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When Nick and Offred begin seeing each other, Offred stops caring about her unjust treatment altogether. She also ends her involvement in the resistance with Ofglen. Nick is her settlement for living in this society, and it's all it take for her to fully give in to it. Meanwhile, there are women like the Commander's Wife and the Aunts who have absolutely no power with any man, but still obeys the rules put in place for them because they can still exercise control over the Handmaids.

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When Offred reconnects with her formerly rebellious friend Moira at the club working as a prostitute, Moira says, "So here I am. They even give you face cream. You should figure out some way of getting in here. You'd have three or four good years before your snatch wears out and they send you to the bone-yard. The food's not bad and there's drink and drugs, if you want it, and we only work nights." (Atwood 284.) Small rewards along with it simply being easier to follow the rules allowed the society to keep control over each and every person living in it. These small benefits that Moira described of working in those conditions were enough to get even the most defiant person in the novel to comply with the oppressive regime of Gilead.

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                                                     Theme #1                                                                                                                                            People obey unjust rules as long as there's something to make up for it.

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                                                     Theme #1                                                                                                                                            People obey unjust rules as long as there's something to make up for it.

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When the Commander lets her write something down for the first time since writing was outlawed, Offred thinks, “I can feel its power, the power of the words it contains. Pen Is Envy, Aunt Lydia would say, quoting another Center motto, warning us away from such objects. And they were right, it is envy. Just holding it is envy. I envy the Commander his pen. It's one more thing I would like to steal.” (Atwood 213.) Through this small act of rebellion, Offred gains some power. She isn't allowed to be doing this, but she does it anyway and doesn't get caught. This quote shows her frustration at not being able to hold onto this control always

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Holocaustrevealed. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Available at: http://www.holocaustrevealed.org/I/badges.gif [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017].

Tomandlorenzo.com. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Available at: https://tomandlorenzo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/The-Handmaid-Tale-Hulu-Trailer-TV-Reviews-Tom-Lorenzo-Site-8.jpg [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017].

Troper, J. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Janetroper.com. Available at: http://janetroper.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/words-have-power.jpg [Accessed 8 Dec. 2017].

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""Blessed be the fruit," she says to me, the accepted greeting among us.
"May the Lord open," I answer, the accepted response." (Atwood 27)

""Under His Eye," she says. The right farewell.
"Under His Eye," I reply, and she gives a little nod." (Atwood 55)

Anything other than this exact dialogue is suspicious at best, and a death sentence at worst. This is one of the many ways that language is controlled in The Handmaid's Tale. Through this language, Gilead is forcing religion onto its citizens and making sure that no one forgets that they are being watched. By this constant reminder of being watched, fear is instilled in everyone. Through this fear, citizen obedience remains.

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One key term that has been created by the new republic is "Unwoman," meaning a woman who rebels. This also serves in controlling women by humiliating them if they don't follow every tedious rule.

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In Gilead, the leaders have control of the language. They have outlawed women being able to read and have rebranded all of them as either a Martha, an Aunt, a Wife, or a Handmaid. By taking away these women's names, they strip the of their individual identities and make them easier to control. The names of these roles have one thing in common: they imply someone else has ownership. They are turned into someone's wife, or Handmaid, or servant instead of an individual.

This rebranding is one of Margaret Atwood's most important decisions because although being called by a different name and grouped into a category might not seem like the biggest change, it is the primary way that Gilead controls its citizens.

This tactic of control can be compared to that of the Nazi's during the Holocaust. Like the branding of women in Gilead, Nazis branded people in concentration camps as Jewish, Romani, homosexual, political enemy, etc. as a way to more effectively control, and ultimately kill them.

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                 Theme #2                                                                  Control of language is power.

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                 Theme #2                                                                  Control of language is power.

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Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. In her old life, before Gilead, she had a husband named Luke, a daughter with him, and a best friend named Moira.
As it became clear what was soon to happen, Offred and Luke tried to escape the country into Canada, but were captured and separated. She has not seen her daughter or husband since. She, along with Moira, was sent to a "Re-Education Center" to learn the rules of the new society to prepare to become Handmaids. Moira escapes the Center, and no one knows what happened to her after that, leaving her as a symbol of hope among the other Handmaids.

After finishing up at the Center, Offred is sent to the Commander's house. She begins her life as an official Handmaid, where her only purpose is to reproduce with her commander. She's paired up with another woman from a different household, Ofglen, that she goes on her daily walks with.  After a while, the Commander sends his gardener/chauffeur, NIck, to have Offred visit him in his office, a place that is forbidden for her to go. When she goes there, he asks her to play Scrabble with him. This is also forbidden due to women not being allowed to read. After this meeting, he asks her to kiss him. She begins visiting him regularly for these Scrabble meetings. Offred and the Commander develop a close relationship with each other. One day during her daily walks, Ofglen reveals to her that she is part of an underground resistance to Gilead. Offred joins her, and enjoys getting information about the world that hasn't been incredibly filtered by Gilead.

After quite a while of Offred not becoming pregnant, the Commander's Wife suggests to Offred that she have an affair with Nick to increase her chances Although this is illegal and highly dangerous, it would benefit her, so she agrees. On the same night that she's to meet with Nick, the Commander sneaks Offred into a club for only the Commanders and disguises her as a prostitute. At this club, she sees Moira working there. They meet in the bathroom and Moira tells her of how she almost escaped, but was captured just before the border. She was given the option between working at the club, and a death sentence.

Offred begins regularly seeing Nick. She begins to ignore the injustice surrounding her, only focusing on the two illegal relationships she's now in. Soon after, a new woman is paired up with Offred for the daily shopping trips without an explanation. She concludes that this new woman is not part of the resistance, but she does tell Offred that Ofglen was caught being in the resistance, and killed herself before the secret police found her. Offred comes back to the house to discover that the Commander's Wife has found out about Offred's trip to the Club, and she tells her that she'll receive punishment soon. Offred sees the black van of the secret police coming, Nick comes in and tells her that the van is actually the resistance disguised as the secret police that he sent for and are going to save her. She is put in the van, awaiting freedom or death - she doesn't know which yet.

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In an extreme effort to increase the dangerously low birthrates, the President of the US, his Cabinet, and all of Congress is assassinated, and is taken over by a totalitarian group known as the Republic of Gilead who promise to return us to our 'traditional values'. In it, identity is slowly stripped away from individuals. Men are defined by their military rank. Women are either the wife of the Commander; household servants, called "Marthas;" Supervisors, called "Aunts;" or are only used to reproduce, called "Handmaids." Each of these groups are identified by the clothing they wear.

Handmaids are not allowed to use their real names, and must only go by "of" followed by the name of their Commander (ex: Offred, Ofglen). Freedom and privacy have been taken away, and Handmaids can only go outside for shopping trips, they're not allowed to read, they must all wear the same long read dress that also covers they're face, and every move they make is monitored by the secret police of the republic.

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Although she tended to ignore most of what her mother said in Pre-Gilead, many of the things she said ended up being incredibly true in the new world, like, "Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations." (Atwood 306.) This quote sums up the theme. Her mother is absolutely right. She sums up exactly what happened to not only Offred and Moira, but every woman living in Gilead.