"Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing" (135).
"Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh" (226).
Atwood, in this first piece, isn't talking about power structures; she says it's not about control, it's not about who is in what position. Rather, it is about the lengths they will go to, to what extent this brutality can last before it becomes unforgivable. Not about who gets away with it, because one can never get away with it. It's just about living with it, letting it go.
This idea of love is something so seldom touched upon, because Offred wants to believe in it, yet knows it is something so beyond her now that to even think about it would be to expend energy on something gone forever. This idea of "falling" implies a perpetual state of being, the fear of actual reaching the part of having fallen. Waiting for it, then, means that they might never have to face it, might never have to delve into that hopeless cause.
“I’ve only to one of these before, two years ago. Women’s salvaging are not frequent. They are less need for them. These days we are well behaved. I don’t want to be telling this part of the story” (273).
In the past Aunt Lydia said, it has been the custom to precede the actual salvaging with a detailed account of the crimes of which the prisoners stand convicted. However, we have found that such a public account, especially when televised, is invariably followed by a rash, if I may call that, an outbreak I should say, of exactly similar crimes. So we have decided in the best interest of all to discontinue this practice. The salvaging will continue without further ado” (275).
I think the salvaging relate back to the idea or theme of passivity. It’s like a threat almost: like the women are being told that this is what could happen to you if you disobey or if you rebel. The salvaging is obviously very discriminatory against women and is used as a way to control and punish the sexuality of women and to take away their basic freedoms. And it’s interesting that Offred says that there is less need for them because they are so well behaved, which relates back to the theme of passivity because it’s easier to just go along with everything and to behave because you’ll die if you don’t.
I also think that it’s interesting that Offred says that she doesn’t want to tell this part of the story because it relates back to the idea of storytelling and writing. Offred seems to be telling this story as a way of relieving herself from the horrors of reality. She is sort of a dreamer and she wants to reconstruct the events. She creates a dream world as a way to escape because only in her imagination can she find fulfillment and relief. This is then juxtaposed by the harsh reality that she lives in because moments like the salvaging remind her or bring her back into reality. And it’s scary and morose when you consider her limited world view, which makes the ending of her tale incredibly terrifying because we don’t know and she doesn’t know what is going to happen to her.
“If I’m caught, it’s to Serena’s tender mercies I’ll be delivered. He isn’t supposed to meddle in such household discipline, that’s women’s business. After that, reclassification. I could become an Unwoman. . . . But to refuse to see him could be worse. There’s no doubt about who holds the real power. . . . But there must be something he wants, from me. To want is to have a weakness. It’s this weakness, whatever it is, that entices me. It’s like a small crack in a wall, before now impenetrable. If I press my eye to it, this weakness of his, I may be able to see my way clear. . . . I want to know what he wants” (156-157).
“What does he get for it, his role as page boy? How does he feel, pimping in this ambiguous way for the Commander? Does it fill him with disgust, or make him want more of me, want me more? Because he has no idea what really goes on in there, among the books. Acts of perversion, for all he knows. The Commander and me, covering each other with ink, licking it off, or making love on stacks of forbidden newsprint. Well, he wouldn’t be far off at that. . . . But depend on it, there’s something in it for him. Everyone’s on the take, one way or another. Extra cigarettes? Extra freedoms, not allowed to the general run? Anyway, what can he prove? It’s his word against the Commander’s . . . Maybe he just likes the satisfaction of knowing something secret. Of having something on me, as they used to say. It’s the kind of power you can use only once” (208)
The whole power dynamic in The Handmaid’s Tale is very flexible and complicated. Though the handmaid’s are supposed to be powerless, they take whatever power they have and use it to their advantage. Offred uses her body and female sexuality as a source of power, as well as her knowledge and intuition. She is very thoughtful, and often rebels against everyone she can, conspiring with her companion in the bathrooms, stealing things, and creating a forbidden, intellectual relationship with the Commander. There is also a power complication between the wives and handmaids, as both have power over the other: The wives can not produce children or have sex with their husbands, whereas the handmaids can, and the Handmaids can not have husbands or live their own lives in higher society, whereas the wives can. They are both jealous of each other, and the wives feel like they have to boss around the handmaids in order to hold on to some level of power and show who they really are. Both of the types of women are equally silences by society, by men, as well though, which only emphasizes the power of language and secret communication.
“You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, is what he says. We thought we could do better. Better? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better? Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.”
“If you don’t like it, change it, we said, to each other and to ourselves. And so we would change the man, for another one. Change we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.”
The idea of change is these two passages shows that society has changed in this book because people thought that change can always make things better when in reality it just ended up making a worse society for the majority of people. The very few people who are benefiting from this change are some of the men and the commander says that in order for some people to be happy others have to live worse lives. These passages show that the issues in this society stemmed from people not being content with how the world was so they thought change would bring some type of fulfillment and it ended up hurting more than it helped.
"A thing is valued, she says, only if it is rare and hard to get. We want you to be valued, girls." (129)
"They aren’t allowed to become Wives though; they’re considered, still, too dangerous for positions of such power." (265)
"I get up, wobble across the room. I lurch a little, near the fountain, almost fall. It’s the heels. Without the Commander’s arm to steady me I’m off balance. Several of the men look at me, with surprise I think rather than lust. I feel like a fool. I hold my left arm conspicuously in front of me, bent at the elbow, with the tag turned outward. Nobody says anything." (292-293)
They are essentially saying that the girls are objects. THINGS are only valued if rare. They aren't people, they aren't human beings, they are THINGS since they are rare. THINGS don't get to have power, they are only meant to be valued for what they can do. They are only a means to an end, the incubator for the next generation. When taken out of this element, given makeup and heels after so long, they are still objects. She didn't pick the outfit, it was given to her. She has a tag meaning she is taken; she is the ownee/object of another commander. There are forbidden "freedoms" that they are partaking in, but in the end they still are just valued objects for the males (gaze).
"The smell is of our own flesh, an organic smell, sweat and a tinge of iron, from the blood on the sheet, and another smell, more animal, that's coming, it must be, from Janine: a smell of dens, of inhabited caves, the smell of the plaid blanket on the bed when the cat gave birth on it, once, before she was spayed. Smell of Matrix." (123)
"In the room beyond, a woman in a cat suit with a tail made of orange fake fur is redoing her make-up. This is like backstage: grease paint, smoke, the materials of illusion." (242)
The characterization of females and female sexuality as feline is a well-known trope which can often be problematic, and Atwood subverts it here, first presenting the smell of Janine giving birth as that of a cat giving birth-- making Janine animalistic in her vulnerable state-- and then the woman in the cat suit is reapplying make-up (not to make it sound like it's cat make-up, haha! I'm sure it's not): the cat suit, the female characterization of sexuality, is an illusion they put on to protect themselves and secure their position in society here.
“It's coming, it's coming, like a bugle, a call to arms, like a wall falling, we can feel it like a heavy stone moving down, pulled down inside us, we think we will burst. We grip each other's hands, we are no longer single.” (pg 125)
“There were places you didn't want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.” (p. 226).
Atwood’s speculative fiction taps into the shared experiences that women have, or are often assumed to have. Birth, for example. Throughout history, we’ve been seen as instruments through which to further the human race, reduced to a pair of hips and breasts when we’re not being seen as sexual objects. The scene surrounding Janine giving birth, Offred acknowledges that this is, in a way, what they have chosen (though this is, in my opinion, said to help cope). They are all, for a few moments, connected. Their communication is still monitored and limited, but they have more of a community than they’re typically allowed. The other quote I chose, in Chapter 35, I think taps into another shared experience. There are certain places I do not go when I’m alone; I check the lock on my door twice before I go to bed, I check and triple check that I have my keys when I get off of the train and I walk with them in my hand when I walk home. I’ve been grabbed before. There’s always a nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me to be careful, to keep one headphone out if it’s dark outside. They won’t necessarily save me if push comes to shove, but they might help. Atwood gives voice to the constantly vigilante state that many live in.
"Janine groans again, her head bent over so all we can see is her hair. Crouching like that, she's like a doll, an old one that's been pillaged and discarded, in some corner, akimbo" (124)
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said 'it' instead of 'her', I knew he meant 'kill'. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought, You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that's how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before" (193).
Women, not just handmaids but all women, are throughly objectified throughout this society. In the eyes of the men around them, they are not people but "things", dolls, much like how Janine appears during her birthing scene. She is not lifelike, as one would expect someone going through labor would be, but doll-like. Even in the act of giving life these women are nothing but objects to meet society's needs, thrown and given away after they are no longer useful. In a way, society has made woman an "it". They no longer see them as people, but as a means to an end, and in doing so they have destroyed their humanity. They are able to do whatever they please to these women, banish, kill, rape, and whatnot, have feel nothing because they are no longer people in their heads. Women have become an "it", much like the cat.
"Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good. Lead them around by the nose; that is a metaphor. It's nature's way. It's God's device. It's the way things are" (p. 144).
"[Moira] was not stunned, the way I was. In some strange way she was gleeful, as if this was what she'd been expecting for some time and now she'd been proven right. She even looked more energetic, more determined" (p. 178).
"You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that's how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before" (p. 193).
During her time with the Aunts, Offred was trained to believe and portray the ideals being put forth by the Eyes. However, since the ideals were not established prior to the enforcement of the new laws (i.e. it was "made real" prior to an idealistic conception), individuals such as Moira are able to actively resist the unjust changes. As the Aunts point out, however, as new generations are born, they will come to accept the aims of the new America with little resistance. This period of transition is the most significant moment for those citizens looking to reverse the new form of government since following this generation it will become a more common practice and seen as daily life. Additionally, as the novel points out several times, it takes a while for a new system to work the kinks out, and after a while everything will run without issues; therefore, as more time goes by, the chances of corrupting the system and overthrowing tyranny retreat.
"The cat, is what he said. Cat? I said, against the wool of his sweater. We can't just leave her here. I hadn't thought about the cat. Neither of us had. Our decision must have been sudden, and then there had been the planning to do. I must have thought she was coming with us. But she couldn't, you don't take a cat on a day trip across the border. Why not outside? I said. We could just leave her. She'd hang around and mew at the door. Someone would notice we were gone. We could give her away, I said. One of the neighbors. Even as I said this, I saw how foolish that would be. I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where not was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that's how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before." (192-193)
"My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on her that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose." (94)
"...and the Commander fucks, with a regular two-four marching stroke, on and on like a tap dripping. He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower without knowing he's humming; like a man who has other things on his mind. It's as if he's somewhere else, waiting for himself to come, drumming his fingers on the table while he waits. There's an impatience in his rhythm now." (94)
I saw the first quote here as a metaphor for the second one. In order for the Commander to be able to perform The Ceremony, it seems as though he has to dehumanize her in his head, and to separate his actions from the human beings he is performing them with. This speaks highly about the dehumanization of women in this novel, and raises questions regarding the dehumanization of women in our society today. In what ways are women dehumanized in our society? What does that say about power structures and gender dynamics? In what ways might we overcome this?
"If I were You I'd be fed up. I'd really be sick of it. I guess that's the difference between us. I feel very unreal, talking to You like this. I feel as if I'm talking to a wall. I wish You'd answer. I feel so alone." (195)
"We stand looking at this building, which is in shape more or less like a church, a cathedral. Ofglen says, 'I hear that's where the Eyes hold their banquets.'" (202)
This is one of many instances in the novel where religion is used as a form of power by the hegemony. The churches are being used as government agencies, as well as the Bible, which is quoted often by the Aunts in their "education" of the Handmaids. This view of religion as a source of power is contrasted by Offred when she is praying, a scene that struck a chord with me for some reason. She is pleeing to God for guidance and help, sort of a seeking a companion through Him. This idea of religion, which is also preached in the Bible, is ironically left out by the Aunts and other officials when they speak of God in an attempt to isolate the Handmaids even more. The Bible is one script, but the way it is used and interpreted depends on the person and their intentions, and more often than not, in this society, it is used for political oppression and power.
“He kissed me then, as if now I’d said that, things could get back to normal. But something had shifted, some balance. I felt shrunken, so that when he put his arms around me, gathering me up, I was as small as a doll. I felt love going forward without me. He doesn’t mind this, I thought. He doesn’t mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each others anymore. Instead I am his.” (182)
“‘Here,’ the Commander says. He slips around my wrist a tag, purple, on an elastic band, like the tags for airport luggage. ‘If anyone asks you, say you’re an evening rental.’” (233)
“Fake it, I scream at myself inside my head. You must remember how. Let’s get this over with or you will be here all night. Bestir yourself. Move your flesh around, breathe audibly. It’s the least you can do.” (255)
The recurring theme in these quotations is women being submissive to men. Even before Gilead, Offred even had these feelings towards Luke. During most of her sexual encounters, whether they be with Luke or the Commander, Offred is forcing herself to engage just so she can please the man, in a way It’s not that she wants to please them, but it’s rather that she has no choice. The way women view men is as their superiors, that they must do what they tell them to. It’s troubling that this belief is even true today, whether that be in a sexual sense or not.
"A thing is valued, she says, only if it is rare and hard to get. We want you to be valued, girls" (129).
"Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good. Lead them around by the nose; that is a metaphor. It's nature's way. It's God's device. It's the way things are" (144).
In terms of both text, the first sentence is basically stating that women are not human beings, they did not view them as humans but they viewed them more as objects. Only humans have power therefore belittling women to think they dont have power to do anything. In connection with the real world, women in the Middle East, Africa and other places tend to be treated as property not as a human being therefore not allowing them to do the same things men can do.
For the second sentence I viewed it as a way to get back at them men because of what they have done to women in the past and still sometime tend to do the same thing.
"Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing: I have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can't be helped" (293).
"Did our narrator reach the outside world safely and build a new life for herself? Or was she discovered in her attic hiding place, arrested, sent to the Colonies or to the Jezebel's, or even executed?...Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day" (311).
I'm interested in the ending. Does Offred escape or could she have been executed? I love how the ending is relatively obscure and I'm sure with a little digging, we'd find an interview with Atwood telling us the answer. Did you like the ambiguity of the ending? What did this say about the novel?
"If Moria thought she could create Utopia by shutting herself up in a women only enclave she was sadly mistaken." (172).
Earlier in the novel women are kept oppressed in part by their hatred for each other. Offred does not like Olfgen in the beginning, but when they know each others motives they grow stronger. I feel like this mirrors contemporary society. Women are often just as, if not more, judgmental of other women as men are. This seals us into continuous oppression. I thought Offred's statement about Moria was also interesting because it mirrors the different stages of feminism in our history. No one as a group is the enemy, men can not be taken out of the issue.
Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves. Pg. 227
No one should be made to change. Women or men. Yet in this society women are made to change to protect themselves. But in reality they change for men because they have no other choice and two they think they deserve to change. Changing for someone else or a group of people usually never works out, it leads to resentment and not being happy which most of the handmaids were not happy. women had to change because it was the law but men didn't have to do anything at all. This shows the dominance men have over women in Gilead. No one should have power over someone else.
11. Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 3-7-16 - “Think of the trouble they had before. Don’t you remember the singles’ bars, the indignity of high school blind dates? The meat market. Don’t you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn’t? Some of them were desperate, they starved themselves thin or pumped their breasts full of silicone, had their noses cut off. Think of the human misery.” (219)
"Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing" (135).
ReplyDelete"Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh" (226).
Atwood, in this first piece, isn't talking about power structures; she says it's not about control, it's not about who is in what position. Rather, it is about the lengths they will go to, to what extent this brutality can last before it becomes unforgivable. Not about who gets away with it, because one can never get away with it. It's just about living with it, letting it go.
This idea of love is something so seldom touched upon, because Offred wants to believe in it, yet knows it is something so beyond her now that to even think about it would be to expend energy on something gone forever. This idea of "falling" implies a perpetual state of being, the fear of actual reaching the part of having fallen. Waiting for it, then, means that they might never have to face it, might never have to delve into that hopeless cause.
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ReplyDelete“I’ve only to one of these before, two years ago. Women’s salvaging are not frequent. They are less need for them. These days we are well behaved. I don’t want to be telling this part of the story” (273).
ReplyDeleteIn the past Aunt Lydia said, it has been the custom to precede the actual salvaging with a detailed account of the crimes of which the prisoners stand convicted. However, we have found that such a public account, especially when televised, is invariably followed by a rash, if I may call that, an outbreak I should say, of exactly similar crimes. So we have decided in the best interest of all to discontinue this practice. The salvaging will continue without further ado” (275).
I think the salvaging relate back to the idea or theme of passivity. It’s like a threat almost: like the women are being told that this is what could happen to you if you disobey or if you rebel. The salvaging is obviously very discriminatory against women and is used as a way to control and punish the sexuality of women and to take away their basic freedoms. And it’s interesting that Offred says that there is less need for them because they are so well behaved, which relates back to the theme of passivity because it’s easier to just go along with everything and to behave because you’ll die if you don’t.
I also think that it’s interesting that Offred says that she doesn’t want to tell this part of the story because it relates back to the idea of storytelling and writing. Offred seems to be telling this story as a way of relieving herself from the horrors of reality. She is sort of a dreamer and she wants to reconstruct the events. She creates a dream world as a way to escape because only in her imagination can she find fulfillment and relief. This is then juxtaposed by the harsh reality that she lives in because moments like the salvaging remind her or bring her back into reality. And it’s scary and morose when you consider her limited world view, which makes the ending of her tale incredibly terrifying because we don’t know and she doesn’t know what is going to happen to her.
“If I’m caught, it’s to Serena’s tender mercies I’ll be delivered. He isn’t supposed to meddle in such household discipline, that’s women’s business. After that, reclassification. I could become an Unwoman. . . . But to refuse to see him could be worse. There’s no doubt about who holds the real power. . . . But there must be something he wants, from me. To want is to have a weakness. It’s this weakness, whatever it is, that entices me. It’s like a small crack in a wall, before now impenetrable. If I press my eye to it, this weakness of his, I may be able to see my way clear. . . . I want to know what he wants” (156-157).
ReplyDelete“What does he get for it, his role as page boy? How does he feel, pimping in this ambiguous way for the Commander? Does it fill him with disgust, or make him want more of me, want me more? Because he has no idea what really goes on in there, among the books. Acts of perversion, for all he knows. The Commander and me, covering each other with ink, licking it off, or making love on stacks of forbidden newsprint. Well, he wouldn’t be far off at that. . . . But depend on it, there’s something in it for him. Everyone’s on the take, one way or another. Extra cigarettes? Extra freedoms, not allowed to the general run? Anyway, what can he prove? It’s his word against the Commander’s . . . Maybe he just likes the satisfaction of knowing something secret. Of having something on me, as they used to say. It’s the kind of power you can use only once” (208)
The whole power dynamic in The Handmaid’s Tale is very flexible and complicated. Though the handmaid’s are supposed to be powerless, they take whatever power they have and use it to their advantage. Offred uses her body and female sexuality as a source of power, as well as her knowledge and intuition. She is very thoughtful, and often rebels against everyone she can, conspiring with her companion in the bathrooms, stealing things, and creating a forbidden, intellectual relationship with the Commander. There is also a power complication between the wives and handmaids, as both have power over the other: The wives can not produce children or have sex with their husbands, whereas the handmaids can, and the Handmaids can not have husbands or live their own lives in higher society, whereas the wives can. They are both jealous of each other, and the wives feel like they have to boss around the handmaids in order to hold on to some level of power and show who they really are. Both of the types of women are equally silences by society, by men, as well though, which only emphasizes the power of language and secret communication.
“You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, is what he says. We thought we could do better.
ReplyDeleteBetter? I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better?
Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.”
“If you don’t like it, change it, we said, to each other and to ourselves. And so we would change the man, for another one. Change we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.”
The idea of change is these two passages shows that society has changed in this book because people thought that change can always make things better when in reality it just ended up making a worse society for the majority of people. The very few people who are benefiting from this change are some of the men and the commander says that in order for some people to be happy others have to live worse lives. These passages show that the issues in this society stemmed from people not being content with how the world was so they thought change would bring some type of fulfillment and it ended up hurting more than it helped.
"A thing is valued, she says, only if it is rare and hard to get. We want you to be valued, girls." (129)
ReplyDelete"They aren’t allowed to become Wives though; they’re considered, still, too dangerous for positions of such power." (265)
"I get up, wobble across the room. I lurch a little, near the fountain, almost fall. It’s the heels. Without the Commander’s arm to steady me I’m off balance. Several of the men look at me, with surprise I think rather than lust. I feel like a fool. I hold my left arm conspicuously in front of me, bent at the elbow, with the tag turned outward. Nobody says anything." (292-293)
They are essentially saying that the girls are objects. THINGS are only valued if rare. They aren't people, they aren't human beings, they are THINGS since they are rare. THINGS don't get to have power, they are only meant to be valued for what they can do. They are only a means to an end, the incubator for the next generation. When taken out of this element, given makeup and heels after so long, they are still objects. She didn't pick the outfit, it was given to her. She has a tag meaning she is taken; she is the ownee/object of another commander. There are forbidden "freedoms" that they are partaking in, but in the end they still are just valued objects for the males (gaze).
"The smell is of our own flesh, an organic smell, sweat and a tinge of iron, from the blood on the sheet, and another smell, more animal, that's coming, it must be, from Janine: a smell of dens, of inhabited caves, the smell of the plaid blanket on the bed when the cat gave birth on it, once, before she was spayed. Smell of Matrix." (123)
ReplyDelete"In the room beyond, a woman in a cat suit with a tail made of orange fake fur is redoing her make-up. This is like backstage: grease paint, smoke, the materials of illusion." (242)
The characterization of females and female sexuality as feline is a well-known trope which can often be problematic, and Atwood subverts it here, first presenting the smell of Janine giving birth as that of a cat giving birth-- making Janine animalistic in her vulnerable state-- and then the woman in the cat suit is reapplying make-up (not to make it sound like it's cat make-up, haha! I'm sure it's not): the cat suit, the female characterization of sexuality, is an illusion they put on to protect themselves and secure their position in society here.
“It's coming, it's coming, like a bugle, a call to arms, like a wall falling, we can feel it like a heavy stone moving down, pulled down inside us, we think we will burst. We grip each other's hands, we are no longer single.” (pg 125)
ReplyDelete“There were places you didn't want to walk, precautions you took that had to do with locks on windows and doors, drawing the curtains, leaving on lights. These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.” (p. 226).
Atwood’s speculative fiction taps into the shared experiences that women have, or are often assumed to have. Birth, for example. Throughout history, we’ve been seen as instruments through which to further the human race, reduced to a pair of hips and breasts when we’re not being seen as sexual objects. The scene surrounding Janine giving birth, Offred acknowledges that this is, in a way, what they have chosen (though this is, in my opinion, said to help cope). They are all, for a few moments, connected. Their communication is still monitored and limited, but they have more of a community than they’re typically allowed.
The other quote I chose, in Chapter 35, I think taps into another shared experience. There are certain places I do not go when I’m alone; I check the lock on my door twice before I go to bed, I check and triple check that I have my keys when I get off of the train and I walk with them in my hand when I walk home. I’ve been grabbed before. There’s always a nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me to be careful, to keep one headphone out if it’s dark outside. They won’t necessarily save me if push comes to shove, but they might help. Atwood gives voice to the constantly vigilante state that many live in.
"Janine groans again, her head bent over so all we can see is her hair. Crouching like that, she's like a doll, an old one that's been pillaged and discarded, in some corner, akimbo" (124)
ReplyDelete"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said 'it' instead of 'her', I knew he meant 'kill'. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought, You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that's how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before" (193).
Women, not just handmaids but all women, are throughly objectified throughout this society. In the eyes of the men around them, they are not people but "things", dolls, much like how Janine appears during her birthing scene. She is not lifelike, as one would expect someone going through labor would be, but doll-like. Even in the act of giving life these women are nothing but objects to meet society's needs, thrown and given away after they are no longer useful. In a way, society has made woman an "it". They no longer see them as people, but as a means to an end, and in doing so they have destroyed their humanity. They are able to do whatever they please to these women, banish, kill, rape, and whatnot, have feel nothing because they are no longer people in their heads. Women have become an "it", much like the cat.
From M. Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale":
ReplyDelete"Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good. Lead them around by the nose; that is a metaphor. It's nature's way. It's God's device. It's the way things are" (p. 144).
"[Moira] was not stunned, the way I was. In some strange way she was gleeful, as if this was what she'd been expecting for some time and now she'd been proven right. She even looked more energetic, more determined" (p. 178).
"You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that's how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before" (p. 193).
During her time with the Aunts, Offred was trained to believe and portray the ideals being put forth by the Eyes. However, since the ideals were not established prior to the enforcement of the new laws (i.e. it was "made real" prior to an idealistic conception), individuals such as Moira are able to actively resist the unjust changes. As the Aunts point out, however, as new generations are born, they will come to accept the aims of the new America with little resistance. This period of transition is the most significant moment for those citizens looking to reverse the new form of government since following this generation it will become a more common practice and seen as daily life. Additionally, as the novel points out several times, it takes a while for a new system to work the kinks out, and after a while everything will run without issues; therefore, as more time goes by, the chances of corrupting the system and overthrowing tyranny retreat.
"The cat, is what he said.
ReplyDeleteCat? I said, against the wool of his sweater.
We can't just leave her here.
I hadn't thought about the cat. Neither of us had. Our decision must have been sudden, and then there had been the planning to do. I must have thought she was coming with us. But she couldn't, you don't take a cat on a day trip across the border.
Why not outside? I said. We could just leave her.
She'd hang around and mew at the door. Someone would notice we were gone.
We could give her away, I said. One of the neighbors. Even as I said this, I saw how foolish that would be.
I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where not was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that's how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before."
(192-193)
"My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on her that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose." (94)
"...and the Commander fucks, with a regular two-four marching stroke, on and on like a tap dripping. He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower without knowing he's humming; like a man who has other things on his mind. It's as if he's somewhere else, waiting for himself to come, drumming his fingers on the table while he waits. There's an impatience in his rhythm now." (94)
I saw the first quote here as a metaphor for the second one. In order for the Commander to be able to perform The Ceremony, it seems as though he has to dehumanize her in his head, and to separate his actions from the human beings he is performing them with. This speaks highly about the dehumanization of women in this novel, and raises questions regarding the dehumanization of women in our society today. In what ways are women dehumanized in our society? What does that say about power structures and gender dynamics? In what ways might we overcome this?
"If I were You I'd be fed up. I'd really be sick of it. I guess that's the difference between us. I feel very unreal, talking to You like this. I feel as if I'm talking to a wall. I wish You'd answer. I feel so alone." (195)
ReplyDelete"We stand looking at this building, which is in shape more or less like a church, a cathedral. Ofglen says, 'I hear that's where the Eyes hold their banquets.'" (202)
This is one of many instances in the novel where religion is used as a form of power by the hegemony. The churches are being used as government agencies, as well as the Bible, which is quoted often by the Aunts in their "education" of the Handmaids. This view of religion as a source of power is contrasted by Offred when she is praying, a scene that struck a chord with me for some reason. She is pleeing to God for guidance and help, sort of a seeking a companion through Him. This idea of religion, which is also preached in the Bible, is ironically left out by the Aunts and other officials when they speak of God in an attempt to isolate the Handmaids even more. The Bible is one script, but the way it is used and interpreted depends on the person and their intentions, and more often than not, in this society, it is used for political oppression and power.
“He kissed me then, as if now I’d said that, things could get back to normal. But something had shifted, some balance. I felt shrunken, so that when he put his arms around me, gathering me up, I was as small as a doll. I felt love going forward without me.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn’t mind this, I thought. He doesn’t mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each others anymore. Instead I am his.” (182)
“‘Here,’ the Commander says. He slips around my wrist a tag, purple, on an elastic band, like the tags for airport luggage. ‘If anyone asks you, say you’re an evening rental.’” (233)
“Fake it, I scream at myself inside my head. You must remember how. Let’s get this over with or you will be here all night. Bestir yourself. Move your flesh around, breathe audibly. It’s the least you can do.” (255)
The recurring theme in these quotations is women being submissive to men. Even before Gilead, Offred even had these feelings towards Luke. During most of her sexual encounters, whether they be with Luke or the Commander, Offred is forcing herself to engage just so she can please the man, in a way It’s not that she wants to please them, but it’s rather that she has no choice. The way women view men is as their superiors, that they must do what they tell them to. It’s troubling that this belief is even true today, whether that be in a sexual sense or not.
"A thing is valued, she says, only if it is rare and hard to get. We want you to be valued, girls" (129).
ReplyDelete"Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for your own good. Lead them around by the nose; that is a metaphor. It's nature's way. It's God's device. It's the way things are" (144).
In terms of both text, the first sentence is basically stating that women are not human beings, they did not view them as humans but they viewed them more as objects. Only humans have power therefore belittling women to think they dont have power to do anything. In connection with the real world, women in the Middle East, Africa and other places tend to be treated as property not as a human being therefore not allowing them to do the same things men can do.
For the second sentence I viewed it as a way to get back at them men because of what they have done to women in the past and still sometime tend to do the same thing.
"Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing: I have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can't be helped" (293).
ReplyDelete"Did our narrator reach the outside world safely and build a new life for herself? Or was she discovered in her attic hiding place, arrested, sent to the Colonies or to the Jezebel's, or even executed?...Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day" (311).
I'm interested in the ending. Does Offred escape or could she have been executed? I love how the ending is relatively obscure and I'm sure with a little digging, we'd find an interview with Atwood telling us the answer. Did you like the ambiguity of the ending? What did this say about the novel?
"I want to laugh, shout, hug her." (168).
ReplyDelete"If Moria thought she could create Utopia by shutting herself up in a women only enclave she was sadly mistaken." (172).
Earlier in the novel women are kept oppressed in part by their hatred for each other. Offred does not like Olfgen in the beginning, but when they know each others motives they grow stronger. I feel like this mirrors contemporary society. Women are often just as, if not more, judgmental of other women as men are. This seals us into continuous oppression. I thought Offred's statement about Moria was also interesting because it mirrors the different stages of feminism in our history. No one as a group is the enemy, men can not be taken out of the issue.
Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves. Pg. 227
ReplyDeleteNo one should be made to change. Women or men. Yet in this society women are made to change to protect themselves. But in reality they change for men because they have no other choice and two they think they deserve to change. Changing for someone else or a group of people usually never works out, it leads to resentment and not being happy which most of the handmaids were not happy.
women had to change because it was the law but men didn't have to do anything at all. This shows the dominance men have over women in Gilead. No one should have power over someone else.
11. Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 3-7-16
ReplyDelete- “Think of the trouble they had before. Don’t you remember the singles’ bars, the indignity of high school blind dates? The meat market. Don’t you remember the terrible gap between the ones who could get a man easily and the ones who couldn’t? Some of them were desperate, they starved themselves thin or pumped their breasts full of silicone, had their noses cut off. Think of the human misery.” (219)