The handmaids tale chapter 46 notes

Chapter 46

• Waiting!
• „crumpled stars “

• Physical Stars
• She had them on her dress
• They = stars of hope

• When she & commander -> Jezebels = Hope

• She hoped/ was waiting for something to happen

• P.299

• What happened to the previous offred –> suicide
• Maybe worse

• She’s indifferent

• L.8) she = suspended, she doesn’t know what’s happening, she doesn’t care
• L.10) she = in disgrace
• L.13) the quotation has become a mindset (no italic, in English)
• L.15) “don’t be” she = broken, they broke her mind
• L.17/18) she’s so bored, she’s watching the rain fall
• L.21-27 next page) her options:

• Set fire to the house

• To set the house on fire = a person who can make things a lot more interesting cf. burning down the house

• Shatter the window -> it can’t be shattered
• Ask the commander for help

• “nolite bastardes carborundorum”

• Maybe he = one of the underground and thanks to the quote he recognizes it

• Walk away like you know where you’re going
• Hang herself with her bedsheets

• Impossible

• Take her revenge on Serena Joy

• It would put them both out of their misery

• Go to Nick

• She doesn’t know if he’ll let her in or not

• L.35) freeze to death -> she would almost become a ghost cf. Ghost of the previous Offred

• L 28-31)) she = done -> resignation

• No faith left

• L.19) she regrets not taking the opportunities when they were there
• L.30) Nick = double agent

• He knows her real name

• He doesn’t objectify her like all the others

• He = her last hope

• He wants a warrant

• They can’t give him one

• Even he = powerless

• He’s done such things before

• The handmaid killed herself

• No one knew about it

• Now: the state knows it

• Either the government has tried to take her
• Either the resistance movement has come to get her to Canada

• His reputation/social status = in danger
• Offred could go snitching (Scrabble; Magazines…)

• He = losing his power, because of such stupidity

• L.8/9 p. 307) “ I have given myself over…”

• Cf. Blache Dubois in some theaterplay

• She = hooker
• In the End she says “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers “

• Offred has relied on the kindness of the commander

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