- "All those women having jobs: hard to imagine, now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions."
The women are subjugated in Gilead because although Offred had a paid job, herself as well as other women no longer have the right to work. Their "job" as stated by Gilead's principle is that they should bare children for the elite. The verb, imagine, connotes that Offred is trying to tell the reader that there was a world different to the one that she is in and that there is a wider issue to combat. Also, the nouns, thousands and millions, illustrates that there were a lot of women being subjugated to not being able to work and earn money for themselves and family but had no choice to do or don't.
- "See?, he said again... if he knew some private joke I did not know"
The status of women was switched from high to low in a brief moment as Offred was financially stable with a husband and child, and then stripped to no money and direction for her future. The man knew here that there was something obviously wrong with Offred's teller card. This is a sly but an obvious way to the reader that Gilead is instantly stripping the citizens of their rights and social standings. Also because the personal pronoun, he, is used we know that Gilead is enforcing their patriarchal ideologies through to the society as its a man that ignores what she is saying and 'brushes' her off.
- "I tried phoning the bank again...same recording..."
Gilead subjugates women again by limiting their knowledge of what was going to happen to the organization of society as well as their well being. They knew that the women would disapprove of their future 'jobs' thus them not informing or answering their inquiries. The verb, tried, shows that Offred was being an active part of society and was getting no response. This narrowing of their knowledge is an easy way to oppress them from being able to do what they wanted as done in their previous lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment