Social classes/Characters

Commander- These people are the weathy ones. They have all they need and they often get what they want. These men are the head of the household. They however do not do very much. They are given a Handmaid and Martha as a minimum. Their wives, the Wife, is in control of these maids and make sure they do as they are told. The commander's wife does rarely anything other than sit in her garden. Having a garden gives "something for them to order and maintain and care for" (Pg. 22)

Guard- These are just guards which were stationed at the training center outside the sleeping courters. They are not supposed to come in unless requested. 

Angle- This is another type of guard who stands outside of the buildings and guard the property. Each commander seems to have one as well as other servants who maintain their house, cars etc. 

Martha- This is the role which takes care of the house hold. Martha's cook, clean and do the laundry. They would be like a maid if we compare to todays' society. 

Handmaid- These are woman who are only here to reproduce. This system made sure that all woman who could reproduce, did it. They know who can reproduce by looking if they had a child in their previous years. Handmaid's also go shopping for groceries, this is also the only outside contact they get, aside from doctor visits once a month. Handmaid's have 3 chances to bare a child.

Eye- This is practically a spy for the government. An Eye blends in with the crowd making it harder for others to know when an Eye is present. An Eye is allowed to take action if he sees a woman doing anything out of order. An Eye can also be any of the guard positions as that is how they blend in. 

Offred once thought Nick, who works for her current Commander, was an Eye. 

Econowife- This is a housewife who carries both the Handmaid's role as well as the Martha's. These are the woman who have been given the luxury of the little freedom they are granted.

Aunts- These are the woman who train the girls in the training center. 

Chapter 2 Quotes

"Waste not, want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?" (Pg. 17)

"Like other things now, thoughts must be rationed."(Pg. 17)

"I am alive, I live, I breathe" (Pg. 18)

"I refuse to say my" (Pg. 18)

"A sister dipped in blood." (Pg. 19)

Offred's family

Through out the novel we get the impression that Offred had a family before the government took her away. I believe that she had a husband, called Luke, and a daughter who I presume was around four or five years old when they parted. In her flashbacks we notice the girl is at a young age as she describes the daughter "was sitting in the little baby seats they had then, in supermarket carts" (pg. 73). This gives me the impression that the daughter must have been younger than three.

In chapter 12 we can estimate the age of the little girl, whose name we still do not know. Offred first says "Maybe I do think of her as a ghost, the ghost of a dead girl, a little girl who died when she was five." (Pg. 74) She then continues and says "Eight, she must be now." (Pg. 74)

Offred herself is "thirty-three years old" (pg. 153) and she has brown hair. She is five feet and seven inches without shoes on.

As for Luke and their daughter we have no visual. 

Suicide

There are many scenarios which suggests suicide attempts are made in this new society. This is likely due to the system which brings uprising and disagreements between many people. There are many reasons to dislike this system. For one; there are families taken away from the woman. Secondly; the freedom they used to know is no longer available. Thirdly; the rights we are used to, the things we take for granted, imagine all that being taken away. This is why in general it is a hard system to adapt to. This system is to make sure all things are carried out without complaint and with a systamatic order. The different roles are for control and for the people to know the government rules and either you go along with it or you leave.

Due to not accepting or adapting, the girls could think to go to extrems to escape this horrific system. This image of suicide is clearly portrayed in the first few chapters where we understand what Offred attempts to actually reveal when she describes the setting of her room. Note!: this room she does not call her own as she does not like to say anything is hers in the house of her Commander.

Quotes which suggest suicide;

"They've removed anything you can tie a rope to." (Pg. 17)

"I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window only opens partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof." (Pg. 17)

"It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge." (Pg. 18)

"There were incidents in the bathrooms at first; there were cuttings, drownings." (Pg. 72)

Shopping (Unit 2)

This unit includes chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in which we follow Offred in her daily life as a Handmaid. Offred takes us on a past ride where she explains how she came to be with the Commander she is with now. We learn that she is running out of time as there will be three chances for her to give the commander a child or she will be taken away from her role and die off slowly by radiation or be taken to "the wall" and get shot. She is now at her last chance. 

In this unit we also see more of the society and we realize the dangers of this new system as well as the problems the system creates. There are roles on who can do what and when. This is a problem for the woman who do not accept or agree to this ruling. There are woman who thinks the system is terrible and there are often mistakes made which makes them frightened. The woman are powerless, they do not make their own decisions, they cannot talk with each other other than small talk, they are not allowed to do this and that, which makes them incapable which also means they feel a fear of getting in the way or doing something out of order and stepping over the line, which will get you killed. The fear of always needing to limit yourself, gives the reader a view into how the lives of woman could look like in a destopian world. Living in fear, living with extrem rules and not being able to decide your own fate. 

In this unit we see how Offred interacts with other people both in her Handmais group but also with people out of her league. Offred lives with a Commander and his wife who are basically her dictators, whom she should not speak with or look at unless asked to. She also lives with two Marthas in the house as well as a Guard; Nick. It is interesting to see the way she lives her life and the way she interacts differently with the different social classes. 

Chapter 1 Quotes

"We yearned for the future" (pg 13; line 22)

"The lights were turned down but not out." (pg 13; line 28)

The quote that stood out for me was 

"The Angles stood outside it with their backs to us" (pg. 14; line 9) . 

This is literally what is happening in the novel as the Angles are a variation of guards. However if you think of it metaphorically it could reflect the feeling of abandonment and feeling helpless. 

Night (Unit 1)

In the first chapter of The Handmaid's Tale, we see Offred; one of the Handmaids, share her view of the surroundings in the training center where the role of a Handmais is trained into the system of the woman. The training center appears to be in an old school building as she describes the sleeping courters as a room that "had once been the gymnasium" (pg 13; line 1). She describes the set up of the room as an army camp. The beds are set up in rows and there is enough space in-between so that the future Handmaids cannot talk to each other as talking has become a right they do not have. In just a couple of pages into the novel, we are presented with a clear contrast between past and present; joy and depression. The joy and life which used to take place in the gymnasium is now replaced with the quiet and sullen faces of these Handmaids. I believe there is a metaphore of how the school building represents the woman. Offred describes the equipment and fun which used to be apart of the gymnasium, this can be intepret as the woman who are still there but all which shape who they once were, has vanished.

There are a few dominant imageries, which are all dark and depressing. You can see a clear feeling of intrappment and being captured, it almost seems like a prison. There is an image of slavery and following orders. The clear image of structure and obedience is presented with the different roles of the Angles, Guards and the way they place the girls etc.