2.9.1

Chapter 24

Test yourself

Chapter 24 - Summary

Offred returns to her room. She tells the reader that she wants to keep her clothes on so she can think and "take stock" of her situation.

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Physical details

  • She calls herself by the patronym of Offred and tells the reader she is 33, has brown hair, is five foot seven and has viable ovaries.
  • After the meeting with the Commander, she realises that regardless of whether this is a trap or an opportunity, she needs to follow where this relationship is going to try to work out who she is and where she is destined to go.
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SS Officer documentary

  • She also says she can remember a documentary that her mother showed her about a woman who was a mistress of an SS Officer in the Holocaust.
  • She remembers the woman being interviewed and saying that her lover was not a "monster", yet she committed suicide a few days later.
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Hides in her wardrobe

  • Offred says that she cannot stop laughing and climbs into her wardrobe so no one can hear here.
  • She sees the scratched out "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" left by the previous handmaid and touches it.

Chapter 24 - Key Quotations

Here are four key quotations from Chapter 24:

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Secret name and context

  • “I must forget about my secret name. My name is Offred now, and here is where I live.”
    • Offred acknowledges that, for survival, she must deny her former identity. She must keep her real name to herself.
  • “Context is all”
    • By repeating this phrase, Atwood stresses how changes in context influence attitudes and behaviours. Scrabble was once "the game of old men and women", but, now that it's forbidden, is "desirable".
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"Invent a humanity"

  • “How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all"
    • Pieixoto says that Gilead society was "subject to factors from which we ourselves are happily more free. Our job is not to censure but to understand" (Historical Notes). By referencing the Nazis in this chapter, Atwood encourages us to question how much we should accept attitudes like this.
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"Opening"

  • "The sound of my own heart, ... opening"
    • The final word of the chapter ("opening") implies potential hope of expansion for Offred's current restricted life.

Jump to other topics

1Author Background

1.1Margaret Atwood

2Chapter Summaries

3Dedications & Epigraph

3.1Dedications & Epigraph

4Context

5Narrative Structure & Literary Techniques

6Themes & Imagery

7Characters

8Readings

8.1Readings of The Handmaid's Tale

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