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The handmaid's tale (AO1) - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Offred is assigned to shopping she receives
        tokens instead of money from the housekeeper
        and sets out with a shopping basket. She leaves
        by the back door and goes through the Commander's
        wife's "large and tidy" garden. (2)
        
        In chapter 3, Offred remembers arriving at
        the Commander's house as his Handmaid and
        meeting his wife for the first time. She realised
        who the wife used to be - a gospel singer called
        Serena Joy. (3)
  - - - The two women pass the checkpoint and
        Offred makes a small gesture of defiance by
        teasing the guards, flaunting her forbidden sexuality
        as she walks away down the road. The Handmaid's
        walk to the shops in what was formerly a university town,
        and is now the capital of Gilead. Offred recognises
        it all because she lived there with Luke, her former
        husband, and their young child. In her loneliness
        she yearns for them and her old friend Moira. (2)
        
        There's two significant encounters: one with the
        pregnant Handmaid Ofwarren (formerly Janine, whom
        Offred recognises from the Rachel and Leah centre
        described in chapter 1), and the other when Offred
        and Ofglen meet a group of Japanese tourists. Offred
        realises that their westernised clothes now look as exotic
        to her as hers do to them. (3)
        
        In chapter 6, the Handmaid's pass old landmarks and pause to stare at the hooded dead bodies of dissidents (doctors executed for once performing
        abortions) that are hanging from the Wall. (4)
  - - - Most painful of all is her memory of her lost child,
        who was taken away from her by force under
        the new regime, when Offred was drugged and
        assigned to the Red Centre to be trained as a
        Handmaid. Finally she comments on her relationship
        to the story she is telling and her uncertainty about who
        she is addressing, or whether her story will ever be
        heard. (2)
  - - - We learn more about Serena Joy's history and how
        she became a media celebrity, promoting New Right family values. Offred notes the irony that Serena Joy is now a "speechless" and housebound victim of the very ideology she helped to promote. When Offred goes upstairs after shopping, she sees her new Commander peering into her room. As she passes him, he tries to look at her face. Both these acts are prohibited, and she is puzzled as to what they might mean. (2)
        
        Inside the room she now considers to be hers,
        Offred thinks back to happier times and to her secret, adulterous assignations with Luke before they were
        married. Offred remembers finding a secret message
        left by her unknown predecessor in the room "Nolite
        te bastardes carborundorum". (3)
        
        However, when she tries to find out what
        happened to the Handmaid before her, nobody in
        the house will tell her. Offred reminisces again about
        Moira and their college days. (4)
  - - - Offred also thinks about male and female bodies.
        She compares how she used to feel about her own
        body with how she feels about it now, and describes
        bodily sensations including her menstrual cycle using
        powerful and poetic imagery. Sinking from meditation into
        sleep, Offred has two of her recurring nightmares: first her
        dread that Luke is dead, and then her replay of their
        failed escape attempt. (2)
        
        The Commander's household assembles for
        family prayers. As they wait, Serena Joy switches
        on the news. Although it is only state propaganda we
        learn that Gilead is a war zone and there are religious
        and political prisoners and mass deportations. In an
        act of resistance, Offred thinks of her own name and
        her first contact with Nick. (3)
  - - - As she travels, Offred describes some of the reasons why the birth rate has fallen to dangerous levels and why birth abnormalities have become so common. Surrounded by other Handmaids and Wives, Offred remembers her own mother. In one of the Red Centre's brainwashing films, Offred recognises her own young mother at an anti-pornography and pro-choice rally in the 1970's. Although their relationship was "never easy", she misses her and the comparative freedoms they enjoyed at that time. (2)
  - - - Offred muses on the differences between what
        her mother's generation meant by "a women's culture"
        and Gilead's interpretation. Offred returns to her room
        after the birth. She remembers the story of Moira's first
        heroic escape attempt from the Red Centre. Offred has her
        first secret meeting with the Commander, where they play
        Scrabble. (2)
  - - - She sees that she is trapped and says of the Commander's desire for her that "it could be a passport, it could be my downfall". She finds the situation "bizarre" and, at the end of chapter 24, begins to laugh at its absurdity. The next chapter opens with "a scream and a crash", for Offred has fallen asleep in the closet
  - - - Offred and Ofglen confess to each other their
        feelings of dissent, and Offred discovers an
        underground resistance in Gilead. Outside,
        there is a commotion as "two eyes, in grey suits" grab a man from the street, slam him against the side of their black van, violently immobilise him and take him away. (2)
  - - - Offred recalls Gilead's right-wing takeover
        of American congressional government, when
        women were stripped of their economic, political
        and legal rights. During one of their meetings, Offred
        asks the Commander the meaning of the Latin inscription in her room. At the end of chapter 29, Offred finds out that her predecessor committed suicide. (2)
  - - - To seal the bargain, Serena gives Offred an illegal cigarette, and tells her where to find a match, and offers to let her see a photograph of her daughter. Offred is angry that Serena Joy has kept her daughter's fate secret from her for so long. Offred thinks about her predecessor and about what she could do with the match. (2)
  - - - Offred remembers Janine almost having a nervous breakdown at the Red Centre, from which Moira saved her before trying to escape. Offred remembers her Commander explaining to her why he condones "arranged marriages" rather than "falling in love". Ofglen reveals that Offred's secret visits to the Commander are known about and tries to recruit Offred into the resistance movement as a spy. (2)
  - - - Offred has a surprise evening out with the Commander. Nick drives them on this clandestine outing, but Offred cannot tell whether he approves or disapproves of what she is doing. They finally arrive at the masquerade party at a place known as 'Jezebel's'. The location used to be a hotel where Offred came with Luke during their affair. It is now Jezebel's state brothel, Gilead's sexual underground. (2)
        
        Offred observes Jezebel's male clientele and the women who work there, whom she describes as "tropical, they are dressed in all kinds of bright festive gear". She suddenly sees Moira and, by their old secret signal, they agree to meet in the women's washroom. (3)
  - - - Offred reflects on Moira's unfinished story, celebrating her heroism and the bravery of all the people who helped her. In a bedroom at Jezebel's, the Commander takes Offred upstairs for what he assumes will be a pleasurable sexual encounter for them both, but it is doomed to failure and Offred describes herself as lying there "like a dead bird". (2)
  - - - Janine appears with a smear of blood across her cheek and holding a clump of the murdered man's hair tightly in her right hand. According to Offred she is "in free fall" and is steadily losing her grip on reality. Offred's normal life is shattered by the disappearance of the old Ofglen. Ofglen's replacement tells her that her friend hanged herself because she saw the black van coming for her. (2)
  - - - Offred feels overwhelmed by fatigue and despair, and just at this moment hears the siren of a black van coming to the house. She fears that Nick has betrayed her. She expect a stranger to enter her room but it is Nick. She wonders whether he is a "private Eye", but he whispers that this is Mayday come to her rescue, and more significantly he calls her by her real name. Offred departs from the Commander's house, escorted out by the Eyes like a criminal. (2)
- - - - function of a Handmaid - individuality erased she is "two-legged wombs". she has no rights and is virtually imprisoned in a domestic home and only allowed out
        with a shopping partner. a victim of sexist ideology she is 33 and fertile. in her narrative she refuses to give up hope of escape by clinging on to the past of being a
        daughter, lover, wife and working mother as well as friend. (2)
        
        significance of a name - keeps it like buried treasure "I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, one day". She gives her real name as a love token to Nick and he uses it to exchange as trust when he comes for her in the black van "he calls me by my real name. why should this mean anything?". Offred does not trust the reader with her real name which is a sign of her fear in a dangerous situation. (3)
        
        lively curiosity - it is denied by the regime but outside the window the beauty of Serena's garden flourishes, Offred's response to seeing it is emotional and even poetic. She notes seasonal changes and healthy growth and fertility of the natural world. She says "there is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light". Also her response to the moon is poetic "a wishing moon, a sliver of ancient rock, a goddess, a wink. the moon is a stone and the sky is full of deadly hardware, but oh God, how beautiful anyway". Her ironic observation is her refusal to give up on life reflecting in her character as resistance to the regime. (4)
        
        subversion vs rebellion - Offred is discreetly subversive (defying systems) but is never openly rebellious she waits for "tiny peepholes" in human's behaviour. Like with the young guard at the gate she says "I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there". She refuses to be deceived by rhetoric (eloquence) she believes in value of the individual she says "each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. they cannot be exchanged, one for the other. they cannot replace each other". (5)
        
        subversion vs rebellion part 2 - she longs for communication and trust. ironically her 'arrangement' with the Commander is the closest she gets to it "the fact is that I'm his mistress". The "taboo is dissolved" in their scrabble games, she is lively and conventionally feminine. With old familiar social and sexual codes it eases their loneliness. Yet Offred is aware it is a parody of the past, confirmed by their outing to Jezebel's "a handful of crumpled stars" in her lap, the evening is a masquerade. (6)
        
        hope for the future - her relationship with Nick is a combination of desire and rebellion shown through their first encounter in the dark and at the end of the novel, she gave up the old world and says "I have made a life for myself, here, of a sort. that must have been what the settlers' wives thought". Her psychological narrative shows she is self conscious of how she lacks Moira's courage and how guilty she is for betraying the members of the household who imprisoned her. Yet she has integrity throughout and lingers in the reader's memory like "a wraith of red smoke". (7)
  - - - female rebel - she never became a handmaid so is always known by her name. openly lesbian, Offred views her as female heroism, but Gileadean authorities see her as a 'loose woman' with a criminal element, shown when Offred sees her being prostituted at jezebel's. they give her a 'bunny girl' costume which is absurd and deliberately distorted she says the costume is "government issue" and "i guess they thought it was me", it is comic and endearing (adorable) yet full of pathos (tragedy). (2)
        
        speaking out - pre-Gilead she was a non-conformist, fashionable college student who left her unfinished paper on "date rape" to go to the bar. She was an activist or the Gay Rights movement and worked for a women's collective at the time of the Gilead coup (takeover). When at the Rachel and Leah centre she is still wearing jeans and declares the place is a "loony bin". (3)
        
        speaking out part 2 - sadly women like Moira are sent to the Colonies or commit suicide, which Offred refuses to do. Atwood shows how there's no winners here. Although it is likely Offred is rescued by Nick. The beliefs of Moira and Offred become symbolic as ideals for others to follow. Their voices survive as images of hope and defiance to be vindicated by history. (4)
  - - - powerful female presence - Offred observes
        her at close quarters, significantly compared to
        the other wives she is called by her own name.
        She resents the handmaid arrangement as it violates
        her marriage, reminds her of her physical deterioration (she has arthritis and uses a cane to walk) and her own fading looks. (2)
        
        celebrity in her former life - irony of the situation when Offred remembers Serena's past history. As a child singing star on a gospel television show and a media personality she spoke out against extreme conservative domestic policies such as the idea that women's rightful place was in the home. Now Serena is trapped in the ideology she based her popularity on as Offred maliciously remarks "she stays in her home, but it doesn't seem to agree with her". (3)
        
        (4)
        
        (5)
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  - - - Ofglens secret life - Offred doesn't know her past but she does know she is a member of the Mayday resistance movement, which she confides to Offred weeks after being her shopping partner. Ofglen has a mechanical quality "as if she's voice-activated, as if she's on little oiled wheels" Offred's suspicion is right when it is revealed Ofglen is a resistance fighter. (2)
        
        Ofglens secret life part 2 - (3)
        
        (4)
  - - - Political activist - She belongs to a history of feminism.
        She joined the Women's Liberation Movement of the
        1960's and 1970's, campaigning for women's sexual and
        social freedom. As an older woman she campaigned
        but during the Gilead takeover she disappears, later
        Offred learns that she was declared 'Unwoman' and sent
        to the Colonies. (2)
        
        Political activist part 2 - She has the same sort
        of energy as Moira and resists classification,
        resisting being dead, she makes two appearances.
        Both times on a film at the Rachel and Leach centre as
        a young woman marching towards her pro-choice march.
        Then later Moira reports seeing her as an old woman
        carrying out slave labour in the colonies. (3)
        
        (4)
  - - - Detailed description - Offred goes in detail with him.
        He has a high-ranking status meaning he wears a
        black uniform and is driven in an impressive car, a
        'Whirlwind'. He is an elderly man with "straight neatly
        brushed silver hair" and a moustache and blue eyes. He is slightly stooped and "his manner is wild". Offred observes him with his gold-rimmed glasses on his nose reading from the Bible before the monthly ceremony, she thinks he looks "like a midwestern bank president". This is a perceptive judgement as he tells her later that before Gilead he was in market research.(2)
        
        Stereotypical image of male power - he is isolated and indifferent to domestic matters such as his wife and Offred. This is not entirely true though as Offred saw him earlier on the day of the ceremony, a figure lurking in the shadows outside her room who tried to peer as she passed. "something has been shown to me, but what is it?". After the official ceremony he is in full dress uniform with his eyes closed. He asks to see her 'after hours' in his study in his 'Bluebeard's chamber' to play scrabble as well as providing conversation, books and magazines despite it being forbidden to Handmaids. (3)
        
        (4)
        
        (5)
        
        (6)
  - - - Mysterious dark stranger - Offred's romantic fantasy of her rescuer through love. She says he "has a French face, lean, whimsical, all planes and angles, with creases around the mouth where he smiles" and an air of irreverence (lack of respect for people) wearing his cap at an angle and whistling while he polishes the car as well as winking at Offred the first day he sees her. At the household prayers he presses his foot against hers. In the daytime he is a comic figure acting under the Commanders orders or as his messenger. Whereas at night he is transformed into sexual desire for Offred chosen by the Commander's wife. (2)
        
        (3)
        
        (4)
  - - - Missing person - He may be dead before the
        narrative begins, his memory haunts Offred,
        fading as her love affair with Nick develips. He is the
        one person Offred leaves out when telling Nick the story of her past life. Though Offred still worries about him even until the end of the novel. (2)
        
        (3)
        
        (4)
- - - - Offred is determined at the start to survive "I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight". Even after the horrible Particicution ceremony she is sickened but still wants to eat "maybe it's because I've been emptied; or maybe it's the body's way of seeing to it that I remain alive, continue to report its bedrock prayer: I am, I am. I am, still". When in despair near the end she still does not wish to die but to "keep on living, in any form". (2)
  - - - (2)
  - - - Her deprived and limited existence seems to have erased her identity so even her private dialogue she resists emotional capture. Her feelings lie in the gaps between the text in the literal white space on the page "Why fight?", "That will never do".(2)
        
        (3)
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