June 12, 2012

Key Passages

Key passages:

 1.      Above me, towards the head of the bed,  Serena Joy is arranged, outspread. Her legs are apart, I lie between them, my head on her stomach, her pubic bone under the base of skull, her thighs on either side of me. She too is fully clothed. My arms are raised; she holds my hands, each of mine in each of hers. This is supposed to signify that we are one flesh, one being. What is really means is that she is in control, of the process and thus of the product. If any. The rings of her left hand cut into my hingers. It may or may not be revenge. 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 is 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 here what I haven’t signed up for.  (Chapter 15, pp. 104-105)
In this passage Offred describes the ceremony. The most important happening in the Gilead society. I chose this passage because it has important value for the book, for the first time as a reader you really get to know the ways of the Gilead society. This is the first part of the book where the change is so obviously displayed. The entire ceremony is illustrated very carefully, for instance Offred describes the canopy bed from Serena Joy into detail and the same for the position Serena Joy and she are in; however, she doesn’t describe the ‘actual’ ceremony or how she feels about it. Instead she starts thinking about which word she would chose to describe it. This is very key for Atwood writing style and it occurs all through the novel, it’s like Offred is afraid to express her honest opinion about it which could show how indoctrinated Gilead actually is.

2.      And now the twenty veiled daughters, in white, come shyly forward, their mothers holding their
elbows. It’s mothers, not fathers,  who give away daughters these days and help with the arrangements of the marriages. The marriages are of course arranged. These girls haven’t been allowed to be alone with a man for years; for however many years we’ve all been doing this. Are they old enough to remember anything of the time before, playing baseball, in jeans and sneakers, riding their bicycles? Reading books, all by themselves? Even though some of them are no more than fourteen-Start them soon is the policy, there's not a moment to be lost-still they'll remember. And the ones after them will, for three or four or five years; but after that they won't. (Chapter 34, pp. 230-231)
Transition is a motif in the Handmaid’s tale, the entire novel is filled with transition, transition of the society, of the time period and also of the characters. Which explains the extensive use of references to the past which are used in the book. This passage is about the daughters getting married and it clearly shows that the society is still in the transition phase and how difficult that must be. After having so much freedom, being cut off and not be able to do anything anymore. Besides this is also shows the shift in hierarchy, it is now the mothers and not the father who give their daughters away and arrange the marriage. 

3.      At last he moves forward, puts his arms around me, strokes my back, holds me that way, for
comfort. “Come on,” he says. “We haven’t got much time.” With his arms around my shoulders he leads me over to the fold out bed, lies me down. He even turns down the blanket first. He begins to unbutton, then to stroke, kisses beside my ear. “No romance,” he says. “Okay?” That would have meant something else, once. Once it would have meant: no strings. Now it means: no heroics. It means: don’t risk yourself for me, if it should come to that. (Chapter 40, p.274)
No strings is a very often used expressions nowadays, used by people who feel like romance and relationships are to close and they want the keep their distance and freedom. This passage shows that something so similar, could get a very different meaning. Instead of no romance meaning no strings what you would actually expect in a society where intimacy and love is forbidden, it means no heroics. Which shows how scared people actually are. The passage is also very contrasting with the book, actually most part which involve nick are, because the entire tone used throughout the book is somehow emotionless which this passage isn’t.

 4.      The three bodies hang there, even with the white sacks over their heads looking curiously
stretched, like chickens strung up by the necks in a meatshop window; like birds with their wings clipped, like flightless birds, wrecked angels. It's hard to take your eyes off them. Beneath the hems of the dresses the feet dangle, two pairs of red shoes, one pair of blue. It it weren't for the ropes and the sacks it could be a kind of dance, a ballet, caught by flash-camera: midair. They look arranged. They look like show biz. It must have been Aunt Lydia who put the blue one in the middle.
"Today's Salvaging is now concluded," Aunt Lydia announces in to the mike. (Chapter 43, p.289)

The salvaging is an important part of the Gilead society, it is meant for ‘saving’ the society of the sinners, while on the other hand it is an easy way to frighten the rest of the people into behaving. The passage is key for the book because it highlights the salvaging which is very important and second of all it is also a very clear example for the tone and the use of describing and illustrating throughout the novel. 

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