The Handmaids Tale
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Does an Aunt outrank a Wife?
(The pencil, though, leads me to wonder what else the Aunts record.
Is there a central database of all the Handmaids?
But logically, this conversation doesnt quite work.
Offreds baby is the size of a papaya!)
Things do (of course) get worse for Offred before they get better.
Offreds still, broken expression.
The lifting veils and tender, young faces underneath them.
In the worst of times, is it better to face the horror or retreat to your happy place?
Over in the colonies, Emily and Janine are unwittingly debating this question.
(He couldnt hold you in the palm of his hand somewhere else?
feels like a perfect Rory Gilmore line by way of Gileads Emily.)
But what will it accomplish if Emily convinces Janine to be more serious and less sunny?
She might live a few weeks longer, dragging out her time in this polluted Arctic tundra.
She might fill up a couple dozen more bags of crusty, steaming earth.
All emotions are manufactured why not delusional happiness?
Gilead took your eye, Emily rages, They took my clit.
Now were cows being worked to death, and youre dressing up the slaughterhouse for them.
And they find a deep pleasure in it.
Theres a small bit of hope to be found back in Gilead, too.
And when she wakes up in the hospital, shes no longer Offred, shes June again.
And she has a rousing speech for the tough little papaya still in her uterus.
Now you listen to me, okay?
I will not let you grow up in this place.
I wont do it.
Do you hear me?
They do not own you.
And they do not own what you will become.
Do you hear me?
Im gonna get you out of here.
Im gonna get us outta here.
Hold onto your butts, Gilead.
