The Handmaid's Tale: Key Quotations (OCR A Level English Literature)

The Handmaid’s Tale: Key Quotations

One of the ways to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the text is through the effective use of quotations and references to the text. This means that summarising, paraphrasing, referencing single words and referencing plot events are all as valid as using direct quotations.

Overall, you should aim to secure a strong knowledge of the text, rather than memorising a list of pre-prepared quotations, as this will better enable you to respond to the question. It is the quality of your knowledge of the text which will enable you to select references effectively.

If you are going to revise quotations, the best way is to group them by character, or theme. Below you will find definitions and analysis of the best quotations, arranged by the following key themes:

• Power

• Gender

• Identity

• Survival and memory

Power

Power is a significant theme in The Handmaid’s Tale due to the layers of control exerted by both individuals and the totalitarian regime. 

“Remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power” Offred, Chapter 23

Meaning and context

• This quote is said by Offred while reflecting on her encounter with the Commander in which he asks her to kiss him like she means it

Analysis

• Offred explores ideas of power and what they really mean:

  • She is challenging the reader to think of forgiveness, which is often seen as a kind gesture, as corrupted and used as way of holding power over someone

  • The Commander’s position of power allows him to break the rules and be forgiven for it

  • However, if Offred were to break the rules, she would be subject to much harsher consequences

“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, Chapter 32

Meaning and context

• This quote is said by Offred about the shifting power dynamics between her and the Commander

Analysis

• Offred acknowledges that she does have some power in the situation, but the true nature of their relationship is unclear

• This demonstrates that having power over someone is a struggle: one person can have it, and the other must fight for it

“She is looking straight at me. We can see into each other’s eyes”  Offred, Chapter 27

Meaning and context

• This quote is said by Offred when she and Ofglen are stood outside the shop window

Analysis

• Mirrors and glass are important symbols, showing truth and reflection

• Offred and Ofglen’s reflections in the window symbolise their similarities and their role as each other’s equals

• They are able to connect with each other as equals, in a world in which connections are forbidden:

  • This is empowering - they are able to find power with each other

“But find out and tell us.”

“Find out what?” I say. I feel rather than see the slight turning of her head.

“Anything you can”  Offred and Ofglen, Chapter 35

Meaning and context

• This conversation is had between Offred and Ofglen, when Ofglen learns of Offred’s relationship with the Commander

Analysis

• In Gilead, the handmaids’ access to information is extremely limited:

  • They are not allowed to read, write or watch the news

  • This prevents them from getting any information about the world around them, and is another strategy Gilead uses to control and oppress them

• Information is power, and Ofglen seizes any opportunity to obtain information that may help the Mayday cause

• The gaining of information can be an act of resistance to those in power who control the information

• By wanting to work together, Ofglen wants to use the power of comradeship to gain power over the oppressors

Gender

Gender as a theme in The Handmaid’s Tale is closely linked to both power and identity. Atwood has written a piece of dystopian fiction specifically from a female perspective, and it highlights inequalities based on gender as well as the oppression of other marginalised groups.

“I didn’t go to any of the marches. Luke said it would be futile and I had to think about them, my family, him and her. I did think about my family. I started doing more housework, more baking”  Offred, Chapter 28

Meaning and context

• This quote comes as Offred remembers how Gilead took over

• She remembers how she and the other women in her office were “let go”, as it became against the law for women to work, and her bank account was frozen:

  • Her money and assets were transferred to her husband

• Offred recalls the protests, which were relatively small due to fear of repercussions

Analysis

• Here, the power dynamic between Offred and Luke changes, as elements of traditional gender roles and expectations embedded deep within his character begin to surface

• Instead of supporting Offred, Luke tells her to prioritise her family:

  • This echoes the misogynistic idea that women shouldn’t protest, vote or work because it would take them away from their domestic duties

• In the character of Luke, Atwood explores the idea that even the most progressive men can still hold and perpetuate patriarchal ideas when it benefits them

“Everything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us” Offred, Chapter 2

Meaning and context

• This quote is from the start of the novel, as Offred describes her present surroundings, comparing her living situation to a “nunnery”

Analysis

• In Gilead, women’s identities and gender roles are defined by patriarchal values

• The handmaids symbolise reproduction, and are only valued for their wombs

• The red of the handmaids’ uniforms symbolises menstrual blood, emphasising their fertility and their role

• Just as the colour defines the handmaids, the handmaids are defined by their ability to reproduce

• Their gender role has been constricted and limited to just this - “two-legged wombs” (Chapter 23)

Identity

The removal of individual identity in The Handmaid’s Tale is a key way in which the state of Gilead enforces power and control over its citizens.

“I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest, but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely”  Offred, Chapter 12

Meaning and context

• In preparation for the Ceremony, Offred is obliged to bathe

• She is undressing for her bath, and her body seems alien to her

Analysis

• Offred’s connection with her physical self and her body are a way of expressing her identity

• As she becomes more and more separated from her old identity, her body becomes more separated from her sense of self

• She begins to view her own body as alien to her, as it is only her ability to have a child that determines who she is

• This reflects Offred and the other handmaids’ identities being reduced to a bodily function

“I feel as if there’s not much left of me; they will slip through my arms, as if I’m made of smoke, as if I’m a mirage, fading before their eyes”  Offred, Chapter 14

Meaning and context

• Before the Ceremony, Offred remembers her life with Luke and her daughter, and feels powerless in her new role

• She imagines a conversation with Moira while she waits for the Ceremony to begin

Analysis

• Offred is losing any sense of her own identity beyond her role as handmaid

• Her only purpose is for procreation

• By describing herself as smoke, Offred is saying that she feels as though she is abstract and temporary, with no solid form

• The use of the word “mirage” implies that she is just an illusion

• She worries that, wherever they are, her husband and child are forgetting her - she is fading for them just as they and her own identity are fading for her

• Just as she lost her family, she is losing herself

Paired Quotations:

“My name isn’t Offred. I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter….but what I tell myself is wrong - it does matter”  Offred, Chapter 14

“I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried”  Offred, Chapter 14

Meaning and context

• As Offred and the household wait for the Commander for the Ceremony, Offred interweaves her observations of the present with her memories of the past

Analysis

• Handmaids have been stripped of their real names, instead taking on names designating them as a possession of their Commander:

  • This symbolises that they are no longer their own person

  • They are no longer viewed as individuals, as all aspects of their individual identity have been stripped, including their real names

  • By taking the name of her Commander, she is able to be replaced (just as Ofglen is)

• Offred connects her real name to a treasure, one of the few final things that is solely hers to keep

• She does not reveal even to the reader her real name, although she does entrust Nick with it later in the story as a gift of trust

• Throughout the novel, Offred connects her former name with her identity, and as something which she is determined to get back to by surviving

• Even later on, in Chapter 24, when she tells herself that she must forget about her secret name, that doesn’t actually happen, as Nick uses it in the final chapter before she is taken away

Survival and memory

Offred’s first priority is to stay alive, and her emotional survival, via her memories, is linked to her sense of self and regaining some small element of power and control over the regime of Gilead.

“I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance”  Offred, Chapter 7

Meaning and context

• Offred’s time to escape into her own memories is at night

• This quote comes from such a chapter in which she recalls a memory of her mother and her as a young girl

Analysis

• Offred does not engage in active or overt resistance to either her situation or the regime

• Instead, she chooses to survive by choosing to remember who she was and parts of her past, no matter how painful

• Another survival technique she uses is to imagine her current nightmare is not real; it is just a story like the stories she remembers of her former life

• One of Gilead’s methods of oppression and control is to dehumanise handmaids and try to make them forget their relationships with people they love:

  • By using her memories and thinking of her current situation as a construct, Offred is able to find a way of surviving by detaching herself from what is real

  • It also allows her a small sense of still being in control, as “If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending” (Chapter 7)

“I repeat my former name, remind myself of what I could once do, how others saw me. I want to steal something”  Offred, Chapter 17

Meaning and context

• Offred thinks this after the Ceremony, as she lies in bed and reflects on what has just happened

Analysis

• Offred retains a sense of her own identity and survives through her memories:

  • When she reminds herself of her old name, it helps her feel a small sense of power

• Her former name is a reminder to herself that she once had an individual identity:

  • This reminder makes her want to own something that belongs to her, to remind herself that she is an individual

  • In a society where even names are removed, possessions can serve as a physical representation of one’s individual power

  • She is reclaiming something for herself, even if she’s not allowed to have it