THT Key Quotes Flashcards
Power
“it’s difficult for me to believe I have
power over him, of any sort, but I do;
although it’s of an equivocal kind” -
Offred on her relationship with the
Commander
“better never means better for
everyone… it always means worse,
for some” - Commander
“there is no such thing as a sterile
man anymore”
“the young ones are often the most fanatical”
“I feel for the first time their true power” (Gilead)
“she is my spy, as I am hers” - Offred and Ofglen
Identity and Gender
“I avoid looking down at my body… I
don’t want to look at something that
determines me so completely”
“my name isn’t Offred, I have another
name, which nobody uses now
because it is forbidden”
“I’m a cloud, congealed around a
central object, the shape of a pear”
a woman’s womb is a “national resource”
“her fault, her fault, her fault, we
chant in unison” - Janine’s rape
“four digits and an eye, a passport in
reverse” - tattoo on her ankle
“evidence from a single woman is no
longer admissible”
“we are not each others anymore,
instead I am his” - Offred when Luke
is now the one controlling her
money
“falling in love, we said… we were
fallen women”
“we are two legged wombs”
Survival and Memory
“I repeat my former name, remind
myself of what I could once do, how
others saw me”, “I want to steal
something”
“legs, not even stockings on them, no wonder these things used to happen” - Aunt Lydia
“She doesn’t make speeches
anymore. She has become
speechless. She stays in her home,
but it doesn’t seem to agree with
her. How furious she must be, now
that she’s been taken at her word.” -
Serena Joy
“we learned to see the world in
gasps”
“I believe in the resistance as I believe
there can be no light without shadow”
following her finding out Offglen had hanged herself - “I’ll sacrifice, I’ll repent, I’ll abdicate, I’ll renounce” - conformity
Freedom
“freedom to and freedom from, in
the days of anarchy it was freedom
to, now you are being given freedom
from”
“this may not seem ordinary to you
now, but after a time it will” - said as
Offred and Ofglen are by the Wall,
looking at the people hanged by
Gilead
“a rat in a maze is free to go
anywhere, so long as it stays in the
maze”
“I believe in the resistance as I believe
there can be no light without
shadow”
“being here… is a cave where we
huddle together while the storm
goes on outside” - Offred and Nick in
his ‘home’
“humanity is so adaptable, my
mother would say”, “truly amazing,
what people can get used to, as long
as there are a few compensations” -
indeed, when Nick becomes her
lover, she no longer is driven by the
need to leave Gilead
Religious Teachings
“blessed be the fruit” - hello in Gilead,
connotations to fertility
“under His eye” - connotations of
surveillance
“nolite te bastardes carborundorum” - don’t let the bastards grind you down
