Control through fear

• Bodies left hanging on the wall

  It is a threat to society to conform to the expectations of Gilead. The men hanging on the wall have become warnings . They have bags over their heads to remove their identity.
• ‘the hooks have been set into the brickwork of the wall’

  constant reminder of control through fear
• ‘their crimes are retroactive’

  compares the men hanging on the walls to war criminals as a result of conditioning
• ‘purple placards hung around their necks: Gender treachery’


  Homosexuality is forbidden. It is regarded as betrayal as it does not create life.
• It’s the choice that terrifies me’

  At the doctor's visit. Autonomy is scary in Gilead. It could result in freedom or death. She feels trapped even with choice as the risk is too much.
• ‘small tattoo on my ankle’


  Parallels to the Nazis and Holocaust. Branding has been used throughout history
• ‘there are red bricks, there are searchlights, there’s the barbed wire, there are hooks’

  Parallels Auschwitz
• ‘somehow the wall is more foreboding when empty’


  Potential for death
• ‘I can also believe that he is still alive’

  • warped hope as with bodies hanging she can see that none of them are Luke
• ‘an eye painted on the side’


  of soul scrolls
• ‘its a black van, with the eye on the side’


  black van symbolises death. Constant control
• What is the Purpose of the Salvaging?

  It makes a spectacle of violence and control, making a display for those who do not conform
• ‘It’s occupants light up like a Christmas creche’


  displaced metaphor that makes a spectacle of Salvagers
• ‘its in the name of duty we are here today’

  • everyone believes they have a duty towards the state of Gilead, Victor believes he has a duty to create
•  ‘i've heard this speech before, or something very much like it’


  the mechanisation of violence makes the speech robotic and unbelieveable
• ‘places her hand on the mike to stifle the sounds coming from behind her

  Aunts dismissal of violence
• ‘place my hand on my heart to show my unity with the salvagers and my complicity in the death of this woman’


  Through this minor role in the ritual, they are complicit and play an equal role
• ‘I don’t want to see it anymore, I look at grass, the rope’


  detachment
• ‘it could be a kind of dance’


  The swinging bodies from the salvaging
• ‘they looked like showbiz. It must have been Aunt Lydia that dressed the one in the middle’


  they are on show, like a performance. Theatricality and spectacle of death
• ‘It isn’t Luke’


  Every hanging body gives Offred hope as Luke may still be alive