The Handmaid’s Tale

Chapter 23-24

1. What does Offred admit is her hope for the future?

2. Why does Offred say, “Forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest”?

3. What does Cora hope will happen in the Commander’s home soon?

4. Why does Offred feel she cannot refuse the Commander?

5. What does the Commander ask Offred to do with him?

6. Why do you think the Commander asks Offred to kiss him?

7. Describe Offred. What does she look like?

8. How does the documentary Offred remembers about the Holaucaust apply to her life?

9. Why do you think the mistress of the SS officer killed herself after her interview?

10. How does Offred describe her nervous breakdown?

Paraphrase the following quotes. Discuss what each quote means in the context of the book.

11. Then I hear something inside my body. I’ve broken, something has cracked, that must be it.

12. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.

13. What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface.

14. What is on the other side is normal life. I should say: what is on the other side looks like normal life.

15. We are for breeding purposes: we aren’t concubines, geisha girls, courtesans. On the contrary: everything possible has been done to remove us from that category.