble, and reading the magazines are all ways in which reading and writing is used to rebel

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The aunts ironically don’t act maternal towards the Handmaids and instead treat them with cruelty.

Offred is given a photograph of her daughter by Serena Joy

Janine, acting as surrogate mother, gives birth with the Wives in the same room. The Wives then become the new Mothers.

The Handmaids had their children taken away from them and given to elite couples with no children of their own

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Names of the Handmaids are taken from the men they are given to

Their real names are forbidden to be used

Handmaids wear a uniform which takes away individuality