Unwomen are typically sent to the Colonies. “Under His eye”: How Handmaids formally say goodbye to each other in person. By extension, the phrase suggests that someone—a Guardian, a Commander, a fellow Handmaid, God—is always watching.
It's the standard greeting between people in Gilead, and it is supposed to mean that the people having the conversation are under God's watchful gaze and protection. However, when women use the greeting to each other, it gains another meaning. All of the women in Gilead are subject to the will of men.
“Under His Eye”: Another Biblical reference, intended for saying hello or goodbye. “Praise be”: What you say when you're glad or thankful about something, like the weather or a pregnancy (June typically says this with some snark).
Few fans can forget what happened in the first season, when Janine's right eye was cut out by the other Aunts as a punishment for talking back to Aunt Lydia. “Having my eye closed and covered helps my process,” she says.
Blessed Be The Fruit: This is essentially 'hello' in Gilead speak, and it's usually met with the response “May The Lord Open” (see below). Alongside being a greeting, it's also meant to encourage fertility – aka, that a Handmaid will be 'blessed' with the 'fruit' of a child.
It is the role of the Eyes to root out transgressions like these, and to carry out the punishments as well. Though ostensibly their role is to gather intelligence, the Eyes are also designed to passively instil fear and quell even the faintest whispers of rebellion in Gilead.
The rise of the Christian right in "The Handmaid's Tale" draws from American history. To depict the authoritative world run by the extremely religious right in "The Handmaid's Tale," Atwood drew upon history — mainly, 17th-century Puritan theocracy in America and the political climate of the country in the early 1980s.
In the story, an environmental disaster has led to most women becoming infertile, and the small number who are still able to become pregnant are forced to become handmaids, women who are owned by the ruling elite and systematically raped in order to provide them with children.
After refusing to participate in, and speaking against the Salvaging of Janine, Ofglen's tongue was removed. She reaches out to a resistance cell where Alison, a Martha and former chemistry teacher, makes her a bomb.
In privacy, June spits out the ornamental cookie. By purging out the pink mashed-up vile, June has refused to swallow the Wives' counterfeited piety. In the domain of Gilead, these cookies are a status symbol laid out before the Handmaid's eyes.
Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum
Privately, Fred Waterford was partial to illicit games of Scrabble with the women he and his wife held hostage and raped.
“Blessed be the fruit”: the typical greeting to a Handmaid in Gilead. The phrase also has Biblical ties to encouraging fertility.
“Blessed be the fruit”: How the Handmaids greet each other; this is said to encourage fertility. Breeding colony: Also called a Magdalene colony, this is a newer invention of Gilead introduced in season 4.
Breeding or Magdalene Colonies were new institutions designed to house Handmaids who had caused trouble for their masters. Instead, Handmaids would carry out agricultural labor in the colonies, and then be visited each month by their Commander and his Wife to carry out The Ceremony.
Gilead was conceived by a group called the Sons of Jacob, comprised of men and women united by the goal of "[wanting] to set things right [and] clean up this country," as an early member explained in the show.
idiom. : while being watched by (someone) The students did their work under the watchful/vigilant eye of their teacher.
Wives sit at the head of the bed with the Handmaid between their legs, holding their hands as a means of spiritual connection between the Commander, their 'vessel', and herself.
The Handmaid got so scared she'd be sent to the Colonies, she hung herself. Offred knows the Commander feels guilty about the Handmaid's life and decides to ask him for something more. She wants information about what is going on in the outside world. Later, Offred catches sight again of Nick.
Near the end of The Handmaid's Tale, Ofglen hangs herself out of fear that she is about to be arrested by the Eyes. She does not want to risk being taken alive, since she knows the identities of other rebels who belong to Mayday.
It is implied that some Wives are capable of bearing children, but most are older women and thus have difficulty conceiving (or their husbands are infertile), which is also hampered by widespread infertility. As a result, Wives have to 'share' their husbands with Handmaids, in order to get a child.
Once a Handmaid gives birth, provided the baby is healthy, then it will immediately be given to the Wife of the Commander they are assigned to, who receives all the credit for the Handmaid's hard work.
The Handmaid is sent on to the next assignment. By giving birth, she can't be considered an unwoman. But giving birth and giving the child away is painful - it is part of her punishment, the pregnancies and unwanted adoptions part of her repaying her debt to society for her sins.
Setting. The novel is set in an indeterminate dystopian future, speculated to be around the year 2005, with a fundamentalist theonomy ruling the territory of what had been the United States but is now the Republic of Gilead.
Following a military coup in which the president and most members of Congress were killed, the country became the Republic of Gilead. One day the protagonist was fired from her job at the library because women were no longer permitted to work.
Reasons this novel has been banned and challenged include: sexuality, profanity, suicide, violence, and an anti-Christian theme. “The Handmaid's Tale” provokes controversial arguments by approaching issues on sex, religion, reproductive rights, feminism, and fundamentalism.