Iran

• Women’s education is restricted



  • ‘Scrabble!’
• Physical contact between men and women is restricted and banned in public places


  • ‘Can I be blamed for wanting a real body to put my arms around, without it I’m too disembodied’
  • Offred thinking back to her time with the child 
  • Wives are used to give birth to children for the wives
  • Material, economic deprivation and emotional deprivation all prevalent in Gilead
  • ‘His skin is pale, I think of placing my hand on it, he is the one who turns away’
  • Stative verb ‘ think’, reminds us that she still thinks, deprivation 
  • ‘Turns away’, shows that he is also thinking about it
• People live deprived lives (eg. lack of food in shops)



  • ‘As long as we do this, butter our skin to keep it soft…’
  • Wives forbid the use of moisturizer because they see it as vanity 
  • See it as threat to the relationship with their husbands
  • Offred tries to keep her skin youthful
• Lack of freedom of expression



  • ‘Now it's forbidden for us, now it's dangerous…’
  • Forming opinions and creating words is forbidden so playing scrabble feels like a privilege
  • ‘Unaccustomed to seeing it’
  • ‘Unaccustomed’, stative verb, shows the control Gilead has over everyone
• Those who don’t agree with the regime are imprisoned and tortured


  • ‘Electric cattle prods slung at the front of their 
  • Concrete noun ‘cattle prods’, people who don’t follow the rules will be tortured and punished 
  • ‘Patrolled’, dynamic verb,
  • ‘The penalty for rape is as you know, death’
  • Abstract noun ‘penalty’, emphasises the severity of breaking the rules
• Public executions


  • ‘3 bodies hang there like chickens strung up by the necks in a meat shop window’
  • So many people are executed and it doesn’t mean anything anymore 
  • Imagery of the Wall
  • Dehumanisation and loss of value of human beings 
  • ‘You’ll wait until I blow the whistle, after what you do is up to you’
  • Relatives of the victim are invited to push the chair during their execution 
  • Combination of state power and the illusion of freedom 
• Imbalance of power between men and women


  • ‘I feel as if my feet in their flat red shoes can’t touch the floor, I think I should have a hat with a bow-tie tied under my chin’
  • Not supported and unstable
  • Concrete noun ‘shoes and hat’, reduces women to their clothing and takes away their powers
• Women are required to wear modest clothing.



  • ‘Everything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of the blood, which defines us’
  • ‘They wore blouses with buttons down the front which suggested that they could be undone, these women were undone’ - Aunt Lydia expressing her thought about Pre-Gilead women 
  • Play on words of undone
• Religion used to take authority

  • ‘Aunt Lydia, Aunt Sara, Aunt Elizabeth’ - all the names of the Aunts have biblical significance and they are in position of power which could allude to religious authority and how religious doctrines are employed to justify oppressive systems 
• Religion used to control authority


  • "What we prayed for was emptiness, so we would be worthy to be filled: with grace, with love, with self-denial, semen and babies." - this quotes twists the idea of religion being benevolent and rewarding 
  • The abstract noun ‘emptiness’, symbolises the rejection of individuality and autonomy + involve denial and submission
  • ‘Filled with grace’, stative verb ‘filled’ show that the women are treated as vessels + aligns with traditional Christian teachings but in the context of Gilead they are manipulated to suit the regime’s oppressive goals