VI Household Flashcards
‘As if I’m a piece of furniture’ she’s done it before
Shows the objectification that takes place to the handmaids within Gilead.
‘It’s the scent of prepubescent girls”
Shows innocence, the purity scent and not the ‘foul’ smells that occurs with growth. ‘I breathe it in’ she wants to be consumed by it, relishes the times where she could feel pure.
‘Is this on purpose?’
She is hyper sensitive to any form of display of emotion that is outside of the regulated actions
‘They’re the genital organs of plants’
Shows the over sexualisation that the society has made her, it has accustomed to it as her normal way of thinking
‘I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what i tell myself is wrong. It does matter’
Internal conflict of the indoctrination self and the individual.
‘He manages to appear puzzled, as if he can’t quite remember how we all got in here’
Shows the direct patriarchal influence is ignorant to the damage of the society
‘To be a man, watched by women. It must be entirely strange’
The allure used for women but now the roles reversed. Playboy
‘You are spoiled girls, she twinkled, as if rebuking a kitten. Naughty puss’
Belittling these women into younger girls, lack of respect. This is mentally frustrating for the handmaids as they are now growing reversely
‘For our purpose your feet and your hands are not essential’
The possessive determiner of ‘our’
‘Below is the Commander is fucking’
The explicit language mirrors the impersonal intimacy that’s happening, makes it seem crude
‘This is not recreation, even for the commander. This is serious business. The commander, too is doing his duty’
The sex is transnational.
‘We are containers, its only the inside of our bodies that are important’
Dehumanising to the women of Gilead, highly objectified
‘I want to steal something’
Shows her rebellion is used as the only thing she can control. Rebellion is the new freedom
