Handmaid’s tale

Chapter 31-35
 Synopsis
● Ofglen tells Offred that subversives in Gilead use “mayday” as a password, but she warns Offred not to use it often. If
she is caught and tortured, she should not know names of other subversives. ​

● When Offred reaches the house, she notes that Nick’s hat is askew. Later that day, Serena Joy briefly comes across as,
if not kind, then at least willing to consider Offred a fellow human being. Serena’s suggestion that her husband is
sterile establishes a brief moment of unity between the two women, against the Commander.​

● Yet Serena’s offer to help Offred get pregnant, even though it is a kind request because it will keep Offred from the
Colonies, is also a selfish one, since it is Serena and not Offred who will raise the child. And Serena offers to get a
photo of Offred’s daughter reveals that Serena has known where the girl is all along but has never mentioned the news
to her daughter. ​

● Though she is excited by the prospect of smoking a cigarette, Offred considers throwing it down the toilet or eating it
to save the match. She imagines using the match to burn the house down.
● The Commander has begun drinking alcohol when they meet. The alcohol makes him lose his reserve. One
night, he tries to explain the transformation of the society. the Commander points out that before Gilead, men
were becoming desensitized any emotional feelings when it came to women. However, he admits, "Better
never means better for everyone ... It always means worse, for some."
● Later, in bed, Offred stares at the ceiling where the chandelier used to be. She thinks about the previous
occupant of the room and how she found safety in death while Offred feels buried in life.
● The main event of the Prayvaganza is the giving away of daughters in arranged marriages to Angels (soldiers
who fought in the war). The ceremony includes a speech by a Commander about sacrifice and victory as well
as a tirade about how terrible society used to be for women. This ritual reminds Offred of a conversation she
had with the Commander. He asked her to give an opinion on the way he and the other men constructed the
new society. She told him they left out love. The Commander then argued that the new society is natural and
better built for survival.
● On the way out of the ceremony, Ofglen reveals that she and the other Handmaids know about Offred's secret
meetings with the Commander. Ofglen urges her to gather information from the Commander for the
resistance.
● Offred begins again to tell the story of her family's escape. They have fake passports and a picnic cover story.
At the border, the guard seems to have suspicions and moves to make a phone call. Fearing capture, Luke
rushes to drive away; later, they abandon the car in the woods and make a run for it.
● Offred does not want to continue telling the story. Instead, she considers the Commander's question about
love and the nature of romance in the pre-Gilead society. She is amazed at the number of possibilities that had
been available to her in that life.
● Serena Joy arrives and shows Offred the photograph of her daughter as promised. Offred realizes that she has
been erased from her daughter's life and regrets seeing the photograph.
● As Offred eats her dinner that night, she notes that she is never given a knife.
Chapter 31
Themes:
Secrets and deceit: offred was already keeping a lot of secrets (her relationship with
the Commander), and the amount of secrets are increasing, for example, serena joy’s
suggestion and the knowledge of the handmaid’s network. Another example is how
people escaped by pretending to be converts or Jews
Knowledge: new knowledge comes to light in this chapter, such as the existence of a
network of information between the handmaids, as well as the fact that serena knew
where offred’s daughter is.
Longing: offred longs for the past, longs for normalcy. She wishes that she could
argue with Luke again about something unimportant.
Rebellion: rebellion by serena joy, when she suggests that offred should try getting
pregnant with help of nick. Also when she gives offred a cigarette.
Literary devices
Simile: “my brain going pastel Technicolor, like the beautiful-sunset greeting cards
they used to make so many of in California”
“the wreath on the ceiling floating above my head, like a frozen halo, a zero.”
Idioms: “in the big scheme of things”
imagery : imagery of the garden where serena is sitting
Chapter 32
Themes:
Secrets:keeping secrets

Knowledge: offred is getting more and more knowledge from various sources, for
example she learns more about the reasons why the new government was formed

Freedom: offred is getting more and more freedom as time passes. (for example
freedom to smoke a little)
Literary devices
Allusion: “From the centre was the chandelier, and from the chandelier a twisted
strip of sheet was hanging down. That's where she was swinging, just lightly, like a
pendulum; the way you could swing as a child, hanging by your hands from a tree
branch. She was safe then, protected altogether, by the time Cora opened the
door.” talking about the last handmaid who committed suicide without directly
mentioning it.
Similes: “I lie flat, the damp air above me like a lid”
Imagery: imagery of ritas table
Chapter 33
Themes:

Control:”They're like store mannequins ... Each has a submachine gun slung ready, for
whatever dangerous or subversive acts they think we might commit inside”.

“This is one of the places where we can exchange news more freely, pass it from one
to the next.”

Death: “ "It was no good, you know," ... "It was a shredder after all." She means
Janine's baby ”. ”Not counting her own, before. She had an eighthmonth miscarriage”

Mental Health:”Her eyes were open, but they didn't see me at all. They were rounded,
wide, and her teeth were bared in a fixed smile. Through the smile, through her teeth,
she was whispering to herself ”
Literary devices

Analogy:”We line up to get processed through the checkpoint, standing in our twos
and twos and twos, like a private girls' school that went for a walk and stayed out
too long. Years and years too long, so that everything has become overgrown,
legs, bodies, dresses all together. As if enchanted. ”

Flashback:”I can see her, running across the lawn, that lawn there just in front of
me, at two, three years old, waving one like a sparkler, a small wand of white fire,
the air filling with tiny parachutes. ”

Simile:”I can hear from all around us a susurration, like the rustling of insects in tall
dry grass: a cloud of whispers ”
Euphemism:”"It was no good, you know," Ofglen says near the side of my head.”
referring to Janine’s defected child.

Imagery:”Her body under the red dress looks very thin, skinny almost, and she's
lost that pregnant glow. Her face is white and peaked, as if the juice is being
sucked out of her.”

Speculation:”How would she have found out about Janine? The Marthas? Janine's
shopping partner? Listening at closed doors, to the Wives over their tea and wine,
spinning their webs.”

Foreshadowing:”She does that again and I'm not here, Moira said to me, you just
have to slap her like that. You can't let her go slipping over the edge. That stuff is
catching. She must have already been planning, then, how she was going to get
out. ”
Chapter 34
Themes:

Marriage:”It's mothers...who give away daughters these days and help with the
arrangement of the marriages. The marriages are of course arranged.”

Love:”Love, said Aunt Lydia with distaste. Don't let me catch you at it. No mooning
and June-ing around here, girls. Wagging her finger at us. Love is not the point.”

Gender roles:”Women's Prayvaganzas are for group weddings like this, usually.
The men's are for military victories. These are the things we are supposed to
rejoice in the most, respectively.”
Global issues

Segregation of the sexes:”These girls haven't been allowed to be alone with a man
for years; for however many years we've all been doing this. ”

Subjugation of women:” "I will that women adorn themselves in modest apparel,"
… "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." ..."But I suffer not a woman
to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." "For Adam was
first formed, then Eve." "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
deceived was in the transgression." ”
Literary devices:

Simile:”fertilizing away like mad, like a rutting salmon”

Anaphora: “ 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? ”

Colloquialism: “Camaraderie, shit, says Moira through the hole in the toilet cubicle.
Right fucking on, Aunt Lydia, as they used to say”
Chapter 35
Themes:

Rebellion : tried to escape Gilead with Luke, Invalid passports.

Panic: Dirt road, woods,boats, hiding in a cottage and running away“Maybe he

had a plan…..I was only running: away,away”

Love: “falling in Love, I said. Falling into it, we all did”

Suspicion and Doubt: “who knows what they do alone or when with other men”
and “what if he doesn’t love me”
Forecasting: “so tall and changed…...so soon, and in her white dress”

Regret : after seeing the polaroid Offred says : “I am only a shadow now, far
behind the glib shiny surface of this photograph” and she says “better she’d
brought me nothing”

Death: Luke dies “stopped dead in time” (rip)

Global Issues:

Refugee Crisis : luke and Offred were seeking refuge and in doing so Luke dies
and doesn’t make it. (Real life example Syrian Minor named Ahmad)
Sexual Abuse and Death: “Women….sometimes men and children...in ditches or
forrests or refrigrators in abandoned rented hotel rooms, with their clothes on or
off...killed at any rate”

Literary devices:

Colloquialism: “ you stupid shit, can’t you manage to remember it, even a short
word like that”

Personification: “not crying. I sit in this chair and ooze like a sponge”

Similie : “I sit in this chair and ooze like a sponge”