Biblical Quotes

            The premise of how Gilead is run is based upon the biblical quote from the book of Genesis. This quote is partially sited before the table of contents. This quote basically explains where all of the traditions in Gilead came from and why they happen. For example, the ceremony is meant to represent the wife having the child through the handmaid and that when the child is eventually born that it is the wife’s not the handmaid’s who is the true mother.

            There is another biblical quote that I used recently for a World Literature speech that I feel is also just as important and relevant in this book as the Genesis quote. The quote is: “wives be subject to your husband, as to the lord, for the husband is the head of the wife” Ephesians 5:22-23. This quote clearly demonstrates that the bible intends for males to be superior to females. This quote is demonstrated in every aspect of the handmaid’s lives in Gilead; they are constantly oppressed by the government in every action from not being allowed knives at dinner to being forced into the roles or handmaid/Martha/wife/aunt/econowife in the first place. This can even be seen from the earliest chronological point in the book where the women’s jobs and credit card accounts were taken away from them and everything they had in their name was immediately transferred to closest male relative after the “temporary suspension” of the Constitution.

Confusing Children

            So, apparently when you jump into a movie 40 minutes, or in my case being sick for the first day of class that the movie was being shown, makes it very difficult to understand what is happening in a movie. Although after asking others, it seems like I wasn’t the only one that was in the dark about what was happening even though everyone else was actually there to see the first part of the movie.

            Although missing the first portion of the movie was not intended, I believe that the confusion that it brought about helped signify the confusion that went on in the plot of the movie, or at least the parts that I understood. Examples of this confusion that I witnessed is how it didn’t seem like people fully understood how to handle the baby since it was such a strange site to them having not seen one in nearly two decades. Another example of this confusion is how no one ever mentioned why there was a war going on or what their motives/intentions were; they just seemed to be fighting.

            One of the few things that I was actually able to understand out of this confusion was the symbol of hope that the baby was, how perfect that this was the only thing that I understood. When the baby passed through the crowds of people, everyone stopped fighting and some even started praying. This shows that hope really can stop even the worst of things. Sadly, the fighting resumed just a few short seconds after the baby passed through the crowds, signifying that hope can only do so much for so long and that there needs to be more for hope for anything to ever change.