Gilead by James Goodman

Basic info

2017-03-09 12:26:51 UTC

Totalitarian theocratic state
Used to be US
Alternative future state
Democratic government was overthrown
No freedom nor choice
Cambridge, the Harvard area

Description

2017-03-09 12:27:55 UTC

Quote: The lawns are tidy, the façades are gracious, in good repair; they're like the beautiful pictures they used to print in the magazines about homes and gardens and interior decoration. There is the same absence of people, the same air of being asleep. The street is almost like a museum, or a street in a model town constructed to show the way people used to live. As in those pictures, those museums, those model towns, there are no children.

This is the heart of Gilead, where the war cannot intrude except on television.
- Offred

You cannot escape from it...

2017-03-09 12:28:22 UTC

The city is within you!
"The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you"

The Wall

2017-03-09 12:29:35 UTC

Quote: "The Wall is hundreds of years old, too; or over a hundred, at least. Like the sidewalks, it's red brick, and must once have been plain but handsome. Now the gates have sentries and there are ugly new floodlights mounted on metal posts above it, and barbed wire along the bottom and broken glass set in concrete along the top."

Security

2017-03-09 12:30:44 UTC

Women are protected by the Guardians
Eyes walk around the city, they look for those who break the law

Supplies

2017-03-09 12:32:43 UTC

Food is limited. --> "Those who've reched the counter hand their tokens across it, to the two men in Guardian uniforms who stand on the other side." (food can be only given out in exchange for specific tokens ) --> "But I haven't brought any tokens for oranges."

Punishment (describtion of the wall)

2017-03-09 12:38:09 UTC

Those who go against the system, follow different faith or had done something which is wrong in the religion were hanged "the men wear white coats, like those worn by doctors and scientists. Doctors and scientists aren't the only ones, there are others.."

Characters

2017-03-09 12:38:31 UTC

Janine - pregnant woman
Quote: ""Show-off", a voice hisses, and this is true. <...> She's come to display herself. <...> She is a flag on a hilltop, showing what can still be done: we too can be saved."

Capital

2017-03-09 12:42:58 UTC

"the heart of Gilead, where the war cannot intrude except on television"