Chapters 29 & 30
English Lit: Edexcel A Level The Handmaid's Tale, topic 9.1.15
Chapter 29 - Key Quotations
Here are three key quotations from Chapter 29:
Key quotations
- "My red shoes are off"
- Part of the Handmaid's uniform and symbolic of male oppression.
- "Pen Is Envy"
- A pun on the Freudian theory of 'penis envy' - that girls feel jealous of boys after realising they don't have a penis.
- In Gilead, women envy men's ability to read and write.
- If your dog dies, get another"
- Offred knows she is expendable.
Chapter 30 - Key Quotations
Here are five key quotations from Chapter 30:
Key quotations
- "One and one and one and one doesn't equal four. Each one remains unique"
- Offred believes in individuality, even though Gilead tries to get rid of individuality.
- "They force you to kill, within yourself"
- This is similar to Orwell's 1984, where people face their greatest fears in Room 101 and denounce their loved ones because they're desperate to be spared.
Key quotations (cont.)
- "The Eyes of God run all over the earth"
- The Eyes = Gilead's secret police.
- The quotation comes from Zechariah 4:10 - ‘the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth'. The Commander has already used this phrase to signal that prayer is over.
- "Hell we can make for ourselves"
- Offred knows that humans can make their own lives and others' lives Hell.
Key quotations (cont.)
- "Deliver us from evil"
- Taken from the Lord's Prayer. The end of Chapter 30 is an adaptation of the Lord's Prayer.
- Does Offred mean 'don't let me consider suicide', or 'suicide would be the solution for escaping evil'?
Test yourself on Chapters 29 & 30
If your dog dies....
What's the missing word?
"They force you to ____, within yourself"What Biblical phrase does the following quotation come from?
"The Eyes of God run all over the earth"