#offrededit

[walkofpenance]

Every Episode of The Handmaid’s Tale [6/–]⇒ A Woman’s Place

“'Never mistake a woman’s meekness for weakness.”

[fourteenthofaugust]

The perfect gift. A girl trapped in a box. She only dances when someone else opens the lid, when someone else winds her up. If this is a story I’m telling, I must be telling it to someone. There’s always someone, even when there is no one. (The Handmaid’s Tale: 1x08)

[thegoblincities]

The Handmaid’s Tale, ep. 01 - Offred. 

[yellowfeather84]

A chair, a table, a lamp. Above, on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the center of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in a face where the eye has been taken out. There must have been a chandelier, once. They’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to. 

A window, two white curtains. Under the window, a window seat with a little cushion. When the window is partly open— it only opens partly— the air can come in and make the curtains move. I can sit in the chair, or on the window seat, hands folded, and watch this. Sunlight comes in through the window too, and falls on the floor, which is made of wood, in narrow strips, highly polished. I can smell the polish. There’s a rug on the floor, oval, of braided rags. This is the kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, made by women, in their spare time, from things that have no further use. A return to traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want? 

On the wall above the chair, a picture, framed but with no glass: a print of flowers, blue irises, watercolor. Flowers are still allowed. Does each of us have the same print, the same chair, the same white curtains, I wonder? Government issue? 

Think of it as being in the army, said Aunt Lydia. 

A bed. Single, mattress medium-hard, covered with a flocked white spread. Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep. I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed. There’s a lot that doesn’t bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last. I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn’t running away they’re afraid of. We wouldn’t get far. It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge. 

So. Apart from these details, this could be a college guest room, for the less distinguished visitors; or a room in a rooming house, of former times, for ladies in reduced circumstances. That is what we are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who still have circumstances. 

But a chair, sunlight, flowers: these are not to be dismissed. I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight. Where I am is not a prison but a privilege, as Aunt Lydia said, who was in love with either/ or.

The Handmaid’s Tale

1.01 Offred

[walkofpenance]

Every Season of The Handmaid’s Tale [1/–]⇒ Season One

“'Now I’m awake to before. I was asleep before. That’s how we let it happen.”

[walkofpenance]

Every Episode of The Handmaid’s Tale [9/–]⇒ The Bridge

“'You said we would find Hannah. That’s what you said. When all of this was over, you... You PROMISED. You fucking PINKY SWORE! Or don’t you remember?”

[walkofpenance]

Every Episode of The Handmaid’s Tale [10/–]⇒ Night

“'Whether this is my end or a new beginning. I have no way of knowing. I have given myself over into the hands of strangers. I have no choice. It can’t be helped. And so I step up, into the darkness within... Or else the light.”

[walkofpenance]

Every Episode of The Handmaid’s Tale [4/–]⇒ Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

“There was an Offred before me. She helped me find my way out. She is dead. She is alive. She is me. We are Handmaids. Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum, bitches.”