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Handmaid's Tale p. 1-40 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - We know he's not a doctor, and when she sees the doctors hanging on the wall, she is relieved that it is doctors that died that day, because that means Luke is not among them
  - - - Marthas
        
        Do chores
      - Handmaids
        
        Are literally "used" to try to produce children
      - What are their thoughts about each other?
        
        We hear the Marthas gossiping about handmaids like Offred, at one point...Marthas are Marthas at least in part because they are not fertile (?)
      - "Econowives" -- wives that have to do it all
      - Commander's wife
        
        Who is the Commander's wife, to Offred?
        
        Given that the wives of the commanders (apparently) cannot give birth, what is the source of the power/usefulness/position?
        
        Serena Joy is the commander's wife
    - - Fertility rates have declined
      - References to war taking place in different parts of the world AND ALSO in parts of the (historical) United States
      - The visitors from Japan to Gilead offer a drastic contrast: the visitors from Japan look like the people we are accustomed to seeing now, whereas the people in Gilead...do not.
      - Before/after
        
        Women are safe now (?); were not safe before (?)...freedom to vs. freedom from (p. 24)
        
        Before, they had freedom to dress how they want, to do what they want. Now, they have freedom from fear (as long as they follow the rules)? Freedom from want?
        
        Offred remembers a time when she went to burn pornographic magazines, with her mother...a memory of "the time before"
        
        "Westernized, they used to call it" -- something about "Western" culture in particular is different
    - - Criminals include people who were (apparently) formerly doctors (and the reason that the doctors were killed is because they were accused of having facilitated abortions)
      - Handmaids disappear, seemingly randomly (why?)
    - - Encounter with the Guardians on the way to the town (p. 20-21): desire to be desired; rules that prohibit any kind of contact whatsoever
      - Women are given to men of high-status (she comments this about Nick when she first sees him; on p. 22 she says that Guardians hope to be "allowed to marry"; to "have a handmaid of their own"
    - - Commanders
      - Guardians
        
        "Not real soldiers, used for menial tasks" guarding posts around the town, etc.
        
        Really young men, many of them
      - Eyes
        
        They ride around in dark-tinted vans with dark-tinted sunglasses
        
        Spies!
      - Angels
        
        Soldiers