The Handmaid's Tale Key Quotes: Love

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  • Created by: mhannah
  • Created on: 20-02-18 20:46
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  • The Handmaid's Tale Key Quotes: Love
  • "What I feel is partly relief, because none of these men is Luke."
    • Chapter 6. Offred feels relief that none of the executed persons are Luke. Her great love for him overshadows other emotions such as revulsion of seeing dead bodies publicly hanged.
    • Atwood is underlining the significance of love in human life. It is all encompassing and often overshadows other emotions of logic and reasoning.
  • "Like dried flower petals. Not recent. Old love; there's no other kind of love in this room now."
    • Chapter 9. Republic of Gilead does not permit intimacy in the way that Offred used to know. In the same way, the traditional conventions of love are not seen in this strict theocracy.
  • "I don't know what to call it. It isn't love."
    • Chapter 10. Offred has mixed feelings about the Commander. Their intimacy that goes beyond the bedroom is reminiscent of love or at least the closest she has become to feeling it.
  • "It's this message, which may never arrive, that keeps me alive. I believe in the message."
    • Chapter 18. Offred awaits a self-constructed message from Luke that will prove his love for her. Her belief even in such a loveless environment demonstrates humanity's necessity for genuine love and connection. Without it, life loses it's value.
  • "Love, I said. Love? said the Commander. What kind of love?Falling in love, I said."
    • Chapter 34. Offred reminds the Commander of the absence of love in this society. Significant that the Commander forgets this although it is such a vital part of humanity.
      • Atwood could be commenting on the way that power and influence desensitises certain individuals from the realities of life within a specific society and arguably ostracises them because of this.

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