Identity Flashcards
“Two-legged…”
“…womb”
Gilead’s policies make it so a person’s identity is limited to their prescribed societal role - Offred is only allowed to be a Handmaid.
“I want to be held and told my name…”
“…I want to be valued in ways that I am not.”
Offred connects her real name with being “valued”
“I repeat my former name…”
“…reminds my self of what I once could do, how others saw me.”
She is reminding herself that she did have an identity before becoming a Handmaid and she is privately resisting Gilead’s control and reminding herself of her individuality.
“I must forget about my secret name…”
“…My name is Offred now.”
Offred recognised that she has no real identify of her own anymore. Her resignation is a survival tactic.
“I have trouble remembering…”
“…what I used to look like. I have viable ovaries.”
She is forgetting herself and her old identity due to her indoctrination. She shifts stops describing herself as a person but about what is valuable to Gilead - she is reducing her own identity to her reproduction.
“I feel as if there’s not much left of me;…”
“…they will slip through my arms, as if I’m made of smoke.”
Offred is talking about the day she tried to flee the country with her family. She feels as though now she is shapeless, abstract and temporary. As Offred loses her family, she also loses herself.
“Waste not want…”
“…not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?”
“To be seen is to be…”
“…penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable.”
“I don’t want to look at something…”
“…that determines me so completely.”
“I am a…”
“…national resource.”
How does Gilead maintain control?
Stripping people of their identity which makes it easier to dehumanise someone - it represents a loss of power
What happens to Offred’s identity throughout the novel?
She becomes more rebellious and regains some aspects of her identity.
ALSO
She becomes more resigned to its oppression and her identity as a Handmaid.
What is identity?
A sense of who we are which is shaped by our values and relationships.
How are the women stripped of their identity?
Fired from their jobs, their money and bank accounts are transferred to the men and they lose the right to reproductive healthcare.
“Nothing changes instantaneously:…”
“…in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.”
