Power and control

Quote

Character

Chapter

“I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there.”

Offred

4

“The Republic of Gilead... knows no bounds. Gilead is within you.”

Aunt Lydia

5

“Given our wings, our blinkers, it’s hard to look up, hard to get the full view, of the sky, of anything... We have learned to see the world in gasps.”

Offred

6

"Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary."

Aunt Lydia

6

“Without a word she swivels, as if she’s

voice-activated, as if she’s on little oiled wheels, as if she’s on top of a music box.”

Offred

8

"She doesn’t make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn’t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be now that she has been taken at her word."

Offred

8

Her fault, her fault, her fault... She did. She did. She did... Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson”

Handmaids

13

"But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest."

Offred

23

“Staring at the magazine, as he dangled it before me like fish bait, I wanted it. I wanted it with a force that made the ends of my fingers ache.”

Offred

25

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.”

Offred

27

“He doesn’t mind this, I thought. He doesn’t mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other’s, anymore. Instead, I am his.”

Offred

28

“Have they really done it to her then, taken away something — what? — that used to be so central to her?”

Offred

38